New and Learning

hikeNgame · Feb 11, 2015

I've just recently gotten interested in mobile living, specifically van living, as a more free and fulfilling lifestyle. I have not yet moved out of my house, as I'm still supporting my girlfriend (who is not too hot on the mobile living idea). Right now I am in the process of cutting down on my possessions to make the transition easier. My main area of expertise is in computers and networking, but I also know some electrical to help get me going on the alternative power set up. Right now my main concerns are integrating my hobbies into the new lifestyle and figuring out a good mailing address to use for things like my drivers license and bank account. My hobbies include hiking, camping (easy one), gaming, bodyweight exercise, hunting, fishing, shooting, and playing with my dog.

cyndi · Feb 11, 2015

Welcome to the CRVL forums, hikeNgame! To help you learn the ins and outs of these forums, this "Tips & Tricks" post lists some helpful information to get you started. We look forward to hearing more from you.

Theadyn · Feb 12, 2015

Hi and Welcome!

akrvbob · Feb 12, 2015

hikengame, glad you're here! Are you planning on traveling mostly or staying in your local area? If you stay in your local area it's an awful lot easier to handle the problems with living in a van but there are ways to get around them if you travel.

Can you just use your girlfriend's address as your own? The cheapest and easiest thing is to use the address of family or friend. You can get a mail forwarder to handle your mail, even a UPS Store will forward your mail for you.

Most of your hobbies should work great on the road. Fishing is perfect because you eat better and save money; win-win!! But hunting is difficult because with big game you can't store all the meat you get at once. Bird hunting or small game would be perfect because you can easily eat what you take. Of course of you are staying in your local area, you can give the meat away to family and friends.

The problem is that if you are traveling you'll need out-of-state license in every state and they are often very expensive.

We're here to answer any questions we can!!
Bob

Matt71 · Feb 12, 2015

hikengame,
I recommend using a friend or family member's home as your address and have them bulk mail your mail to you periodically. You'll want to get as many of you bills converted to paperless accounts to reduce the chances of missing a bill. Most of the mail we get isn't time sensitive, so we will just have our friends put anything that's not obviously junk into a box 2 lb postal box and ship it to us wherever we are when it's full or when we get something important. I'd also get an Amazon Prime account so if you need to buy anything online you can have it shipped to you in 2 days.

When you say one of your hobbies is "gaming", what kind of gaming do you mean?

hikeNgame · Feb 13, 2015

I will be staying in my local area mostly, but my current employer gives me lots of PTO, so I can travel whenever I feel like some time off.

I've got a good friend that will let me use his address as my residential listing. I pay all my bills online right now, so I rarely miss one or fall behind. I've even got half of them using my PO Box address already.

With the fishing and hunting I plan to keep it light. I usually go small game hunting and occasionally out for Blacktail deer. The fish and small game are easy to store after cleaning them. Any deer I got would be split among my family. I know there are also some butchers around that still let people rent freezer lockers for large amounts of meat. I plan to keep my fishing and hunting local as well. I've seen the cost of licenses when you are out-of-state and they are ridiculous.

My gaming is mostly PC gaming and some card/board games with friends. I already do my gaming on my laptop now and usually go to friends houses for game nights.