[VLM]

My father did something like this in his later years and I never heard any of the complaints in the article; then again he had an RV instead of a 44 liter backpack and mostly stayed in the USA rather than crossing the world. Connectivity was the main problem I heard about. I guess its much better now.

Also its not a binary decision. Its a big planet and you can select whatever tradeoff you'd prefer in a nearly pure analog fashion, its not exclusively binary "Poland OR Vietnam". For example there must be tens of thousands of places to park a RV in the USA that are similar enough not to be strange but different enough to be an adventure on time off.

Some people set the thermostat to 72F and leave it alone 24x365 (that's me!). Some people alternate setting the thermostat to 85F and 60F every couple hours and complain constantly of freezing or burning up (I work with people like that, it is such a pain to be around). That doesn't mean a third option doesn't exist of setting the thermostat to 67F, or 77F, or randomly varying from 70F to 74F from week to week, etc.

[timmaah]

Was your father working at the time?

My wife and I live, work and travel from a 25' Airstream and can definitely relate to a lot of the point the post has made as well as the "decision fatigue" mentioned in other comments. It is tough to keep focus for 8 hours when your scenery is changing from week to week and there are so many new awesome places to explore. That said.. We are currently loving it with no plans to stop or slow today. Todays adventure is mountain biking in Bend Oregon.

Decision fatigue comes in with route planning, trying to figure out if that cool forest road everyone talks about will have cell service, where to fill up with water, where to dump the tanks... all of which are near constant. We could slow it down a bit and stay in an RV park a month or so, but we enjoy moving and don't enjoy the atmosphere of most private RV parks.

[VLM]

Consulting, sort of working, yes. Very limited hours basically retired, but still helping out here and there. In an earlier era, to say the least. He never went quite to the level of parking his RV in the clients parking lot, but he came close a couple times. For one client I think he visited every office in the country over the course of one fall for an upgrade project. I don't think he ran a net profit, but he probably paid quite a few expenses. He said something once about 3piece business suits and RVs don't mix very well.

All I remember of his advice on this topic was private parks are completely deserted during the week during the school year, and there are public parks in the middle of nowhere for the weekends.

I have been to private campgrounds (as a tent camper) and even in season during the summer, the difference between 3pm Thursday and 3pm Saturday is spectacular.

The airstream sounds like fun, have a good time! As an adult child I had to drive to my parents house many a time to take care of the mail, check the place out, etc. In fact I watched the 9/11 attack reports on their TV, I happened to be there that day. I would imagine snail mail and stuff like that (vehicle registration?) is quite a challenge for a true nomad.

[keithpeter]

"Some people set the thermostat to 72F and leave it alone 24x365. Some people alternate setting the thermostat to 85F and 60F every couple hours and complain constantly of freezing or burning up..."

In some countries, you just put a jumper on or wear cooler clothes. Personally, I like to be near the weather. It is all tradeoffs.

[chiph]

Ben Wilmore does this. He has an older 40' Prevost motorcoach and drives around the country teaching Photoshop.

http://digitalmastery.com/blog/

It's certainly an intermediate stage, between backpack and putting down roots somewhere.