I’ve always craved the life of living on the go. Perhaps it’s been a far-off dream of mine that will never come to fruition and I knew it wouldn’t all along, but there’s something freeing about living with absolutely nothing holding you tied down.
It’s not that I’d want to do that for my entire life, as if I were some hippie on the run. But even just a year of living out of a decked out van and humming along from one city to the next, week to week, sounds like something I need in my life to renew who I am and gain an entirely new perspective on what it means to live somewhere. Or nowhere, in this case.
Part of the “problem” with living like this is how many obstacles there are in the way of getting started. First off, you’d have to have a decent amount of money saved up to continue buying food for a year with no job. That, or you’d have to have a job that allows you to work remotely (which is quite hard to come by).
Another obstacle is actually having a bus or van big enough and with enough basic living amenities, like a sink, stove, bathroom, and bed. Getting plumbing and gas hooked up in a mobile vehicle takes a bit more work than you’d think, and you’ll definitely have a lot more in expenses on the front end.
Still, there’s something absolutely attractive about living a part of your life in a fleeting and no-cares-given sort of way. I think it’d be great for the soul, it would renew who I am, and give me the tools I need to really settle down and appreciate a home in one location, once I’m ready for that and for kids.
It’s fantasies like these that make me want to pack only the essentials up in a few cheap moving boxes, toss them in the truck, and go even though I don’t have the whole setup ready to go. I ask myself what could it hurt to really commit to just me, a vehicle, a few cheap moving boxes, and a life on the go. And unfortunately, the answer always comes back to me from the reasoning part of my brain.
There’s just a lot more planning and preparation and money that goes into such a stint of your life if you were really to pull it off. And I feel the number one thing that needs to be settled is your job and a vehicle to carry the plans through.
