A Year in a Car For No Apparent Reason

Now that the pledge drive is pretty much over (I have a couple more days worth of stuff to finish up) I’ve been putting off posting here because I’ve been waiting to do something worth posting about.

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.

I’ve been contacted by Nick Rosen to talk to him about a book he’s writing about living off-grid in America. An interesting idea, since I don’t know that I’d necessarily consider myself as living off-grid.

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.

I was recently contacted by a producer of a radio show on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation asking if I knew of any Canadian vandwellers who might be interested in talking to them for a show they’re doing this week.

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!

Because I’ve been wanting to write a post about this anyway, I’m responding to Joe and Jack’s comments on my post “My Situation” with a whole new post.

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.

While I’m being a lazy bum about posting very often, you can check out Chris’s blog “7:21pm”.  Excellent, and he does a much better job about posting everyday than I do.

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.