desertnomad
New member
Hi,
New to the forum as well as learning about this type of lifestyle.
Found this site and forum after watching the documentary. Yes, I just happened to come across it here recently. I thought Bob & Randy were absolutely fantastic, down-to-earth with authentic wisdom that made logical sense. Your philosophy on life really hit home and gave me a whole new found inspiration of pursuing this lifestyle. I've been thinking for years there has got be more to life than this (my current life) and why hasn't any magical opportunity arrived on a silver platter for me?!
I'm in the research phase of one day becoming a desert nomad and although I have a number of years before hitting retirement age I been thinking about off-grid living (or some form of it) for a number of years. Unlike most of you I live in suburbia, in a big house (moderate size mortgage), only know or talk to one neighbor, work for a very large corporation, have 4 fairly new vehicles, a big 5th wheel RV, and putting two teenagers through college. Yea, that pretty much swallows up my paychecks. Call me materialistic but it's easy to get caught up in and then later discover it’s going to take me years to climb outta debt. Consumerism trap got the best of me. And to think in 2009 I was completely debt free.
Hopefully, if planning works out in my favor, sell the house, hope my 401k still exists, get rid of stuff I don't need/can't take with me, I'd really like to hit the road and tell corporate America to kiss my a$$ and become FREE from the rat race materialistic decaying prison society controlled by elitists, at least for awhile before mother earth unleashes an apocalyptic cleansing.
Since I still have years to research & read (this site is a treasure trove of info) and God only knows what my life and society may be like 10-15 years from now I'm more less feeling the waters of unchartered territory on how to best come up with a long term plan and backup plan.
In the past 3-4 years I met numerous folks mostly retirees who full-time in their RV and some who appeared to specialize in boondocking. Everyone seemed very content and having the time of their lives. Wow, that’s what I want!! How do I get it? I spent part of my sabbatical last summer traveling in my RV and didn't want it to ever end. Back when I was a kid my grandparents did it for around 10 years (back in late 70's through the 80's), actually they were snowbirds but my grandfather always seemed to gravitate towards deserts and ironically so do I.
So why not just do it now? Well, life has an alternative idea, I'm just not yet prepared, have a few long term commitments I need to see through, want my kids self-sustaining, savings need more growth and heck I don't even have answers to questions I don't yet know to be asking.
My current thousand yard stare (I have no plan yet) is will have a 5th wheel, find a suitable RV park for long term or buy an RV lot or piece of land in southwest Utah, NV or AZ that I can call homebase and stay 6-8 months and the other half travel around the country doing landscape photography. I'm not sure if a backwoods camper would be my cup of tea but I'm not closed to the idea. I've camped a few times on BLM land but long term I have no idea what challenges lie ahead in prepping for it. I'm just brainstorming on dreams and ideas for now. I have a large hanging corkboard I call my "dream board" with Post-It notes categorized by goals, desires, likes, dislikes, expectations, must have/nice to have, current skills/needed skills, and fears. My kids think Dad has gone over the edge. Now I need to kick the tires and pursue the research. Guess I’ve babbled on long enough but in closing thanks for this site and for the inspirational documentary.
My current rig.
New to the forum as well as learning about this type of lifestyle.
Found this site and forum after watching the documentary. Yes, I just happened to come across it here recently. I thought Bob & Randy were absolutely fantastic, down-to-earth with authentic wisdom that made logical sense. Your philosophy on life really hit home and gave me a whole new found inspiration of pursuing this lifestyle. I've been thinking for years there has got be more to life than this (my current life) and why hasn't any magical opportunity arrived on a silver platter for me?!
I'm in the research phase of one day becoming a desert nomad and although I have a number of years before hitting retirement age I been thinking about off-grid living (or some form of it) for a number of years. Unlike most of you I live in suburbia, in a big house (moderate size mortgage), only know or talk to one neighbor, work for a very large corporation, have 4 fairly new vehicles, a big 5th wheel RV, and putting two teenagers through college. Yea, that pretty much swallows up my paychecks. Call me materialistic but it's easy to get caught up in and then later discover it’s going to take me years to climb outta debt. Consumerism trap got the best of me. And to think in 2009 I was completely debt free.
Hopefully, if planning works out in my favor, sell the house, hope my 401k still exists, get rid of stuff I don't need/can't take with me, I'd really like to hit the road and tell corporate America to kiss my a$$ and become FREE from the rat race materialistic decaying prison society controlled by elitists, at least for awhile before mother earth unleashes an apocalyptic cleansing.
Since I still have years to research & read (this site is a treasure trove of info) and God only knows what my life and society may be like 10-15 years from now I'm more less feeling the waters of unchartered territory on how to best come up with a long term plan and backup plan.
In the past 3-4 years I met numerous folks mostly retirees who full-time in their RV and some who appeared to specialize in boondocking. Everyone seemed very content and having the time of their lives. Wow, that’s what I want!! How do I get it? I spent part of my sabbatical last summer traveling in my RV and didn't want it to ever end. Back when I was a kid my grandparents did it for around 10 years (back in late 70's through the 80's), actually they were snowbirds but my grandfather always seemed to gravitate towards deserts and ironically so do I.
So why not just do it now? Well, life has an alternative idea, I'm just not yet prepared, have a few long term commitments I need to see through, want my kids self-sustaining, savings need more growth and heck I don't even have answers to questions I don't yet know to be asking.
My current thousand yard stare (I have no plan yet) is will have a 5th wheel, find a suitable RV park for long term or buy an RV lot or piece of land in southwest Utah, NV or AZ that I can call homebase and stay 6-8 months and the other half travel around the country doing landscape photography. I'm not sure if a backwoods camper would be my cup of tea but I'm not closed to the idea. I've camped a few times on BLM land but long term I have no idea what challenges lie ahead in prepping for it. I'm just brainstorming on dreams and ideas for now. I have a large hanging corkboard I call my "dream board" with Post-It notes categorized by goals, desires, likes, dislikes, expectations, must have/nice to have, current skills/needed skills, and fears. My kids think Dad has gone over the edge. Now I need to kick the tires and pursue the research. Guess I’ve babbled on long enough but in closing thanks for this site and for the inspirational documentary.
My current rig.
