Did anyone ever have the “true vagabond experience”?
Going PrepHole for a prolonged period of time, light equipment, only living off what you catch, hunt or forage?
What was it like? Any stories?
Urban homelessness doesn’t count, soz.
Did anyone ever have the true vagabond experience?
I did for a short time. About 2 months. Lived close to the sea in a tent and ate seafood mostly, the odd scrub turkey from time to time but they are liking eating leather. Used to do a lot of spear fishing. Collected water from a nearby fresh stream. I ended up going back to being an urbanite cause I broke my hand.
How would you rate your experience overall?
Loved it, bit fricked when it rains for over two weeks non stop though. Can't dry anything, can't cook anything.I ate nothing but the baked beans and rice I brought in during that time. Had I not had that I would of needed to eat some raw fish or crustaceans.
Forgot to mention the rice was canned cream rice. I bought in like 10 cases of canned baked beans of various flavours and creamed rice, 24 cans to a case. Also a shitload of teabags and that was it.
I didnt, but an old coworker from a long time ago did. I used to work at a diner as a teenager.
He had lived on the appalachian trail for many years and made carved wood trinkets for money. He then lived in a modified truck/rv thing in the parking lot of the diner
He was pretty cool but one day he showed up all beat to shit and claimed that he had been mugged. Not long after, he disappeared. It was a shame really. He used to play the harmonica and sing folk songs for us. We got along pretty well. I know you dont have a computer, but I hope you are doing alright frank.
Did he disappeared along with his car or did he leave it behind?
>we would have died multiple times if I weren’t armed
Care to elaborate?
He took his truck house with him, but he didnt say anything, he just left.
Damn. Hope whereever he is he's well and okay. Sometimes old heads be that way. Just trying to make it work and get folded in by an area getting mean or maybe they get sick of the same sight every day. Having a truck is good for that. Gosspeed to him wherever he is.
I wandered the US for about two years with a hippie girl I met randomly one day who needed my rural skill set. I'll openly admit that while the majesty of nature never gets old it wasn't especially pleasant after the first month with the exception of the frequent awesome sex, which was all I was really there for. She's still wandering the world, banging random dudes everywhere for assistance and just because she likes to.
Also, America is dangerous as shit, the people more than anything. We would have died multiple times if I weren't armed.
38 months. Australia. Many iterations. Walked a lot of states. Slept a lot of beaches, bummed a lot of rides. Made more money have having no rent while stopping for a couple of weeks doing picker trails.
Had sleeping bag, pad, hygrine gear, a good knife and passable working clothes that doubled as interview. Sandles for average wear, some non descrept shoes for work and stable standing. Most of the time I'd wind up bored and drifting to the nearest town then to the library. Food was so cheap in general from not eating out at all that foraging was all suppliment. Seasonal and mostly required local knowladge so stayed away from a lot of it. Too much of the difficulty now is in the gaps between areas that people live. The thing is it's easy to settle down, use employment to get basic materials and make a small hide. It's as simple as an A frame and a good water container for long term. But frankly people are so generous on the road that I never had much actual adversity that I didn't go out of my way to find. Especially when it came to bad weather, mostly heat related, I'd go read a lot. Eat some cheap end of day meals. Go to work the next day, showering at places that let me, rest stops in two cases and beachside in most of the urban zones. In the end keeping clothes clean wasn't even that hard as eventaully you hit civ and can launder. Working while wandering is key. Expenses eliminated you are reduced to
1 Make self clean and presentable
2 Sleep and wake up safely
3 Get money
4 Use spare time
5 Resist temptations to spend on stupid shit because no bills no thrills.
It's a great way to skill up if you have a nearby hobby. The money I saved from those 38 months became seed money fo later land ownership. As for wilderness, you need starup capital and specific gear in a place that no one checks much. Loads of that here and in the USA but euros are fricked.
Check Forest Anon for a more static equivilent of what I did. All you need is sleep and eat safely.
After I failed all my college classes before I officially dropped out I went and climbed up the mountain near my college town and lived in a teepee for about a month. I didn't forage for my subsistence though. My calories came from rice and flour and canned raviolis and shit that I packed forest anon style. I only really foraged greens for my nutrients and electrolytes. And I was still a noob at that so really I just ate a bunch of wild onions and doughlas fir needles because I didn't actually know foraging yet.
It was pretty uneventful. Back in those days I was still idolizimg Chris McCandless and wanted to do the same thing. Just kinda sat around, chilled out, meditated, went into town once or twice to bag cigarettes and books. Didn't really do anything but relax without the distractions of responsibility or the internet.
Still the happiest I've ever been in my life. I want to do it again but now I'm kind of living paycheck to paycheck in an apartment taking care of my lazy ass wife and my kid who are dependent on me. And I dont Exactly want to destroy my entire life and become Perma-homeless.
See that's similar to what happened with me, but nowadays I'm well on my way to having more space and keeping it without having to overpay. It's good to take care of your wife and kid, that's the real shit right there. Pay to paycheck is rough.Hope you can work something out. You've been there so you know what it's like and never have to wonder. I guess you're trying to work it out and get things covered to take care of the next gen. I think that's just extremely cool. I'm glad there are unselfish people who know how to prioritise and do what you do. Hell maybe one day your kid will ask about going innawoods? It'll be cool to take them there one day.
>only living off what you catch, hunt or forage?
What does this have to do with vagrancy? Sleeping rough doesn't prevent me from going to a store or digging up trash bins.
You know what you're just too moronic to realise that's not what he was asking about you troony.
Had myself a hippie holiday on the Big I of Havvai'i for four months.
>Heard about a little gathering coming up January
>After seeing enough of what the Cali coast had to offer, I left my car with a friend I'd met looking for gig work on craigslist (Sounds dicey, though I just know an honest brother when I meet one)
>Having spent nearly my last dollar on the ticket, and knowing no one there beside the couple with a 90 ac. farm from farcebook, it was sure to be a wild adventure
>After the ho-hum yet mostly pleasant festivities dried up, and my offer of work-trade in exchange for a place to camp rejected, I was offered a ride to the local "ecovillage" for their taco party night
>Was fun scene at first, a primal jungle village vibe. The incessant screaming and monkey shines of who I later learned was their leader provided comic relief rather than cause for concern
>I didn't sense this tribe needed another man around, as the young male to female ratio was already off kilter, about 3:1. As the night grew old, I stared off into the firepit, reaffirming my wish for a mutually beneficial work-trade deal to manifest
>A voice spoke to me from across the flames. He was an old Puerto Rican, a musician from what I'd seen earlier
>He offered me a bottle of kombucha, and asked me where I came from. Turns out he played in a band with the couple that brought me there
>Tells me he's looking for labor to build a natural material temple at his spot in the jungle, and could offer me a place to camp and $10/hr
>Holy moley, what a well-timed blessing, I thought
>Proceeded to help bring in and shape lava rocks and O'hia wood for the next two months, and lived it up at the beach
>Disregarded the weird little red flags, as he appeared to have many connections there and mostly acted like a good friend
One day after work, he said:
>>You've been such a great friend and help, I have some powerful friends I'd like to recommend you to... or send you to as a gift
cont.
I lived in a van by the ocean for a few months. I was dirt poor, all my money went to gas. For food, I was going to food banks and spending a lot of time surf fishing. Some days I would catch up to 20 of those little bastards. Other days I would catch flounder and the occasional salmon. All of this without a boat or fancy equipment, I would just walk out into the ocean until it touched my balls then start casting. I learn to fish the waves pretty quickly, walking along the beach until I spotted a riptide or some other abnormality in the way the waves break.
I was too poor for a proper van, so all I could afford was a mini van. It worked out great though, it got good gas mileage and because it was so inconspicuous I could sleep anywhere I wanted, even in million dollar neighborhoods, of which there are many near the ocean. I never got fricked with.
Those were some of the best years of my life. I think about those times whenever I'm feeling bored or stressed out by my job. Once you get a taste of that life, its hard to be content with the normal 9-5 grind.