Also, re: lifestyle. You can live the van life like it's portrayed in Nomadland, but if you do it the woodsie way, you need to be comfortable in the woods. It's a cavernous silence, and you're often all alone for days at a time. You do, however, sleep the sleep of the dead because it's so quiet.

If you're comfortable with solitude, if you actively seek it out, you can be a rubbertramp, woodsie, etc. If you need people around, you better bunk up or get a dog, because it can be mighty lonely.

And if you know how to search carefully, you can put your camp right on top of great beauty, freely and legally.

I once camped for a month only a mile up a gravel road from Dunton Hot Springs, where big money pays really big money for food and glamping, surrounded by scenery that almost defies believability. I saw bear, elk, marmots (awesome little animals) and ate fresh trout every day from the river next to my camp. Cost. $0. Next door they were paying $5000/day.

I lived with that freedom and had that exact same thought. “3 weeks vacation… wait… that’s like 40 weeks of work…”

And yeah, I always miscalculate that joke to further distance the normies.