I started this one year adventure over 5 years ago and feel absolutely certain giving up my apartment and job and moving into my car was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

I never expected to stay on the road this long and though I plan on continuing to travel, I’m off the road for now and have settled down in Seattle.  As proof, I offer you a picture of my garden as the acorn squash and tomatoes are starting to really spring up.

In the last year I’ve also finished up my masters degree and am currently studying for the CPA exams.  I’m still traveling when I can, but for the next few years at least I expect I will be on a somewhat more corporate schedule.  Perhaps in a few years I will have figured out how to be a traveling accountant and I’ll pick up this blog again.

In the meantime, I want to thank everyone who’s read and commented on my posts.  I’ve enjoyed the last 6 years of blogging about living in a car and am looking forward to doing more.  Until I start traveling full-time again I probably won’t be posting much on this site, but if you’d like to stay in touch, check out my website about tatting, snapdragonlace.com.

What prompted me to finally get around to making that call was the fact that I was just interviewed for an article in the New York Times Magazine about living in a car. I don’t know much about it other than it’s a short piece. Don’t know if the reporter is interviewing others, but I’m looking forward to reading it and hoping that it won’t be too “Oh my god! The economy is forcing everyone to live in their car! This is crazy!” We’ll see.  I think any publicity is good publicity and maybe some people who read the article will come here and ask questions.  I’m happy to answer them.

I like to spread the idea that car living can actually be a fun, adventuresome and learning experience. Sure, most people who are doing it are doing it because they have to, but for those who choose to do it, car living should be looked on as the same category of adventure as backpacking around Europe, hiking the Appalachian trail, biking across the US or RVing to all the national parks.

As it turns out, working on the road is tricky. I didn’t have internet access the first couple days and was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed by all that I had to do. Thanks to iHop, Denny’s, Starbucks, Peet’s, and their wireless internet I’ve been able sort of get caught up now.  It will take some getting used to but I think I’m finding the flow of working on the road.  Once class starts up again in April it might be another situation, but hopefully by then I’ll have things sorted out for the classes I’ll be teaching at the Shuttlebirds tatting conference.

Looks like during the next couple months I’ll be nursing lots of tea and pancakes just for the chance to use the internet for a couple hours at a time.

So here we go!

Basically, about 4 years ago I started a new job at a public radio station.  I work for them for only part of the year, but when I do, it’s full-time on their fundraisers.  We hold 3 pledge drives a year and I start work on them about a month before and then go through a week or two after they finish.  In between drives, I travel as much as possible.  By living in my car, I’m able to save enough on rent that I can work for only about 5 months out of the year and still afford to travel.  I’ve done mostly road-trips around the Western half of the states, living in my car as I go, but have also spent a month in Australia and New Zealand, two months in Hawaii and just recently a month in the UK.

For me, this job was a means to being able to travel.  I’d originally been planning to quit my job and take off for a year on a massive road trip and then come back to a regular job and regular schedule.  Having a job like this means that I’m able to take off for a few months at a time and not have to worry about running out of money or finding a job when I do.  We’re never more than 4 months from the next pledge drive.  I started the job in May of 2007 and moved out of my apartment at the end of June.

Over the last year and a half or so my travel has been a bit more limited because I’ve acquired two apartment buildings in Yuma, AZ.  I spent a couple months out there when I first got them.  Then this last September I started a Masters program in Accounting in San Diego, so I’ve been spending a fair amount of time there, (staying with my parents).

I have a website about living and traveling in my little Prius at AYearInACar.com.  I stopped posting in it in July 2009 because my computer was stolen in Reno.  I took about a month to get around to replacing it and by then I had gotten out of the habit of posting.  Since I was basically living in one of my apartments in Yuma for a couple months, I didn’t really feel I had much new to say about living in my car.  When I went back to LA I was still living in my car, but wasn’t traveling by car, (my traveling in 2010 was basically “fly and stay” trips to the East Coast, Seattle and to the UK. Each of those for a about a month).  I couldn’t figure out how to get started again in writing for the website, especially when at the end of the year I began my Masters and stayed at my parents’ house for a couple months.  (And yes, they charged me rent.  The first rent I’ve had to pay in over 3 years! I have to admit that living in a car had spoiled me.  Even though it was just to my parents, that first rent check was hard to write.)

All that being said, my upcoming April-June classes will be online so I’m going to be hitting the road again at the end of this week (just finishing up our latest pledge drive.)  I’ll have about 3 months to drive up to the Pacific Northwest and work my way around back down. I’ll be taking my classes, as well as working on a few projects for the station so it won’t be “full-time” travel, but I’m really looking forward to being back on the road.

So there you have it!  An semi-explanation of what I’ve been up to for the last year and a half.  Like I said, I’ll hopefully be hitting the road at the end of the week so more to come.  In San Francisco I’ll be meeting up with a friend who moved into a van about a year ago so I’m interested in seeing what he’s done with the place.

I think if I had made a list of “things to do” at the beginning of July and compared now it to a list of “things done” at the end there would be only a few things that overlapped.  Feel like I’ve been amazingly productive for as few things as I’ve actually gotten crossed off my list.  Ahh well.  At least I already know what I be working on in August.

I’ve been living in an apartment here in Yuma for the last couple weeks.  It has been nice to spread out a bit.  I’ve only brought the stuff that’s normally in my car with me, but I’m amazed at how much floor space it takes up.  I really do pack up the little Prius tight!  Astounding how much I manage to get into the car comfortably.

I should spend some time reflecting on living in an apartment (however briefly) as opposed to a car, but I can’t think of anything philosophical about it at the moment.  It’s different.  Some things are better about living in an apartment, some things are better about living in a car.  The weather, however, makes the apartment a necessity while in Yuma.  112 degrees is not uncommon right now. Even walking outside at night feels like an oven.  The only plus is that there’s very little humidity and almost always a breeze.  If you can get some shade and don’t have to move at all it’s not too bad.  I’m very happy with the AC, though starting to get a bit stir crazy.  I’m craving the chance to go for a walk, but it’s just not going to happen here in Yuma for a while.

Lucky for me then that I’m leaving tomorrow for a little while.  I head up to Vegas where a friend and I will be roadtripping up to Reno, NV for their big street festival “Hot August Nights”.  I know very little about it.  Another friend will be meeting us there and we’ll spend a couple days before Friend #1 and I head back down to Vegas.  After that I’ll go to LA for a few days work at KJAZZ and then head back to Yuma for a week, THEN back to LA again for about a month and a half. Will be both good and strange to get back on the road for a short trip to Reno like this.  Looking forward to it though. I expect August and September to both be quite busy.  I need to map out everything on a calendar.  I’m starting to get confused about where I’m going to be when.  :)

Any Reno/Tahoe suggestions are greatly appreciated!

My favorite picture from this trip. Taken in Point Reyes National Seashore.

Despite the fact that we’re now halfway into July, and plenty has happened since my last roadtrip in April and May I wanted to go back and post about it.

This trip felt a bit more choppy than the other ones I’ve taken.  I think because I tended to travel in big spurts and then stay put for a while. I had a hard time seeing the trip as a while.  Actually, that seems true for my whole life in general at the moment and I think that’s part of why I haven’t been posting.  I wanted to work it out in my own mind first so this journal wouldn’t be too all over the place.  Well, that and also I was lazy on the road, then sick and then busy with work.  Now I’ve finally got the perspective, health and time to write it up.

So here’s a quick run down on the April/May trip.  I want to come back and write more about each part separately, but at least this is a start.

I worked my way up to the Bay area along Highway 101 which roughly follows the second half of the de Anza Trail.  Spent a few days visiting with college friends and then on to Point Reyes National Seashore (still one of my favorite spots in the US). I volunteered at The California Artisan Cheese Festival in Marin Country and had a very fun there weekend and then I spent a few days in Sacrament researching the Pony Express.

I zoomed up to Portland to visit with two new friends I met in Hawaii in January, and explore the end of  the Lewis and Clark Trail.  Then had about two weeks in Seattle visiting with more old college friends and another new friend from Hawaii.  I broke up those two weeks with a trip up to Vancouver during the week while they were busy with jobs.  Then I headed out to Spokane for the Shuttlebirds tatting conference.  More great fun was had visiting after which I made my way out to Missoula and then started up to Glacier National Park.

Glacier National Park

This is where things took a turn for the worse.  I got sick with stomach pains and spent a day in bed in the Walmart parking lot in Kalipsell, MT trying to move and eat as little as possible since both seemed to turn the dull pains into sharp pains.  This day in the Walmart parking lot was only about half as much fun as it sounds.  I tried to sleep through as much of it as possible.
the next morning my stomach still hurt, but I could walk around better so I continued up to Glacier where I discovered it probably would have been a good idea to have done a bit of research while still in Missoula since everything was still mostly closed for the winter.  I was about three weeks too early to travel the Going to the Sun Road.  So I took some photographs, sat by the lake and wondered if I should be concerned that the pains were coming back, (though still not as bad as the day before).

Later that evening I had a ridiculously long and heated internal debate between heading over the pass to Great Falls (Lewis and Clark trail) or making my way back toward highway 15 the way I came.  Concerned the pain might be something serious I decided it would be a good idea not to be in the middle of nowhere if I needed to have my appendix or gallbladder removed.   I gave up on this side trip to explore Montana and started heading south.

The ultimate goal was Las Vegas where I could stay with a friend and I pretty much drove straight down there, which meant skipping all the rest of the exploring of the Lewis & Clark and the Nez Perce Trails in Montana and stopping in Salt Lake City to check out all the trails that went through there (the California, Oregon, Pony Express and Morman Trails).

I probably could have stopped in Salt Lake City, since by the time it took me to get down there I was feeling better.  At that point I was so sick of driving I just wanted to keep going and get most of it over.  I wanted to get down to Las Vegas where I could hang out with Roberta and know that I was only a few hours behind the wheel away from Los Angeles.  Besides, I hadn’t contacted or arranged anything with the people I wanted to interview about the trails.  So I kept driving.  1100 miles in less than 3 days.  Way too many.

Berta about to start her riding lesson.

I spent the next week at Roberta’s starting work on the next pledge drive while she was at school (high school bio teacher) and hanging out with her in the evenings.  I was feeling pretty much completely better in time for our college reunion in the next weekend.  More fun was had hanging out on campus and I started up again at work in Los Angeles on Monday.
The postscript is that on Tuesday the pain came back (with lots nausea this time).  I moved the general check up I had scheduled for Friday to Wednesday and headed down to San Diego.  I’ll spare you the details, but the next two weeks were a long boring story of intermittent stomach pain, nausea and vomiting, doctors visits and blood tests, but it all came to nothing.  I feel fine now and the last round of tests came back completely normal.  Current theory is some sort of infection.  I think it’s gone for good this time, but it certainly complicated my schedule trying to get ready for the next pledge drive (starts this Wednesday!)  I so rarely get sick that when I do it completely throws me off.  Having a doctor in San Diego while trying to work in Los Angeles didn’t help much either.

There’s the run-through!  I have a lot more free-time this month and semi-regular internet access so there’ll be more to come, including pictures of the coolest wedding cake ever!

Yeah, I’ll come back and explain them over the next couple days, (afterall, I did write an article about doing that a while back for the Indie Travel Podcast) but I figured this was a nice quick way to get back into posting. We’re in the middle of the Summer Pledge Drive here at KJAZZ so things are busy. But sometimes it’s when I’m busiest that I manage to actually do the most posting.

If anyone can tell me how to rotate the vertical pictures in WordPress that would be much appreciated.  They open correctly in every other program.

[Show as slideshow]

This local restaurant is so popular they opened two more within a few miles of the first.  I split a plate of nachos with my friend Sonya.  I’m not sure what made them so great because they were so simple, but they were fantastic.  Everything in the restaurant is made from scratch so that probably has something to do with it.

Here’s the Yelp pages for the three locations.  1, 2, and 3.  There’s a lot of people are complaining about the service there, but I thought they were reasonably quick.  One warning, there’s no hostess there to greet you at the door.  To get in line for a table, put your name on the notebook by the door.  I can see how if you’re new to the restaurant you might miss that and end up waiting a lot longer than you should.

This post is making me hungry.  I think I’d better finish up here at the library and get nachos one last time before I leave town.

I’m looking forward to seeing some friends in the Bay Area, Portland and Seattle, but mostly this will be a working trip. I’ll have 6 weeks or so on the road and already I’m feeling overwhelmed by everything I want to research and see. I’ll be passing through areas tied to the following trails:

• Juan Batista de Anza
• Pacific Crest
• Pony Express
• California
• Oregon
• Lewis and Clark
• Nez Perce

Depending on what the return route ends up being I may cross the Continental Divide Trail or the Morman Trail as well.

Yesterday, I spoke for a long time with Travis Boley who manages the Oregon-California Trail Association and he’s been fantastic in helping me get a start on figuring out who to contact and hopefully interview while I’m out on the road. Looking for more suggestions though.

Anyone have favorite historic or trail related spots? Any ideas for topics for some short-form (6-10 minute) audio documentaries or people to interview?

I think this was the coolest beach in Hawaii. One of the nice things about having a friend or relative in the area you’re traveling to is that you get to hear about all the cool places not in the guide books. My cousin told us about a beach in an industrial area of Kauai where there used to be a glass factory. The factory isn’t there any more, but the broken glass has been worn smooth from the ocean over many years. It’s not a very scenic place, but if you go you’ll be looking down anyway. Here’s the view of the beach from a point further out in the water:

As we entered the beach to the right of the picture and at first all we found is really small, sandsize pieces of glass. Most of it is clear or amber and the sand itself is black so it was sort of interesting, but not quite the big deal that my cousin had made it out to be. But as you walk further along the cliffs along the left of the picture the sand and glass pictures get larger and larger and we started to see what he was talking about. The first picture was taken about 3/4th of the way along the little beach where the pieces were pebble sized. Talking to a nearby shopkeeper later in the afternoon I found out that we were there at a lucky time because the last few days had been stormy. Apparently it’s now pretty common to go there and discover the glass is all washed out to sea (after all the factory isn’t there anymore), but the storms tend to wash it back up on the beach.

The beach is in Port Allen in Kauai. If you happen to be nearby any of the locals should be able to give you directions. But other tourists won’t be of any help. It’s not in the guide books.

Within a two minute walk of the beach is an old abandoned Japanese cemetery, rich with photographic opportunities. This was my favorite shot:

This picture was taking back in July, but a comment on a friend’s blog made me remember the greedy chipmunks outside of Rocky Mountain National Park.

Renting a car makes it real easy to make friends at a hostel, and after I moved out I hung out with J and D, two guys who were sightseeing in Hawaii after J’s brother’s wedding.

We did some picnicking on the beach, drove around West Maui (which I think is a better drive than the Road to Hana), biked down the volcano, hung at the pool and topped it off by watching and making fun of a couple of westerns. Actually, come to think of it, we made fun of a lot of things. Exactly my type of company.

Lack of planning (partly our fault for constantly distracting him) left D without a place to stay the night before he took the ferry to Honolulu so I had my first overnight guest while living in a car. I wish it’d been in an area I knew better. We had a couple false starts (or stops, rather) trying to pick out a place to stay, but in the end D found a nice residential area and we slept pretty well until about 6am. Or at least I did. D is 6’1″ so I doubt he was quite as comfortable in the passenger seat as I was in the driver’s seat. I was happy to introduce the whole sleeping in a car thing to someone new. I was quite amused by the whole thing.

Then again, I’m quite amused by many things.

For J: Why does the moon rise 50 minutes LATER each day. Trust the astrophysicist.

Anyone have an suggestions for a topic for next month’s article?

Oh well, at least I got an idea of what backpacking is like, (even if I did spend only 3 days rather than 6 out there). I don’t think I’ll be doing the Appalachian Trail anytime soon, but I would still like to do some shorter trail (hopefully with more success than the Kalalau trail). In fact, I think I’m going to make it one of my new year’s resolutions to do either a backpacking or bicycling trip sometime this year.

I spent about four days on the north shore of Oahu at the beginning of my trip. There was a surfing competition going on that I never actually made it to (it was on hold the whole time I was there because of weather) but I did hang out on the beach one afternoon playing around with my new telescoping lens taking pictures of the surfers. I was impressed by the size of these waves, but these ones are nothing compared to what they surf during the competitions.

Tomorrow morning I’m starting the Kalalau trail along the Na Pali coast.  A couple days ago we did a plane trip around the island and I took this shot.  At the time I thought it was as close to the Kalalau trail as I was going to get.  The trail has been closed because rain in the mountains had made the rivers too high to cross.  A couple days ago it reopened, and barring no major weather events I should be starting off bright and early tomorrow. I’m not sure how far I’ll make it. Miles 6.5 through 8 are right along the cliffs and hopefully those aren’t too washed away to pass.  I know mom and dad are worried about me doing this, but I just keep reminding them that I’m neither stupid nor reckless.  If I think it’s not going to be safe I’ll just turn around and head back.  But if I do make it the whole 11 miles in I’ll have three nights of camping on the beach at the end of this valley:

I’ve had a chance to go through almost all of the photos I’ve taken on the trip so far.  I’m going to attempt to set up some posts for the next couple days so there’ll be more photos appearing here even while I’m on the trail.

You can find out more information about the Kalalau trail here.

If you run a website or are just interested in this sort of stuff check out their development work.  There’s lots of cool wallpapers and of course the very cool theme vSlider for WordPress.  All of it is up for sale (donation) as they’re trying to finance a trip around the world.

When I get back to LA and have some more time for playing around with this stuff, I’ll be purchasing a spot on their map of the world.

In the mean time, I give you another picture from Hawaii.  This is one of the many red-crested cardinals hanging out all over Oahu.

I’ve finally gotten around to starting to go through some of the pictures I’ve been taking here in Hawaii, so you can be expecting to see some more here soon.  You may have also noticed that I’ve also finally found a picture to replace the generic header that came with this wordpress theme.  That’s a picture of the shadow of our tour van as we went up the Mauna Kea on the big island to visit the observatories.

The article is a quick run down of what I think are the most important things to do to modify a car for living out of. These are only the basics (I only get 800 words an article), and can be done in one weekend or less. They mostly deal with privacy issues. I’m thinking that for the next article I’ll do a run-down of what you might want to add in the next weekend to make it more comfortable. What do you guys suggest? A cooler? An inverter to charge electronics? A hotplate? What modifications or items have you found most useful?

Any suggestions for things to see or do on Oahu, Kauai or the Big Island would be greatly appreciated!

Now I’m back to work and am updating my links page (“Other Stops on the Road”).  I know I’m missing a lot of great pages, send me your suggestions.

I have a new article up on the Indie Travel Podcast website.  I talk about “My Maps” on Google Maps which is a great way to keep track of travel suggestions.  Here’s the first two paragraphs:

Today I want to devote my article to a single resource. The ““My Maps” section of Google Maps is a valuable resource for planning and sharing trip details with friends and family – you create markers on a map and you can add pictures and details to personalise it further. You can even choose different icons to use as markers for different types of location.

As nice as it is to have a map to imbed on a blog that shows where you’ve been, I prefer to use Google’s My Maps for pre-trip planning, by storing information about places I’d like to visit all over the US and Canada. I used to have data everywhere: boxes of scraps of paper, articles ripped out of magazines, links stored in emails I sent to myself after finding out about an interesting place online.

To read more, check out the article on the Indie Travel Podcast Website.  I also take advantage of the ITP audience to hit them up for suggestions for places to visit in Hawaii (I have to admit that this was the main reason I choose to write this particular story now rather than save it for later).  I’m pleased to see that I’ve already gotten some suggestions.  Now I’ve just got to go through and add all these to the map.

The Indie Travel Podcast has also been nominated for a podcaster’s award.  You can vote for it (and other great podcasts in other catagories), once a day, every day.

That being said the one question I get more than any other is about showering, so I’ve written an entire post about it. Also common is questions about good places to park.  For that one I’ll refer you to an article I wrote for the Indie Travel Podcast website.

Hope that some of these pages help answer some questions!

Don’t think it’s going to happen for the next couple weeks.

I’m down in San Diego which is going to be my home base for the next four weeks or so before I head out to Hawaii for two months. (No the car is not going with me). Between now and then I’ll mostly be finishing up work, packing and planning for Hawaii, working on a couple projects (including the website), hanging out with some friends, and a whole lot of cleaning and reading of books so I can get rid of them.

That’s basically what I’ve been up to the last two weeks and pretty much all I’ll be up to for the next month

I do have an article up on the Indie Travel Podcast website that I haven’t mentioned here, and I’d better mention it soon since I have another one going up later this week. The current one is about starting up conversations with people on the road. I’d love for you guys to read it and leave comments with the ways you start conversations with people.

You may have noticed that I’ve also added a page about tatting. Eventually I’d like to set-up a better page, but this is a start.

I don’t really know what to go and see/do in Hawaii. I bought the plane ticket because I had an airline voucher I needed to use before it expired and the ticket to Hawaii was just the right price as to be practically free. I’ll be going to Oahu, Kauai, the Big Island for sure, possibly to Maui, and anywhere else that’s recommended as well. I have two months, so plenty of time to see a lot.

At any rate he’ll be in the US later this month and is looking for other people to talk to about their experiences. here’s the paragraph he wrote for me to put up here:

Nick Rosen of the Off-Grid website is in the process of writing his book “Off-Grid America”.” He will be in California through October and New York State through November and he is looking for car-dwellers, van-dwellers, in fact any sort of off-gridders who have a story to tell – most of all, what are your reasons for living off-grid, and what do you especially like (or dislike) about it? Do you have a particular philosophy of off-grid living? Where do you live off-grid? How do you live off-grid: on a homestead, in a cabin, in the city, or on wheels or water? Have you adopted all the technical advantages of renewable energy, or do you live the way people lived before there was a grid, or is it something in-between? He’d like to know what obstacles and challenges you’ve encountered along the way. Tell your reasons, your means and ways, to Nick for his new book “Off-grid America.” Contact Nick at nick (at) off-grid.net or 877-706-7423.

Always happy to help out public radio I told him I’d post something on my site.

If you’re a Canadian vandweller and are interested send me an email at Jessica at ayearinacar dot com and I’ll forward it on.  If you’re not a Canadian vandweller, but you know one, please forward on this post.

Thanks!

I read all the time on other people’s blogs about how nobody gets it and people are rude to them because they live in a car, but honestly, I can’t think of one time in the last two years I’ve ever gotten this reaction.  I have started to wonder if perhaps vandwellers are too quick to jump upon any slight as being proof that we’re being trod-upon and snubbed by society.  We are generally so proud of our rebel/anti-conformity outlook that maybe it’s easier to justify a “screw you” attitude to society if we can cultivate the belief that society has a “screw you” attitude to us.

Like I said in the earlier post, there’s a small percentage of people who I haven’t managed to convince that I’m doing this because I want to and not because I have to, but I can’t think of a single time I’ve encountered rudeness or snobbery because I live in a car.  I’m sure that eventually I will, but it just doesn’t seem to be as prevalent as someone considering living in their car my get the impression of from surfing the web.  I would hate to think that it would discourage anyone from trying it because it’s just so damn awesome to live this way.

Maybe I’m too wrapped up in myself to notice I’m being snubbed. Maybe I just hang out with the right people. Either way, it’s time I ask this question of all the vandwellers out there.

Who has snubbed you for living in your car?  I’m not talking about people pitying you because they can’t comprehend you’re doing this because you want to.  I’m not talking about people being annoyed that you’re sneaking into a campground to shower.  I am also not talking about communities passing laws that make it more difficult for vandwellers.  I’m talking about personal rudeness or snobbery in a one-on-one situation in which car living or vandwelling is the ‘reason’ for it.

I want to know how often people are being snubbed on a regular basis specifically for living in their car/van.

I’ve been putting off this post because I’ve been trying to figure out how to write it so it doesn’t offend anyone, but here you are.  This is is something I’ve been thinking about for a while and would really like to get a discussion going on it.

That being said, there’s more coming, I promise.  But we’ve only got 7 more days before the KJAZZ pledge drive starts so that’ll will be keeping me busy till the end of the month.  I’ll still be posting, but shorter and less frequently.

A little while back, someone who I don’t know really well, but who I see on a fairly regular basis made reference to my “situation.” It took me a minute to figure out what this person meant. At first I thought they were referring to the fact that I keep coming and going. Spending a month or so in LA and then two months on the road. Then it dawned on me that “my situation” is just that I live my car. As if it’s something too horrible to actually name; it must be hidden behind the phrase “your situation” like it’s the 1950′s and I’m unwed and pregnant.

On the whole, I get mostly positive reactions when I tell people I live in my car. (Many are very amused, but they’re willing to accept it.) This comment made me wonder if perhaps I’m just seeing what I want to see, or people are smiling and humoring me on the outside, but inside are thinking: “That poor, poor girl. How sad it is that she must suffer the horrors of having to shower at the gym. If only there were something I could do so that she could experience the joys of outrageous rent and a 90 minute commute.”

Maybe I haven’t actually been doing a very good job at getting across the point that this is exactly the situation I WANT to be in.

This got me wondering why it is that vandwelling might even need to be defended? When I tell someone with a big smile on my face that I live in a car why might they ever consider that I’m actually miserable and just trying to put a good spin on it?

I want to make it clear that 95% of the people I talk to about vandwelling think it’s awesome even if it’s something they’d never consider doing themselves. In this post though I’m trying to figure out what’s going on in the minds of the other 5%.

Earlier this year my brother spent a month and a half wandering around New Zealand. He carried all he needed in a backpack, hitched rides, slept in campgrounds or on the sofas of people he just met, or sometimes just spent the night the city park. He had no itinerary and no paying job, but it didn’t matter.

Talking about our travels with other people, he and I might get the some questions about logistics or safety, but his travels are not something that would be discussed in hushed and secretive tones. Part of it, of course, is just the portrayal in the media of people who live in vans or cars. (Cue Chris Farley.)

I suppose that does make some sense, backpacking around the world is not something that people are often “forced” to do, while moving into a car or a van is more often than not something done out of economic necessity. Not for me, but usually.

So I suppose backpacking around the world is not really a fair comparison.

Well, what about an RV then? If I were traveling the country in an RV I doubt I would get this reaction. I would argue that traveling in my car isn’t all that different than traveling RV. What is it about the existence of a bathroom that makes that type of travel more acceptable?

Perhaps it’s because I’m not traveling full-time yet. The person who’s comment started me off on this train of thought only sees me while I’m in LA working. During that time I’m staying put. Maybe this is the big difference between traveling in a van/car and living in a van/car. Traveling is acceptable, living is not.

Because as we all know, (from tv shows and such), people who are living in vehicles do so only because they have no other choice. And so of course some people will assume that must be the case for me as well.

Inexplicably, this has not translated into people offering to buy me lunch. Perhaps they think I’d be insulted. (Really, it’s ok. Insult away.)

I spent three years saving, planning, and waiting until the time I’d be able to do this. I work only five months a year at a job I enjoy and spend the other seven months traveling. I am not touching a dollar of my savings. In fact, over the course of last year I’ve still been putting money away into savings. I’m visiting old friends, meeting new people. I have the time to read books, work on my own projects, or do absolutely nothing at all if I feel like it.

That is my situation.

And that is precisely why I talk to everyone I meet about living and traveling in my car. There’s nothing so bad about it that it needs to be discussed in those hushed tones.

The problem I always have is that I can’t bear to just throw things away. If I want to get rid of something I feel the need to either use it up or find a home for it. And books, of course must be read before I can even consider getting rid of them. I don’t buy many books anymore, but I’m still working my way through all that I got when I volunteered an NPR and picked up 4-5 books each week from the shelves where the reporters left the ones they got from publishers.

Anyway, progress made this last week. Being far away from my stuff certainly helps me realize how little I actually need/want around me. Moving from the van to the prius, even more so. Just got to figure out what I can get rid of completely. Every little bit I do here will make the boxes of stuff easier to deal with once I decide to settle down.

I am constantly astounded by the number of people who make comments about beds when I tell them I’m at my parent’s place.  “Must be happy to sleep in a real bed for a change.”  I always get the same comments about hostels as well.  Come on people, What do you think I have in my car?  It may not be a “real” bed, but I assure you it’s pretty darn comfortable.  Certainly more comfortable than any hostel bed I’ve ever had.

/rant

One of my projects for this weekend down in San Diego was to take my car to the dealership and have them reset my airbags.  When I took out the front passenger seat I had to unhook the cables that run between the weight censor in the seat and the airbags.  Unfortunately, it turns out that doing so disables the airbags.  I thought they’d just be able to reset them, but apparently it creates an open circuit and it can’t be done.  So, thanks to the fact that I have no front passenger seat, I also have no air bags and Toyota can’t do anything about it.

The guy at Toyota did make a suggestion for finding someone who can fix it though.  When I get back to LA I’m going to try to find a company that makes modifications to cars for the handicapped.  Since they take out seats all the time they may have a solution.  In the meantime, I’ll just have to hope I don’t need them.

Now you can have both!*

A Year in a Car For No Apparent Reason is now syndicated on LiveJournal.  If you already have a LiveJournal account it’s easy to add the feed to your friend’s page.

Special thanks go out to Dominic for setting this up.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about you probably don’t have a LiveJournal account and can ignore this post.

*Ok, technically you could always have both, but now you can have both in the same browser window.

It was the 4th of July weekend so I didn’t stay long.  Spent one night up in the mountains and then enjoyed spending a couple hours driving out of the park stopping and taking lots of pictures.  This was a chance for me to play around with my camera a lot.  I learned I really needed a tripod if I expected any of my early morning shots to come out nicely.

This was taken while standing right off of the continental divide.  This picture faces West to the Pacific.

Tomorrow is the start of the New Media Expo here in Vegas.  I’ll be hanging out at the OC Podcaster’s booth, hopefully recording some interviews for a super-cool project I’m working on.

No, you’re not going to get any more details beyond “super-cool” just yet.  Stay tuned!

Both these pictures were taken from a rest stop in Utah. I believe I was on highway 70 at this point, though it might still have been the 15.

I haven’t been to all the states yet, but Utah just might have the best views from their rest stops. They are the sort of views that always make me grateful for the interstate highway system and glad I’m not traveling in a covered wagon across the deserts.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t yet bought a tripod so even though I was there a little later during a great sunset the low light pictures I took didn’t really come out very well. I guess I’ll just have to go back someday… What a shame.

I’ve been getting the chance to play around with my new camera on this trip and hopefully as I continue I’ll be able to up that ratio of 50 decent pictures out of every 2500.

More pictures coming as I get them sorted.

This means that I’ll finally get all the pictures I’ve been taking sorted through and the good ones posted here. For now though I have a couple pictures I took earlier this evening while waiting for the AAA guy to come bring me some gas because I’d run out on Highway 93 in Nevada. Yes, that’s right, my little Prius ran out of gas.

In my defense I don’t think that’s completely true. According to the odometer I should have been able to make it another 80 miles or so. I should have had another 2 gallons left. I think it must have been that the gas was so low that for some reason it wasn’t getting to the engine. I don’t know what the outtake set up is on the gas tank, but that’s my current theory.

At any rate, I got stuck on the side of the highway and luckily had cell phone reception and a free trial version of the AAA “Plus” membership that includes a couple (in this case 5) gallons of gas brought out to you if you’re a dumbass and didn’t fill up in the last gas station for the next 90 miles.

The second picture should give you a good idea of exactly where in the middle of nowhere I was. It was empty pretty much the entire 90 miles between Ash Springs and Vegas. While talking to the dispatcher I had to walk about ten minutes to find a marker that would give a good idea of where I was. Even after walking that far I didn’t actually make it to a sign (though I could see one way off in the distance) but someone pulled over and was able to give me directions to pass on.

So I ate my dinner and took pictures, and now I’ve learned my lesson. Don’t try to go more than 450 miles on one tank even if I technically should have enough gas to do it. Here is my favorite picture of the evening:

At any rate, here’s pictures of the skirt I just finished sewing tatting on to.  Still haven’t actually worn it though.  As you can see, it’s a bit wrinkled and could probably use a washing.

The front:

The back (There is another strip on the right.  It’s hard to see because it’s red):

Close up of the design:

Close up of the pattern for the tatters who want to see how it’s made:

I think the pattern came from the web.  I’ll have to look through my printouts and figure out where I got it.  I liked that pattern a lot and think it’s the one I’ll modify for a tablecloth.

Not very exciting for the non-crafters out there, but since I figure it took me about 70 hours for the whole project I’m happy to have finally finished it.

But Yellowstone has been awesome.  As my article will describe I’ve been completely taken by the geyser area.  Been spending the last 5 days exploring the area, watching geysers, and (the most fun of all), waiting for the geysers to erupt while talking to the people around me and working on sewing a bunch of tatting on to my skirt.  I’m almost done with the skirt and will post pictures when I do finish it.  I figured it out the other day and I think there’ll be about 70 hours into it when I’m done.

I’m rather enjoying working on the absurdly large and tedious projects.  I have plans to start two tablecloths soon one of which will be at least a hundred hours and the other a couple hundred.

But here I am rambling on about tatting and you’re more curious about the travel.  Unfortunately as much fun as I’m having here in Yellowstone it’s not the sort of fun that really translates to the (web)page.  Mostly a lot of sitting around waiting for geysers to erupt.  What’s made it fun is all the great people I’ve met from all over the country (and world, got to practice my Japanese the other night).  Been getting lots of suggestions for places to check out while I’m traveling as well, and hopefully those people will come and leave comments here, because of course, I haven’t been writing them down and have probably forgotten a bunch already.

(The picture, by the way, is Castle Geyser.)