RV Nomads

off grid for free...

There are more RVers and Van life nomads now in the United States than ever before in history. The business of RV, Bus, or Van conversions has skyrocketed across the country. This type of lifestyle has given many people other alternative housing options which can include living off grid for free. For those people who are able to work remotely it can become quite a unique blessing. There has been an upsurge in RVing or living the Van life after the 2008 Wall Street economic collapse that left millions of people affected and homeless. Many people simply started to remove themselves from the society at large. They were tired of the living life on the mouse wheel and never getting their fair share of the cheese. Since then, with the continuation of house prices increasing across the nation, many of the younger generations have embraced these types of alternative ways of living.

This kind of lifestyle has taken off during Covid as well. Since corporations have allowed people to work away from the office there are many people who have decided to detach themselves from the grid and live a more freeing life. There are various social media platforms that have allowed people to create an income stream for themselves and to make a more independent and freeing lifestyle that suits their desires and hobbies much more thoroughly without the feeling of being tied down into a 30 year mortgage. It can be quite a freeing feeling for those who are able to pull it off.

I have participated in a wide variety of real estate ventures over the years. Some have been very profitable and some not so much. All of them have included a measured level of stress. The least stressful venture has been this mobile housing unit that allows me to live anywhere I want. I can be on the grid or off the grid. I can be in a town one night and a forest the next. I am able to take my home with me where ever I want to go and arrive to Burning Man in style.

In 2018, right as the forest fires began in northern California, I purchased a 1990 35ft Fleetwood RV that had been used as a Sheriff Mobile Command Center. I had been looking for a bus renovation project for a while, but when the fires began the prices for used units doubled nearly over night. So, I pulled the trigger at a vehicle auction on a vehicle that had the structure and systems already installed, but simply needed a lot of cosmetic renovations before I would call it “the shit” or rather “THE RIG”.

As a sherrif unit there had been a lot of additional electrical wiring completed to accommodate their intense and remote needs. There were shelves and cabinets for all of the scanners and monitors that they would need for a forest fire or SWAT type of action. They had never used the bathroom, the tanks, or the refrigerator. They had also installed a 6000W generator that was worth the amount that I paid for the whole thing.

This was just after I purchased and brought it to where I lived at the time.

The inside after I had demoed nearly everything out of the unit.

Most of my adult life I had been building homes. Either as a general contractor in CA or TX working for other home owners, or as CEO of my own construction firm and building homes that I had designed, or as a real estate investor with rental homes across the country. However, there is a different kind of joy and creativity that I have come to find in the building out of a bus.

In my project I took everything apart and rebuilt it from the tires up. Despite so much renovation that has been done there are always touch ups or maintenance issues that arise. Just like owning a home. Although, there are no city or county inspections involved in the renovation of a bus, van or RV.

I had some layouts and design ideas of what I wanted to accomplish, but with renovation of a bus it is easy to change ideas when the mood strikes without breaking the bank. A bit different when you are building or renovating a home.

When I first got the RV, I originally thought I would head out and produce a documentary on the failed American dream. So, I have done some interesting design ideas in order to help make it a production studio on the road. I made a demo for that film and posted it on my Youtube page long before I was ready to head out on the road and long before I had even purchased my Rig.

Here is a funny story though. I did leave to begin production on my film, but I didn’t get too far. I was heading south out of the northern San Francisco bay area where I had been living off grid in Sonoma County, CA, for a while. I was driving down to the Los Angeles area where I had a handful of interviews scheduled to do with foreclosed homeowners and a few judges that wanted to discuss foreclosure corruption. I hadn’t gone maybe 30 miles when “the rig” began over heating. (Notice that I used lower case there. It hadn’t graduated to become “THE RIG” quite yet.) At any rate, I pulled off the highway and into residential areas to find a place to park and reassess. Little did I know that I was only a few blocks away from where my future wife lived. After a few days of living on the side of the road and waiting for the appropriate tow truck to handle a 35ft machine to arrive, I then towed it to my local RV specialist who then told me I melted three pistons. Damn. So, I had a new engine installed.

You may not be able to tell from the photo below, but I mixed up a special kind of exterior paint for the outside. When the light shines on it in the early morning or at the right dusk hour of the day there is a hint of deep purple that can be seen eminating from the blackness. I kept the shield emblem on the side since it gets recognized and appreciated by the Sheriff or Highway patrol peeps when I am out on the road.

The infrared fireplace adds ambiance as well as additional heating options. The concrete mantle with inlaid blue glass chips is a nice feature. The dining table that flips up is covered in a rare stamp collection that I acquired from a client. I like the detail of the 1 1/8” plywood that I glued together on end to make the panel you see. There is no furniture in the living area, excepting the bean bag chair you see in the right corner.

I am doing some tweakies to the kitchen cabinet door panels. The sink has a reverse osmosis water filtration system installed. The stove has four burners with high btu’s for great home cooked meals. Under the stove is a small oven/air fryer with which I cooked a whole chicken for my first meal in the Rig with Krista. The fridge runs on 12v electric or lp gas. It monitors itself when necessary to switch as it needs depending on the living situation.

I originally demoed everything out of the RV except the fridge. All of the bathroom was quite dated. I designed and created a white hand troweled white polished concrete shower stall with a small seat. The bathroom counter also includes a concrete countertop with inlaid blue glass likened to the fireplace mantle. I wanted to make the unit to be off grid”able”. So, I installed a compost style toilet. These are easy to use and easy to deal with. There is a slight learning curve and some personal issues that one might need to get past to enjoy this, but I don’t need to or I didn’t want to have tanks filled with shit…

The bedroom has a lot of under storage. The headboard is the same design that I built when creating the award winning, world class One Union Recording studios after they had been destroyed by fire. The remediation for that project came at a cost of over $5m and Apple has since approved it as its primier Dolby Atmos 9.4.1 mixing rooms in the San Francisco bay area.

You can see to the left the pressed plywood counterop for the glass bowl vanity sink.

Krista and I recently watched the movie “Nomadland”. This is an interesting film about living life on the road in America today. It is based on the 2017 nonfiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, by Jessica Bruder. It stars Frances McDormand as a widow who leaves to travel around the United States in her van as a nomad.

I have taken THE RIG to Lake Tahoe and have lived off-grid in Sonoma county. It is our intention to take it to Burning Man this year. We will be preparing for that trip with a few weekends to prep out some issues. Burning Man is not for the squeamish.

One can travel across this great land of ours and enjoy the RV, Bus or Van life in a variety of ways. There are many upscal campgrounds designed for glamping. Or one could join some RV living clubs and there are wineries across the country that allow travelers to stay on their land for free or a small fee. Or one might do what is done at Burning Man and find a parcel of BLM land and sit for how ever long you want for free. The Bureau of Land Management allows RVers to live off-grid for free.

If your rig has generators, solar panels, or both you can make yourself at home in this land of the free and home of the brave. It is only a matter of your own personal desires and levels of comfort. Until the government decides to change things, you can make a more independent and freeing lifestyle that suits your desires and hobbies much more thoroughly without the feeling of being tied down. If you want you can find many places to tie into the grid, but for those who are a bit more adventurous you can find yourself in the Badlands, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, the Blue Ridge Mountains, upstate New York, or perhaps the boundry waters of Minnesota, or the beautiful Oregon coast. One might even find themselves heading through the Florida Keys to find the same views as Hemmingway had in order to write the great American novel.

Speaking of such, I didn’t head out to make my film, yet. Instead I have turned that idea into my acclaimed book “Quantum of Justice”. Perhaps I will find the time to do my film, but for now I am proud of what has transpired and been completed.

We will soon see where this RIG will lead us.

I look forward to hearing from you. What type of camping or glamping do you enjoy? Where are some of your favorite spots across this great land of ours? Do you have some Bus, RV, or VAn renovations that you have done?