Nomadic Housing

We have several people we know that live nomadically and harvest from the National Forests  with permits as required. Pine cones, mushrooms, mistletoe, huckleberry, blackberry ferns and moss for florists, shelf fungus.  One gentleman has a commercial permit to harvest plants for resale, Manzanita, ferns, huckleberries. different trees. There are still people making a living and being a nomad.  One sugar pine cone retails on etsy is in the 15.00 range

Robert Ray wrote:We have several people we know that live nomadically and harvest from the National Forests  with permits as required. Pine cones, mushrooms, mistletoe, huckleberry, blackberry ferns and moss for florists, shelf fungus.  One gentleman has a commercial permit to harvest plants for resale, Manzanita, ferns, huckleberries. different trees. There are still people making a living and being a nomad.

Thanks for the information. It is something I'm looking into and will have to think even more upon what you've said and figuring out how to thrive... I am finding the idea very enticing because I haven't seen much beyond my home state, which I haven't even seen all of.

It might be interesting to document ambient ASMR nature videos for YouTube and see where that leads.

This lifestyle seems a cheaper alternative than homesteading and doesn't require you to be tethered to a desk, specific job, or, most importantly, the general feelings of poverty beyond money that stem from a lack of new experiences or the feelings of adventure.

I might be a homesteader at heart but the desire to visit the tip of Argentina which is the closest landmass to Antarctica, or the Rocky Mountains, or this and that, whatever natural wonders, still remains.

If homesteading is for stewarding the Earth, then there must remain people willing to go experience what She has to offer.

We once had an offer to work on a fishing boat up in Alaska.  

Dear hubby has always wanted to go to Alaska so it was hard to turn down.

My wife wanted an adventure and had an opportunity to work in the office on Dutch Harbor for a seafood processing facility. She was glad she went and the experience was an adventure. Much easier than working on an actual boat. That is another seasonal opportunity for a nomadic life. Wildland Firefighters are a seasonal occupation in our area too, college students work a season and makes enough money for school for a year. They camp, hike and kayak the area until their called out and secure their rig, out for so many days come back in and recover till the next call out. Hoedads was something that was common in the 70's, hippies in the forest both men and women, nomads. cool busses.

Jeff Steez wrote:I'm starting to think that for those of us that can't afford land and building an entire house on it, septic, wells, solar, animals, machinery, everything else, nomadic living to travel the national forests and parks might be the next best bet, though this lifestyle will never lead to good money to afford land and a home, it would make one rich in experience though.

The issue of having enough space to store food and process game from hunting and fishing, and the other intricacies of this lifestyle remains. If not an RV, a conversion van towing a teardrop trailer would work well.

This would allow sleeping and general camping-things to be done in the teardrop trailer, and the van can be used for storage purposes, and maintaining nomadic gizmos. I just don't wouldn't want to inevitably rely on grocery stores for the majority of food as that somewhat defeats the whole purpose to me. One might argue nomadism is to experience society, so perhaps if the foods purchased were local it would be different. A big problem with this lifestyle and living rural or traveling the parks, for me, is my love of homemade bread and pastry, which is far more suitable on a homestead...

One of the ugliest houses I've ever seen just built in my town, rather small with essentially no front or back yard, was $700,000.

Every option has some sort of downside. I gave up having a vehicle and more in order to be free to live off-grid on land we bought. There are times when I look at the nomadic lifestyle and yearn. Maybe it's just me, and I should be grateful for the security I do have.

The grass is always greener… hard to argue complete security if life inevitably ends in death, but I understand your security of having a home with a roof and hearth comforts. Homesteader or nomad, it’s hard to argue against either in opposition to a 9-5 desk job lifestyle, unless of course that is how one might afford either of the two.

For about $20,000 and perpetual gas, insurance and food, traveling the America’s could be nice.

Tyler Ludens wrote:

It would be keen if there were groups of permies traveling the country stopping in to stay for awhile on other permies' land!

Tyler, this is so far in the future now, but I myself have been working on something like this for the past handful of years! If you’d like to bounce ideas around about what potential semi-nomadic land stewards might look like, PLEASE give me a shout! The idea I have so far is Project: Land Stewards; a group of people that travel from place to place, with permanent raised platforms set up at each site for pack/unpack-able yurts. At each site, I have a whole list of native plant species, herbs, and crops of the NorthEast that can be integrated into surrounding landscapes; and that exponentially increase abundance of harvest with each passing year. I think if you could get a steady donation flow going into a group like that for staple food/basic expenses, and provide paid work through “regenerative landscaping” for surrounding properties/households, say, 2 days/wk. There’s a whole lot more I’ve got on how it might look, but I would love any feeeback, tweaks, questions, or advice
Hope the winter is treating you well wherever you may be
-Dylan