For many of us, the RV life is a series of pleasure trips.
We travel for a few weeks or months, economizing as much as we need to, then go
back home for a while. We catch up on paying bills, doing laundry, returning
library books, and other tasks. We upload photos of our travels onto Facebook,
and print them for albums. My partner and I include the details of our travels
in a possibly annoying annual holiday letter, also. It’s all a rather enviable
life.
One subset of Rvers, full-timers, stay on the road nearly
continually. Those I’ve met have fairly large rigs that make traveling easier.
They may be equipped with washers and dryers, elaborate equipment for barbecuing,
and other comforts. Full-timers usually establish an address in states such as
Texas and Florida, where taxes are low. Their mail is delivered to those
addresses and forwarded on to wherever the full-timers are staying for a few
days. When questioned closely, they usually admit that they have some furniture
and other possissions stored at a relative’s home or in a self-storage unit. In
some sense, they have roots.
For some others, though, life on the road is not a choice.
For a variety of reasons, they have no permanent homes. They live like nomads,
following the sun or opportunities for work. Jessica Bruder has chronicled
their lives in Nomadland, a rather
frightening description of what it’s like to be “houseless,” if not actually
homeless. Most of this group live in vans rather than real RVs, which means
they have no bathrooms or real kitchens. They are on the move continually, as
they are not allowed to overstay limits in campgrounds (when they are even lucky
enough to be in a campground rather than in a Wal-Mart parking lot or other
temporary spot). Bruder prepared for her book by living as a nomad herself for
a time, befriending many of the loosely knit community.
Though the nomadic life has a certain romantic appeal, especially
to the young and to environmentalists, Bruder demonstrates how difficult it is.
These are not retirees who don’t need to work, and employers take advantage of
them. They may take temporary jobs as “workampers” at RV resorts or in warehouses.
The jobs are physically demanding and pay little; they also tend to disappear
at an employer’s convenience.
Those of us who have a more comfortable RV life may find
ourselves looking down at those living in worse circumstances, but it is all
too easy for someone in the middle class to slip down the ladder. A few years
ago, a study showed that more than 40 per cent of Americans would find it
impossible to come up with $400 in an emergency. They live paycheck to
paycheck, and have no savings to draw on. I have personally experienced the
effects of catastrophic medical costs on those who thought they had done
everything right. As Bruder shows, Nomadland may be the geography of the twenty-first
century for many.
Text copyright © 2017 by Carol Stone
Text copyright © 2017 by Carol Stone
