Stories from Rideshare

Despite drained bank accounts with nothing flowing in, I'm set on challenging the road as is, so the first move is to set up a ride out of the city going, as always, anywhere. With commercial travel out of the question, I turned to craigslist rideshare.

I stumbled through the most promising looking listings in search of the free rides (most people ask for gas money, which is reasonable, but I'm broke). I found rides going as far as California and Florida, and while I sent out my emails to inquire, I also found a lot of value in reading through all the listings.

With every listing is a story, travel is always accompanied by an idea, a goal, often passion. People are moving to new cities, following the snow, or just feeling trapped in New York City. I was surprised to read more than a couple rides listed explicitly for the sake of traveling indefinitely, not just rides, but road trips and lifestyle changes, people who want to explore America, with loose plans to settle in California once they've had enough, daring anyone to come along.

When I considered and finally executed the idea of becoming a permanent traveler, I wondered how many out there were doing the same thing. I've met a decent amount and have just recently been discovering that there are thousands of others who've been living it, just started, or are seriously considering experiencing the world first hand.

It excites me to know how much collective experience can be shared, and I also dig the idea that the site I've been building may actually hugely benefit so many people, and the more people who use it, the better it will become for myself and everyone else. To everyone looking to get out there, I say go for it. Family and friends, and even you may have your doubts, my family thinks I should get a job and friends from home often suggest ways to stick around.

There's no amount of doubt that will ever be stronger than the lure of the unknown and the open road. Imagining stories from craigslist posts or reading them in books is great, but it sure doesn't beat living them yourself.

Developers Deserve Shake Shack

I've been going strong developing the new version of Hobo Lifestyle the past week, pretty much all the time. It's shaping out to a sort of Facebook/Couchsurfing/Craigslist/Orbitz hybrid, and should make traveling and exploring the world easier, and much more fun. It's exciting to put it all together, and even more exciting to see the traffic growing on the site and people using the travel tools I built.

After all this time spent developing ideas, coding, and designing... I need some Shake Shack. I've been craving a double shack burger for some time now, and it's just been confirmed that their heat lamps are working now too. I've been trying to line it up to go with a few friends, but work stands between them and the beautiful symphony of beef and cheese, so a solo trip may be in order.

I planned to temp this week, but after getting no word from the suits, I've turned to other methods of collecting money needed for the next bill cycle. Selling some old audio gear and a computer gig from a while back should be enough, and in no more than a week I should be exploring a different part of the country again, good times now, good times later.

Updates to Flights

So I told you about the new travel site, as part of HoboLifestyle.com. I also mentioned how I wanted to get better information about all I could, and specifically flights. I've made a few improvements already since then that are worth noting, with thanks to Expedia, Orbitz, and a little Travelocity too.

First, for certain flights you'll start seeing not only direct links to flight information, but the lowest price will be visible before clicking any links at all. I have Expedia to thank for that one.

And second, you'll almost always see a link that links directly to schedules and pricing with no additional clicking around. I say almost because if you enter two cities without airports, then well, there's no flights. Soon I'll tweak even that to try and find the closest airport so it'll work either way, I've already started working on a database of airports and whatnot to get that going.

That second part was made possible by Travelocity and Orbitz, special thanks to Orbitz for being especially helpful and prompt in providing a very easy solution.

Don't Blog About Court

This morning I had my day in court for the whole knife thing from Christmas time. The lawyer, the one my parents thought was needed, has advised me not to blog about the details, fearing my postings could interfere with the case. While I think it's pretty ridiculous and disrespectful to infer that writing candidly about events in my life could work against me, I'll suffice to say that for now the only update on this whole ordeal is another court date later in March.

Despite his (the lawyer's) words that there's no need to write about it, I think it is relevant to my Hobo Lifestyle in that it means I'll have to be in New York City again this March. I've been spending a good amount of time around these parts lately, off and on for the past 2 months actually. I dig the scene around here, and it's fun to see advances with Sean playing more bass in his new formed band, the same band where I may play xylophone (damn right). There's also a chance the basement in their apartment building will become a studio/rehearsal space. Plus a new room mate is moving in, things are shaking up nicely.

Despite all of this, I still itch for the road, places as close as Boston and as far as Japan are on my mind. Although I've been in one spot, I've still made lot's of progress with the site, particularly the travel part that anyone can use. Imagine how itchy my itch gets when I'm pouring over the hundreds of ways to travel between thousands of locations.

I plan to stick around another week or two, maybe temping a bit, working on the site some more, and hopefully recording a few songs. After that I'll try to cover some ground and be back in time for court (stop mentioning that!!) in late march.

Fly, Drive, Ride or Hitchhike with Hobo Travel

Whether you're flying, busing it, hitchhiking, taking the subway, or whatever - I've got your back. I made an awesome new travel site as part of Hobo Lifestyle. You just enter where you are and where you want to go, and it shows all possible ways to get there, even public transit for short distances. Check it out!

So if you're in CT trying to get to the city, Metro North schedules will pop up, and once you get to the city you can get subway directions too. The site is even formatted for your mobile phone (iPhones, Smart Phones, Blackberrys, etc) so you can get directions on the go. Just go to www.HoboLifestyle.com/travel, that's it. If you're going cross country, you'll see flights, or if you don't have cash like that, a hitchhiking guide for that route and rideshare listings (people driving that way willing to let you come along).

It works by pulling and linking to info from everywhere, and I'm still adding to it. For example, the subway/public transit info is possible because of Hop Stop and Google Transit, driving directions and information is from the Google Map API, there's Chinatown bus info (great for NY <-> Boston and NY <-> Phili by the way), Metro North from Daniel Krook's little mobile app, Greyhound Bus links, Amtrak links, and flights through Travelocity/Orbitz (still seeing which is better), and even links to the Craigslist Rideshare for the relevant city.

Speaking of rideshare, I further built out what I had started so now you can offer and request rides directly on the hobo site, available rides are then shown graphically on the map when people do a search for that ride.

I'm just now *releasing* this, so there's plenty of room for improvement and surely a bug here and there. I'm also trying to get as deeply integrated as possible, so for some means of travel you'll see more info(prices, schedule, etc) than others without clicking too many links. For flights in particular I'm working with Orbitz, Travelocity, and other sources to show the best information possible, instead of a generic link, so you'll see improvements there in the near future.

You'll also notice in some cases you can click "Explore Boston, MA", for example. I've *just* began this so there's not a whole lot to see, although you will see useful links to local hostels, hotels, and a couchsurfing link for now.

There's a lot more planned and underway, including blow-your-mind features like road trip pages and sms hitchhiking. For your comments and suggestions check out the Hobo Lifestyle Facebook Group or the Google Group.

Note: This is what happens if I stay in one spot for too long...

Not Roots, but Definitely Seeds

I'm in New York, as dictated by my upcoming court date. If you don't know what the court thing is about, then I give you no benefit of a link, you'll have to dig for more info. Anyways, here I am.

I'm thinking about sticking around... in Astoria... for a bit. It's hard to say what will happen, not only by what the wind will do with me, but the judge's decision as well. Ignoring the judge for a moment though, I've thought about staying to temp for a week or three. There are a couple bills to pay that require money, and temping has often provided unique experiences which can prove enjoyable.

Screw all that though, I'm happy to have planted some seeds. I've convinced a good enough portion of the New York etc crowd to join me for a road trip come this summer, right after 4th of July. Specifically-ish Sean, Mark, Carl, Alex, Kelly, Carolina and Sean's camper van will take off for at least a week (hopefully two or more), hitting the road and see what happens.

I'm glad I can influence more people to take on the lifestyle, if only for a fleeting week. I've made myself comfortable, content to ignore creditors asking for their money among other things, driven only by the moment and passion's demands. It's difficult to turn others onto my mindset *fulltime*, but to grab a bit of their time feels good.

Getting my closest friends on the road will be great. Tentative plans include playing music on the road, selling grilled cheese, and seeing long lost friends. If you have an idea better than that, I challenge you to comment on it, and I welcome you to join us.

Greyhound Experiences

Most people I've met hate Greyhound. Makes sense, but instead of hate, I find interest in the apparent clusterfuck that is the Greyhound bus experience. I've ridden the bus a bunch of times going various distances, here's some of the more interesting experiences and observations I've had:

1) Every hour or two of riding or waiting at the station, you will hear at least one person say (usually peppered with expletives), "I will never ride Greyhound ever again".

2) The bus sometimes makes stops at obscure parking lots, often near a McDonalds for people to take a 15 minute break or so. After one such break, we started to pull out of the lot, when everyone in the back of the bus started hooting and hollering "Driver! You forgot someone, she's running after the bus!", these shouts were answered by the driver getting on the intercom saying "I said everyone back on the bus by 4:35pm". We hadn't even made our way out of the parking lot, but that woman would be left behind without her luggage, purse, and phone as the driver knowingly drove off and away.

3) A woman was mistakenly directed to a bus going in the opposite direction, after arriving 300 miles backwards, she was told to wait until 2am with her daughter for the next bus, and she would have to pay for another ticket for her "bonus" trip, it was now 7pm.

4) I watched a girl of 20 something sit down and introduce herself to like-aged guy in the seat next to her. 100 miles down the road they were having sex without a care who saw, she was on top, no one said a word.

5) Almost without fail, a gray haired white person will ask some chatty black folk what the word "nigger" is all about, and who's allowed to say it.

6) If you're traveling more than 1000 miles, there's an excellent chance your bus will "break" somehow, and you'll need to wait while they get a new one. I've seen heaters break in brick cold winter, AC go out in blistering summer, shocks go out, "a gasket or something crazy" stop working, tires go out, all kinds of problems.

7) Once in Amarillo, TX the driver got on the bus, introduced himself, and then asked if anyone knew how to get to Oklahoma City, our destination.

8) In general, the drivers coffee and lengthy conversations with co-workers are more important than getting on the road.

9) No matter how scattered and terrible you think your trip is going, there's always someone in worse shape. Look around at any station and you'll find someone who's been held up 8+ hours waiting for delayed bus, their luggage is 500 miles away in an unknown direction, they haven't showered in days, have no more money, and their voice is shot from cursing out drivers and people behind the desk.

10) Don't be surprised in the route the bus takes. Sure, you're going south, but the bus has to go north, transfer you, west, then east again, maybe north once more, then south, a little loopage, and then bam! You're at your destination.

No Greyhound trip is without incident. If you're in a hurry or easily disgusted it's probably best you fly, it's going to be about the same price and faster in most cases. If you enjoy hearing stories from all kinds of people, and experiencing some new ones for yourself, give Greyhound a shot.

One thing I found out this trip is that (don't take my word for it though, Greyhound's policies vary based the employee you're talking to), is that you can get on and off the bus as you please and stay in town for a night or 3. So in other words, you can buy a cross country ticket and take months to make it the whole way, spending some time in each city as you go along. I took advantage of that to stay in Oklahoma City for a night.

The only other advice I can give when taking Greyhound is to keep track of any luggage you check, watch it every step of the way, charge your phone every chance you get as outlet access varies station to station, and go with the flow. By the way, I'm in NYC as of this morning after a lovely trip cross country. For the record I really do enjoy the chaos, most of the time, but hey, maybe that's just me.

Escape from Sin City, Halfway to NYC

My first night with nowhere to stay in Vegas brought me to a 24 hour Starbucks about a mile off the strip, one I'd discovered my first trip to town. By morning I was tired and hungry, falling asleep in my chair, when Sean saved the day.

I was talking to him on Google Talk and he let me know he had called into a nearby Chipotle and ordered me a burrito and a glorious beer. It was a great way to start the day, and I then waited for the horse guy's phone call for my ride to Louisiana. It never came, I called, left a message, and waited longer. I called again around 4pm, only to hear him say he changed his mind about coming through Vegas. It was still light, time to hitchhike I thought.

I headed to the I-15 on ramp with the goal of making it to Denver before midnight. Those plans were shot when someone got in an accident nearby, attracting too much attention from police, so I left the area before they could hassle me. Hitchhiking is legal in Nevada, within limits (can't be in the actual roadway flagging cars down), but cops don't always know that and I didn't want to argue about it. I headed back to the strip.

With craigslit exhausted, and the sun going down, I had one more night in Vegas, at least. I spent a lot of it in the sports book watching games, dozing in and out of sleep. Later I was lucky enough to find a business center at the Mirage where I stayed through the night and until morning, catching some decent chunks of sleep with my laptop open to avoid getting hassled. It's a great spot I wish I'd found earlier.

I lucked out in the morning, my mom grabbed a greyhound ticket for me from Vegas to NYC. I hiked the 4 or 5 miles to the bus station, remembering why I want to keep slimming down my pack, but at the same time happy with the improvements I've made in making it lighter since I last made that same walk.

On the bus I realized I'd even be back in the city in time to see Carolina before she went back to OKC, but she had already grabbed an earlier flight. The bus I was on was to have a layover in OKC, but it turned out she'd be getting in 4 or 5 hours after we would pass through. I didn't like the idea of so perfectly missing her in transit, so I gave my old friend Shaw a call.

I went to school with Shaw, and he recently moved to OKC to design martial arts equipment and such. If it wasn't for some botched communication on my end, I would have stayed with him the last time I was in OKC instead of in overgrown lots near Best Buy. It turns out Greyhound tickets are pretty flexible, so they let me get off the bus and I can pick right back up on the trip tomorrow.

So now, after a day and a half of travel, I was able to chill with Shaw, eat a steak dinner, play video games, and now sleep in a bed. Tomorrow I can meet up with Carolina for part of the day, then jump right back on the bus again, perfect. There's also the added bonus of taking a shower, a luxury unknown to a regular 3 day solid bus ride (and the two days on the streets in Vegas prior).

Good friends and family help a lot, but it's also good to keep a mindset that help may never come. At the end of the day you should be able to rely on yourself and accept your current situation, without being too complacent to make it better if you can. Then if family comes through with a bus ticket, or a friend comes through with a place to stay or a 2,500-mile-away burrito order, you're on top of the world.

Not so fast, Still in Vegas

I woke up this morning ready to go, showered, checked out of the Mirage, grabbed one last comped breakfast, and waited for the trucker's phone call. Noon rolled around so I called him, spoke with his voicemail, a couple hours later I decided he'd flaked out.

There's still the guy transporting horses to Louisiana who should supposedly show up at some point tomorrow. I spent a good amount of time at Starbucks with my computer, then spent a chunk of the evening at the sports book watching basketball and losing $5 in loose change, but getting a couple free beers.

I find myself now in a random part of the Bellagio I discovered last time where I can sit, plug-in, and hopefully remain undisturbed (so far so good). As far as sleep goes, it might not. The city is always alive, there's few places to hide and nod off. I'm down to nickles and pennies, but I swiped an apple and a banana from the last buffet, so I'll ration those.

If the horse guy doesn't show tomorrow, I'll probably start walking/hitching down US-93, at least deep enough to find a place to pull out the sleeping bag and crash for a bit. For now though it's about trying to stay warm inside which should be easy, but also trying to catch some Z's here and maybe another there.

I'll close out now because I'm now being politely removed from this spot I found, good times.

Goodnight Vegas, the road has called me

This should be my last night in Vegas, I'm high above the strip perched in my free room at the Mirage. I posted on craigslist rideshare requesting a free ride east bound, and actually got a couple phone calls. The first was an older man headed to Louisiana in a couple days transporting horses, sounded pretty golden. The second is the one I'm going with though.

This call came from a trucker headed to Chicago, and that leaves in the morning. I met up and walked around with him today, he'll be taking his time to get there as he gets paid by the day. I've already put in some couchsurfing requests in Chicago, so once there I'll only have to take care of the trip to NYC, giving me over a week to cover 12 hours of road, good times.

My last days in Vegas were mostly in my room working on MoBubble, catching up on sleep, and sneaking out for a comp buffet here and there. Today I tried to make one last run at the crap table, but to no avail. I still have $3 in cash, and some money in my account that was locked up that I couldn't get to, and therefore can't lose/access for a few days which is cool.

A few days on the road will do me good, and the view from the big rig will make it that much sweeter. Happy travels ahead, and don't worry Vegas, we're still cool.

Third Vegas Trip

It's not the first time I've found myself in Vegas down to my bottom dollar, in fact it's the third time, and I must admit, it's quite charming. Even though this trip has done to my wallet what the two before have, the first few days were at least spent with friends going up and down the strip.

I've managed to get room comps throughout the trip, and have extended a couple more nights here at the Mirage while I figure out what's next. As long as I can make my way to NYC by the 24th of this month, I should be fine. It becomes a little bit harder without funds to say, grab a greyhound if I get stuck, but hitching seems to be the best way to do it at this point.

While having little to no money doesn't make things easier, it makes them more interesting, and in turn makes you richer for going through it. Finally, proof that not getting a job is the quicker path to riches, good times.

On the road... in the air again

The last few days in New York were great, I saw a great show on broadway, Avenue Q, and filled my belly with everything from Spice to Stardust to Shake Shack. New Years Eve was also better than expected. At first we intended on having just a few people over, like 3 or 4... but word got out and a lot more than that came, it was great to see some familiar and not so familiar faces having a good time. Even after everyone left and we were winding down, a new wave of people came so we had some more good times and stamped the night with breakfast at the diner.

Now though, I'm on route to Las Vegas yet again. The first flight, connecting in North Carolina, presured my head to hell. I was mildly sick the past couple days, and ear popping took to a whole new level. My eyes burned, blood vesels felt like they were to pop, but once we landed all I wanted was something nice to sip on to ease my throat. The cute girl at starbucks suggested some kind of tea and didn't charge me for it.

It feels good to be back on route again. When you're traveling anything can happen, now and at your destination. Potential swirls and action is eminent. You also get some of your best thinking done too, right up there with shower thinking. Who knows what Vegas will bring this trip, and especially unknown, who knows what will happen when the weekend is over?