Being Homeless

[cbloom]

My lease is running out in a few months and I'm considering not renewing it and just becoming homeless. Obviously not homeless on the street, but homeless as it wandering the world, living a few months here and there, maybe camping for a while, etc.

I'd love to hear trip reports or advice from anyone who's done this. I'm not really talking about the KKF/Metetron type guys who go and live somewhere, I don't think I'd be in any one place that long.

I'm not sure if I drink the PT - "Perpetual Traveler" / "Prior Taxpayer" - kool aid, but that's sort of the idea.

I'd be giving up my home base which creates a lot of problems - have to sell a ton of my stuff, put the rest in storage, sell my car, etc.

One major issue is mail / bills / not having an address. American Express used to be awesome for this but I can't find any info about it anymore on their web site; anybody dealt with this?

Some issues I've thought of -

cell phone - is there a better type of phone/network that will work world wide? how about a cell that won't charge insane roaming?

health care - is there some kind of global health insurance that's worthwhile?

immunizations - I guess I should get a full round in advance to be safe

VPN - I've already got a VPN lined up for countries that restrict the internet

residency - I'm currently a CA resident, so I might have to go to some other state and get a drivers license there or something so I don't have to keep paying CA taxes

ATMs - is there still an issue with different networks around the world? a few years ago there were a lot of countries where I couldn't get cash with a US ATM card.

What else?

[unbluffable]

sounds like an amazing idea dude

go for it

[RiverFenix]

Are you going to be playing poker to support yourself? To make it fun you'd need quite a financial safety net. Do you have a list of countries you want to see/visit? I'd imagine living out of a backpack for a year is pretty tough. How old are you?

[cbloom]

I'm 29, so crappy beds and all that stuff wears on me a lot more than it used to, but I figure if I don't do it now I never will.

I've got a few hundred Gs from when I used to work in software, but I don't want to blow it all so I'd be living pretty cheap, renting rooms by the week, stuff like that, not balla hotels. I can make some decent money from poker, so I'll probably do a little of that if I feel like it along the way.

I'd like to take my monitor so I was thinking of getting some kind of padded hard metal suitcase thing.

One thing I haven't figured out is I'd like to travel super light but be able to have more of my stuff if I stay somewhere a while. In the old days travelers had a lawyer take care of their affairs and do all this for them.

[cbloom]

Here are some introductory links to "PT". This is a little different than what I have in mind, but apparently there's a whole cult of PT. It's based on a book (curious if anyone has read it) from the 70's, and it's sort of anti-government, and a lot of the idea is to avoid taxes and just generally fly under the radar

http://www.ptclub.com/whatispt.html
What is PT?

http://www.escapeartist.com/efam/69/...osta_Rica.html
Living The International Life As A ‘PT’: More About Living In Costa Rica ~ by Rex Freeman

[wet work]

I spent the better part of '85-'95 living out of a VW camper (mostly on dead tour-with various overseas trip.) I did maintain a home base though. Don't really know that I can give you any real advice--I was basically totally off the grid. Having kids kind of forced me to put down roots semi-permanently, but I still travel a ton(I've already taken my kids to 20+ countries) . I do have friends that raised their kids on the road, just wasn't a fit for me I guess. I'd say go for it if that's what you want to do.

[TheMetetron]

I'm playing, but what you are doing isn't as different from what I'm doing. I just kind of fell in love with Argentina, but the plan wasn't to stay here long. I finally have a date I'm leaving (April 2008) to move onto Spain for 3 months then Thailand for 4-5 months.

I like staying on one place for a few months and using that as your base to travel around that region though going the straight one bag travel around never setting any roots thing works as well and sounds like more your style. Either way, it's pretty close to the same thing logistically, just different preferences.

Give me like 30-60 minutes and when I'm done I'll answer questions you have in more details.

[cianosheehan]

I'm planning on doing the same thing. I'm from Ireland, and want to set off to Europe to begin with. I'm 24. I plan on using poker to fund all this. Hopefully not having to eat into my roll, but just play some when I need to. I dont think this will be too hard, especially since Ireland has one of the highest cost of living in the world.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

lol, cbloom. you will probably fall in love with the first place you land and never leave, especially when you meet a local chick. just do it. dont think too much.

[unbluffable]

KKF, do you travel?