Stories and Anecdotes about Nonconsumers/howlies

[7Wannabe5]

@chenda:

Yes, both of those options seem appealing. I guess I was imagining something more like this.

[chenda]

Yes that definitely has homeless vibe about it. I grew up near a very controversial road building project back in the 90s, and the 'New Age Travellers' as we called them would camp out near the construction site in protest camps not dissimilar to that. Although they were mostly university graduates so the local community regarded them generally positively afaik.

[AxelHeyst]

Worth remembering that in the US, it’s generally legal to camp in the forest wherever you like. Hence it’s just called ‘camping’. Stealth camping in the US almost strictly means ‘urban camping where you aren’t supposed to and almost always in sketchy parts of town where, often, mentally unstable unhoused populations also live.”

My understanding of the UK and EU is that camping in the forest is generally not legal, but not in a big deal kind of way so lots of people do it. But since it isn’t legal you’ve got to keep it on the down low, hence “stealth camping”. But most of the UK/EU ‘stealth camping’ isn’t in sketchy parts of town, it’s in beautiful forests and glens and such.

So stealth camping on one continent means something very different than stealth camping on the other. Very few US people think solo female *camping* is particular dangerous.

Two peoples separated by a common language and all that.

[chenda]

My understanding of the UK and EU is that camping in the forest is generally not legal, but not in a big deal kind of way so lots of people do it.

I think the rules vary a lot, but you are right I think stealth camping usually refers to a rural camping outside an approved site.

[theanimal]

Worth remembering that in the US, it’s generally legal to camp in the forest wherever you like. Hence it’s just called ‘camping’. Stealth camping in the US almost strictly means ‘urban camping where you aren’t supposed to and almost always in sketchy parts of town where, often, mentally unstable unhoused populations also live.”

This is very much true west of the Mississippi. Less so to the east, which has a small fraction of public land and higher population densities. East of the Mississippi it often very much is stealth camping in the European sense, whether in a forest preserve, a city park, or a farmer's field.

Circling back to Robin's journey, most of the places along his route are rural, low population areas with lots of public land. It's not much different than doing a thru-hike on the long trails, which well over a thousand women (mostly solo!) do each year.

[loutfard]

My understanding of the UK and EU is that camping in the forest is generally not legal, but not in a big deal kind of way so lots of people do it.

Freedom to roam suggests many similarities between north America and the part of northern Europe governed by the rule of law. Sparsely populated areas generally have a kind of all man's right, versus less so in more densely populated areas.

[7Wannabe5]

Worth remembering that in the US, it’s generally legal to camp in the forest wherever you like. Hence it’s just called ‘camping’. Stealth camping in the US almost strictly means ‘urban camping where you aren’t supposed to and almost always in sketchy parts of town where, often, mentally unstable unhoused populations also live.”

Yes, this is what I meant. I am not afraid to solo camp in the forest. My friend who recently stealth bike-camped took a route that goes through two quite decrepit rust belt cities. Since, I have previously attempted permaculture projects in two other quite decrepit rust belt cities, I know that I was just barely brave enough to spend the night alone in a metal camper on a vacant lot in a decrepit neighborhood in the city. The rust belt cities in my region, including the one where I recently lived and tutored the disadvantaged left-behind children , often run right up to very rural areas without a circle of more affluent suburbs, so the urban poverty and crime runs right into realms of rural poverty and crime, so not unusual to see a drug deal taking place or somebody sleeping in their car full of trash bags in one of the dirt-road turn-offs within a federal bird sanctuary. Imagine the inhabitants of an even worse, more rural, trailer park like the one Eninem grew up in just north of 8-Mile in Detroit (I also was brave enough to walk alone through a neighborhood south of 8 mile to tutor children at a school where it was too dangerous for the kids to go outside for recess), kind of like Deliverance meets Gangland meets some scary, surreal, traveling Carnival.So, I am not brave enough to solo stealFoth tent camp along the highway in the rural outskirts of any of these isolated cities where the economic apocalypse has already happened.

[chenda]

The rust belt cities in my region, including the one where I recently lived and tutored the disadvantaged left-behind children , often run right up to very rural areas without a circle of more affluent suburbs, so the urban poverty and crime runs right into realms of rural poverty and crime, so not unusual to see a drug deal taking place or somebody sleeping in their car full of trash bags in one of the dirt-road turn-offs within a federal bird sanctuary.

That's extremely interesting @7. Is there an example of such an area I could view on street view ? The borderlands between rural and urban areas have long interested me.

[7Wannabe5]

@chenda:

I'm not sure if it is as vivid in Google Maps as real life, but try starting at Genessee Forest Mobile Home Court in Flint, Michigan, then travel along Pierson Rd. heading west until you hit the Cracker Barrel off of I-75 and turn north towards Westwood Heights Mobile Homes. Or search Zillow for houses in Saginaw, MI priced at less than $20,000 and then zoom out until you can see the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge.

[chenda]

@7w5 - Thanks that is interesting to look at. Its a type of semi-rural low density development I have never seen before. I am guessing a lot of it was once prosperous and fell on hard times over the last 30 years or so.

[7Wannabe5]

@chenda:

Yes, more like 40 years, as documented by Michael Moore in his 1989 "Roger and Me." There are also several documentaries about the more recent lead in water crisis in the city, and "Flint Town" (2018) features filmmakers embedded with the police force in the city. Since the population of the city has been declining since my childhood in some parts of the city there has been no new building or renovation since that era, so there are abandoned shopping centers with facades from the 1970s, and it's kind of like a glimpse of an alternate apocalyptic past. The route I outlined above was roughly the edge of the area being developed just before the crash.

The good news is that the river is actually quite clean, there is a small thriving hipster community, a world-class farmer's market, a resilient arts history/facilities, a brand new public library, an amazingly well-stocked and staffed maker-space, full breakfast for $3.99 at several diners, a free public beach, a decent public transportation system, a large new state park being developed very close to the center of the city, a highly motivated workforce, and the location is extremely good for climate change. If I was younger and healthier I would be gung-ho about investing in revival, because pretty much gateway to the north for the hordes of the future escaping intolerable wet bulb temperature situations. You can currently buy a whole block of houses for the median single house price in the U.S. I was too chicken to spend the night by myself in the project I was working on before it was structurally sound/sealed, because somebody kept breaking in and stealing the copper and other stuff, but I totally would have done it with a couple other people.