[at-l] Giving it all up

[gregbrown at mindspring.com (Greg Brown)]

On Apr 18, 2005, at 10:21 AM, ken bennett wrote:

>> <<Has anyone actually sold everything they own to hike and hike and 
>> hike?>>
>
>
> You might look around for some books on living the RV lifestyle. I 
> know it's
> not the same as the hiking lifestyle, but they might have some good 
> ideas on
> how to set yourself up with no real address. Given that a lot of 
> retired
> permanent RV-ers sell the house to buy the RV, there might be something
> useful about that question, too.

You might want to check into the Escapees ("http://www.escapees.com/";). 
  This group serves mostly RVers who have no permanent address.  The way 
it works is there is a county in Texas that will allow you gain 
residency without having a minimum amount of square footage.  So what 
happens when you join the Escapees is you get an "apartment", which is 
actually a file folder, and you can use the PO Box at the Escapees as 
your address.

How do you get stuff from Texas to wherever you are at?  You just call 
or e-mail the group and tell them where you'd like your mail sent.  
They will hold it in Texas and ship it later, or if you have an address 
somewhere else, they can ship the mail as it arrives in Texas.  You can 
even vote via absentee ballot.

Texas has tax advantages, too.  But talk to your finical advisor about 
that.

Also, if you do decide to go the RV route you can "work-camp".  How 
this works is you can stay at a camp ground/RV park (some of which are 
quite nice) and in turn for doing some light maintenance or working the 
front desk you get to stay at the campground for free AND they pay you 
a little bit of money, too.  It's a good deal, really.  But most of the 
work camp jobs are filled up by this time in the season, but it might 
be something you can check into for next year.

If you are thinking at all about doing the full-time RV thing after 
your hike send me an e-mail and I can load you down on information to 
help get the ball rolling.