The Hermit Crab

Why don't you just carry a tent?

Tent: you carry your home as well as all your other stuff.

Chuckwagon: your home carries itself as well as all your other stuff. Hell, with a donkey, your home carries you! If well balanced, the only energy you need to bring is the forward motion. My shoulders are much happier now.

 

 

How do you build such a caravan if you don't have a home?

That's such a good question I hate it. I'll do my best. One of the reasons for which I made this website is to show ways in which you can buy this kind of home, with little to no building necessary. That would simply mean working for a month, and using the money to emancipate yourself. But it's not always possible and not many people are selling this kind of thing, so there are situations where you would need to build it, or at least most of it like I did. In that case, you have to be creative. Find an industry or any place that works with metal, and make a deal to work there for free if they let you use the tools and equipment. Build a shack out of junk next to a hardware store, and work for a month while using the money to build your new home. Find friends or family who have tools and are willing support such a project by housing you the time you build it. There's plenty ways, you just have to be bold and do it!

 

 

With such a lifestyle, you still use some money, don't you? What do you eat?

As far as food's concerned, about half of the production in the western world is thrown away one way or another. This is completely ridiculous, and is mostly due to the appaulingly strict food standards in the western world. But one thing we can do to help ourselves and the world, is to get right in between those people throwing this good food away and the dumpsters (last resort is actually going down in the dumpsters, an olympic sport known as dumpster diving). Another useful skill is recognizing a few edible plants: you'll notice the forest is so full of food you can even say goodbye to your dumpster diving career.

 

 

But that's just food. What about clothes and everyday necessities? What about poor countries that don't have surplus?

Actually, just as much clothes and other items are thrown away as food. But I know that doesn't solve everything, and you may need money to maintain this home on wheels, buy things you don't find in dumpsters, or just to have fun. In that case, you can settle for a job just as you would in a stationary home, only with no rent to pay! It's all benefit. And with no fear of getting fired, because you can so easily move on and find somewhere else. There are also many ways to independantly make money on the road. Being any kind of street artist or performer, selling drinks or ice cream, being a photographer for a nature magazine, writing articles for guide books, online freelancing, and countless other things.

 

 

What about medical care?

That's another tough one for me to answer. For relatively small medical care like teeth, you can easily make enough money through simple jobs, like you would in a sedentary lifestyle. As for serious medical conditions or terminal diseases that require months of hospitalisation, well, I have to admit this kind of problem can't be solved in this lifestyle any better than in a common lifestyle. But it can be solved, and the solution is much simpler than you think: all problems can be solved by embracing what is, embracing the present experience of life, without judging and comparing it to the past and future. Being sick is only a problem if you're comparing it to the past, when you were "healthy". Same as old age, loss of loved ones, and death. It happens to everyone, so how could it be a problem? It is intrinsically part of life. This also means embracing the fact that you will unexpectedly die one day, and from this gaining the wisdom that there is no point in sacrificing the present moment in the name of anything material or anything in the future.

 

 

Aren't you bothering traffic?

Am I bothering traffic or is the traffic bothering me? It all depends on what kind of lifestyle you support. If you support a lifestyle where productivity is more important than happiness, and big vehicles drive hours every day at high speeds to go back and forth between point A and point B, than yes, I am bothering that cycle. If you support a lifestyle where in the name of happiness, we produce less, consume less, work less, and breathe fresh air, than the hectic traffic is bothering that way of living. Imagine a village of people going around in motor-less chuckwagons. A speeding truck crosses your peaceful village and runs over a few kids and cows. Now thats bothering from the other perspective (and it happens all the time at the Dakar Rally Raid, for example).

 

 

But you're still not paying for the roads you use, you moocher

That's not a question

 

 

But you're still not paying for the roads you use, are you, you moocher?

You're right that I'm using the roads made of tarmac or asphalt or concrete or whatever that we dig out miles beneath the ground, and I'm not paying any taxes for them. But the only reason we need roads made of tarmac or asphalt or concrete or whatever that we dig out miles beneath the ground, is to be able to drive our heavy vehicles at high speeds. If people stopped taking care of the roads, they would deteriorate very fast into simple gravel roads, which is more thant good enough for walking speed, and the only maintanance needed would be the thumping of our own steps. Wait, isn't that how we lived for thousands of years before the car came along?

 

 

Where do you intend to go and how long?

How many miles I make and where I actually go makes no difference, because my objective is not a geographical one. My objective is to test, develop, and support this way of living, regardless of where I am. If on the long run, I can survive comfortably in this lifestyle, I only wish let others know it's possible and help those in need.