Nomadland

by Jessica Bruder

  Bob gets his annual haircut from cosmetologist Kyndal Dimon.

  At sunrise each morning, one vandweller, Lesa NeSmith, rose to start the first campfire and boil a pot of cowboy coffee for anyone who strolled by with a cup. That was an old tradition for Lesa. Way back when she lived in a Richmond, Virginia, high-rise, Sunday mornings were about getting up early, brewing coffee in an electric pot, and propping open her apartment door to show neighbors the coffee was on and ready to share.

  There were group meals: a bring-your-own-topping baked potato night, along with chili and soup dinners where everyone added something to the colossal cooking pots, harkening back to the hobo stews of the 1930s’ Great Depression. Every night after sunset, someone lit a big bonfire, though it was often abandoned by nine or ten, when sleepiness began tugging at eyelids and the evening chill set in.

  There was also a pervasive feeling of pride. Almost everyone I met shared the attitude of Al Christensen, a sixty-two-year-old former advertising art director who preferred to call himself “houseless,” he told me, rather than “homeless.” As suits his ex-profession, Al is deft with words. He described watching advertising gigs dry up over a period of several years, with the few remaining opportunities going to younger creatives. He went from working at a “virtual agency” to being “virtually unemployed,” he explained. A self-described loner, Al could only handle being around people so much. Al had to leave the RTR in the middle of a seminar on budgeting to catch up on his solitude. He came back a few days later, though. He liked the people at the RTR and felt that it put a good face on nomadic lifestyle, “made it seem very possible and respectable—it’s not like I live down by the river in a van.”

  Linda was also delighted by the conviviality. She wanted to learn as much as she could and went to the seminars that started at ten most mornings. Many RTR old-timers were already fluent in what Bob taught—either they’d gleaned the lessons from their own lives, had attended nearly identical seminars the year before, or had read his book, which was called How to Live in a Car, Van or RV . . . And Get Out of Debt, Travel & Find True Freedom. While Bob’s book was fairly practical, it also included some exercises for aspiring vandwellers that bordered on performance art. “Practice in your apartment,” it advised. “The first step is to move into your bedroom and stop using the rest of the house.” The next step, it continued, was determining the internal measurements of your future van home. If you anticipated having, say, sixty square feet, you could build a working model based on that. “Get some big cardboard boxes and use them to make a six foot by ten foot space in the corner of your bedroom,” the book explained. “Now move into your cardboard ‘van.’ Instead of living in the bedroom you will live in your little cardboard van.” (For anyone stressed about the prospects of moving into a van, it’s hard to imagine that doing dry runs in a refrigerator box would boost morale.)

  Still nearly everyone, old-timers included, showed up with folding chairs to settle in and listen. Some took notes. Others were too busy warding off the cold morning air, stuffing hands into the pockets of their hoodies or sipping from mugs of steaming coffee. A few tried keeping order among the roving legions of nomads’ dogs. They came in every shape—from Chihuahua to coonhound to mild-mannered half-wolf—and wandered around during the seminars, greeting each other, soliciting treats, sniffing ashes in the fire pit, peeing on creosote bushes (and once on my audio recorder), and breaking out in occasional scuffles.

  One of the liveliest seminars taught the art of stealth parking. Aimed at urban vandwellers, who often dodged anti-camping laws, the lessons were about blending into one’s surroundings to avoid getting the dreaded “knock” of a police officer tapping on the door, a drunk pounding the walls, or passersby squinting through the windows, asking “Is someone living in there?” Everyone knew about “the knock.” It was a common enemy. Swankie even had nightmares about it. “I have this strange surreal dream of someone knocking on the van,” she once wrote. “Usually happens if I am not 100% comfortable with where I am parking or boondocking. It’s annoying as heck. Never anyone there. Well, sometimes someone is there, but if it is police or security, they usually SPEAK.”

  Bob’s first piece of advice was finding a safe zone. His career in the grocery industry and his early experiences camping in the parking lot of his workplace made him a huge fan of twenty-four-hour supermarkets. He added that, in some cities where overnight parking at Walmart was prohibited, nomads might find refuge at other big chains including Kmart, Sam’s Club, Costco, Home Depot, and Lowe’s. Retailers that catered to outdoor enthusiasts, such as Bass Pro and Cabela’s, might also be a good bet. Cracker Barrel was famously tolerant of RVers. Strip malls and all-night diners like Denny’s can also work well. Sometimes the best plan was positioning your rig between two businesses; each will assume you’re visiting the other. Wherever you park, it’s smart to back into the spot—that way the nose of your vehicle points out to the road and you can leave fast if there’s trouble. And when you stay in one place for a while—particularly when you’re near residential areas—it’s good to have both a day camp and a night camp. The daytime location is where you can go about all your regular activities, including anything you need to do in the evening to prepare for bed. The night camp is somewhere you go after dark, strictly for the purposes of sleeping. Then you leave first thing the next morning. If you must use a light when you’re already at your night camp, consider a red-tinted headlamp, which is less glaring.

  Bob also emphasized the importance of having a good story ready. If you’re parked near a hospital, you’re visiting a patient. If you’re parked at an auto repair shop, you’re getting the engine fixed. But when it came to alibis, he urged his flock to know their limits and not to overdo it with tall tales. “If you’re not a good storyteller, don’t try to tell stories,” he said.

  Another element was camouflage. That meant keeping your vehicle clean, clearing the passenger seat of laundry and other clutter, and avoiding adornments that might draw interest, from antenna toppers to window decals and bumper stickers. (This last point raised tongue-in-cheek disagreement. What about an “Ask Me About Jesus” sticker? Wouldn’t that keep people away? One of the nomads, who was not religious, had affixed such a sticker to his pickup camper as both an experiment and an inside joke.) People living in cargo vans, Bob suggested, could go for a workman look—leave a safety vest sitting out so it’s visible through the windshield, have a ladder rack on the roof. Those living in white vans could seek out local businesses—such as plumbing or catering services—that have fleets of similar vehicles and attempt to blend with the herd. Camouflage also meant trying not to batten down your hatches too much—if your van always has the windows blocked with curtains, people will wonder what’s going on in there. And it meant trying to avoid attention when going to wash up in a public restroom by being clever, such as having a hunting or outdoors-style vest with many small pockets you’ve stocked with toiletries, for example.

  Bob also emphasized: police were not always the enemy. Some vandwellers and RVers recounted getting “the knock” from concerned officers who just wanted to ask if they were alright. There were reports from one vandweller in Ohio about a friendly cop who sometimes brought her coffee. By researching a town in advance or talking to other vandwellers, you could learn a great deal about local attitudes. In friendly places, the best choice might be going straight to the police station, telling a hard luck story, and asking where in town it would be safe to park overnight. And remember: No matter how sneaky you’re being, it’s quite likely the local police are aware of your presence. “Cops are pretty smart. They’re going to realize something’s up if you’ve been ‘just passing through’ for the past six months.”

  Everyone recognized, however, that it was often preferable to avoid police altogether. Some had clever ways of doing it. One vandweller online talked about installing a police scanner app on his smartphone. By listening to chatter on the local law enforcement channels, he could
determine if anyone had reported him for illegal camping and get away before the cops showed up. And it had another purpose, too. If hooligans approached, he could scare them off by playing the police radio loudly, with all its static and squelches, to make his rig sound like an undercover law enforcement vehicle.

  Another popular seminar was Bob’s talk on budgeting, which came with a strong message in favor of minimalism and against consumer culture. Bob told people that, while they were slaves to the market economy, they could maximize their freedom by paring down material needs and spending less. “By society’s standards, I’m a pauper, but by vandweller standards I live pretty well,” he explained. He recommended economizing on gas by carpooling to town whenever possible, avoiding unnecessary drives, and checking smartphone apps like Gas Buddy to find the cheapest filling stations. He urged them to keep an emergency fund—$2,000 or so—even if they had to build it slowly, setting aside an envelope and adding $3 each day. He said he knew someone living on $250 a month. “How many people here are living on $500 or less a month?” he asked. A few hands went up. “How many are debt free?” The trickle of hands became a flood, prompting laughs and cheers. One guy stood to snap a picture. “You wouldn’t see this anywhere else in America!” he marveled.

  When someone raised the topic of making money while traveling, one vandweller revealed that he was an itinerant poker dealer. Casinos all over the country hire short-term dealers to staff tournaments and the job can easily pay $30 an hour, with free food during the workday. At his first gig, the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, he made $11,000 in seven weeks. The hiring process appeared to be age-blind; he’d met dealers in their seventies and eighties. He could only think of two downsides. The first was that prospective dealers had to attend training classes and, while sometimes casinos offered them for free, they could otherwise cost a few hundred dollars. The second was you have to shower every day.

  After the budgeting lecture, Linda told me that, while she wasn’t so sure about going back to Amazon, the dealer gig sounded fantastic. It made her think back to her days working as a cigarette girl and cocktail waitress at the Riverside Casino. “I would do that in a flash!” she said. “I would go deal poker.”

  Other seminars offered advice on installing solar panels, workamping, cooking with a limited kitchen, and boondocking on public land. At an anonymous Q&A session, participants wrote difficult questions on slips of paper they dropped into a tin can. A moderator read them aloud. What can I do if my family won’t accept the way I live? How do I find someone to date? There was the occasional joke, too. How do you have sex in a van?

  Bob also explained how to get cut-rate dentistry in Los Algodones, a town in the Mexican state of Baja California nicknamed “the Molar City” because some 350 practitioners crowd into a few blocks. Linda hoped to make a trip there at some point to get her upper dentures repaired. They’d fallen out of her shirt pocket when she reached down to pat Coco and she’d accidentally stepped on them. Bob had gone to Los Algodones for the first time after he got a $2,500 quote from a Nevada dentist, which was way more than he could afford. He ended up getting the same work done for $600. Although the difference isn’t always quite that dramatic, dental procedures typically cost less than half the American price.

  Bob began traveling to Los Algodones each year for a $25 teeth cleaning. Since the town is also packed with cheap opticians and pharmacies, he’d stock up on medication to control his high blood pressure—no prescription required—and also pay about $100 for an eye exam and new glasses. On one such occasion, I got to join him for the annual excursion. A group of us carpooled the eighty miles from Scaddan Wash near Quartzsite down to Yuma, then drove a bit farther west to the small border community of Andrade. We parked near a casino owned by the local Quechan tribe and walked across the border, past a sign that said BIENVENIDOS in large letters and, in smaller type below, had a warning for visiting Americans. “Guns are illegal in Mexico,” it said.

  Bob led us to a new-looking building with a glass and marble façade. Along the right side hung a banner with photos of smiling patients—mostly white people—superimposed over an illustration of a dental implant. We walked through the mirrored front doors. Inside, the staff wore crisp, blue-gray scrubs and invited us to sit in a waiting room with diploma-covered walls. Bob tolerated my following him into an immaculate office, where his previous X-rays were loaded on a monitor. When I left to explore the town, he was leaning back in the patient’s chair under a bright light, mouth agape, as his dentist peered inside.

  Back on the street, I wandered past curio stands and liquor shops, signs for half-off hearing aids, and a pharmacy whose dry erase board advertised discount Viagra and diet pills. In one storefront, a pair of dental technicians sat at a workbench; one wore a face mask and was cutting into a plaster cast of teeth with a small hacksaw. White-haired tourists sat at outdoor patios, eating shrimp tacos, sipping margaritas, sometimes dancing to live music. A guitarist crooned “Desperado.” Around the corner, strains of “Hotel California” drifted out of a bar. Later I read a blog post by a nomad who’d visited Los Algodones after the RTR and was treated to a soundtrack of “Take It to the Limit” and “Lyin’ Eyes” on the stereo while he got his teeth cleaned and X-rayed. It seemed you couldn’t walk a block without hearing the Eagles.

  We waited until after the noon-to-three lunchtime rush, when it’s possible to stand in line at the border station for more than an hour, then crossed back to Arizona.

  LINDA WAS ENJOYING her inaugural Rubber Tramp Rendezvous when we met for the first time, after the budgeting seminar. I asked how she was finding things. “Oh my god,” she said. “The other day, for the first time in years and years, I felt joy. Joy! That’s better than being happy,” she said, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she told me about taking a trip to town with Silvianne. “We were just driving down the street in her little bus, looking for a place to put the trash, and I was like, ‘This how we live. This is such a wonderful thing to do.’”

  A few days later, Linda was still riding that surge of fine feelings. She told me about how she’d been in survival mode when she discovered Bob’s website. “Now I not only survive, I thrive!” she marveled. “Which is, you know, the idea—you want to thrive in your old age, not just survive day to day.”

  After months of racing around the warehouse, she was finally starting to relax. Things that were usually annoying became funny, like the bill collector who kept calling, over and over, trying to reach another woman who’d been previously assigned to Linda’s phone number. In the past, Linda had dutifully explained the mix-up. Now she said, “Hang on. I’ll get her!” before leaving the phone on hold for twenty minutes. She cracked herself up.

  Jen and Ash joined Linda at the RTR in mid-January. After finishing up at Amazon, they’d visited family in Colorado, hiked the Grand Canyon’s southern rim, and toured Earthships in New Mexico. They found Linda and parked the Manatee right behind her RV. They were not surprised that, in the time they had taken to get there, she had made a bunch of new friends for them to meet.

  One of them was Lois Middleton, sixty-one, camped nearby in a ten-foot 1965 Aloha trailer she’d named Home Sweet Home, or Lil’ Homey for short. Like Linda, Lois had worked as a building inspector. But after more than two decades on that job in Vancouver, Washington, she got squeezed out of her job in 2010 amid looming cutbacks. Other dominoes began to fall. Her father died. Her car got repossessed. She lost her house to foreclosure. She declared bankruptcy. She had hoped to eventually move in with her son, but then his house got foreclosed on, too. When Lois set out in Lil’ Homey, it was without knowing what came next. Or as she told me: “The plan is there is no plan.”

  Linda didn’t realize it yet, but she had also met the woman who would become her best friend. (Later, they’d start calling each other “BFF.” At first it sounded like tongue-in-cheek millennial-speak but, in time, the jokey veneer wore off, leaving only sincerity.) LaVonne Ellis was a sixty-seven-year
-old writer who had been on the road since October. After a career in broadcast journalism that included working as a radio correspondent for ABC, she had ended up at a station in Minneapolis. A new boss came in and eliminated the news desk. She got promoted to management but it wasn’t working out. They let her go. She figured she’d get a new job quickly, only to discover in her fifties how much harder the job market was. “I sort of aged out,” she reflected. After moving in with her sister to hunt for work, she finally got offered a gig: reading thirty-second traffic reports for $10 an hour. She took it, working first in Los Angeles, then in San Diego. The money was tight—especially because LaVonne was a single mother whose younger son was still in the house—but she was managing alright until the migraines hit. Over time, she’d found herself increasingly sensitive to chemicals and fragrances. She’d managed to adapt at home with odor-free cleaning products, but now the hours she spent in the office left her head throbbing. Finally, she quit, going on welfare and disability. Though she managed to get piecework online, it never brought in much income. She ended up sleeping on a cot in the living room of a one-bedroom apartment she shared with her son and his wife. She hated feeling like she was cramping them, but she didn’t know where else to go. Still, it wasn’t working. Then she read a book on van­dwelling. It gave her another idea.