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Boondocking 101 to Off the Grid PhD
Welcome as a minority group among Airstream Owners. Boondockers 101.
Many occupations have provided the majority of Boondockers.
The most passing Boondocking 101: Veterans.
World War 2, Korean War, VietNam, Middle Eastern veterans and active duty. If you look at Trailer sales after these wars, sales are always UP.
Some were children of parents who loved the outdoors and may have been Forest Service or Park Service employees. The desire to be independent and outdoors is not something you forget. Off the Grid skills are not only learned, but are a fact of living in primitive conditions as survival in a new environment. Today, not so much... but compared to city living, even a Park Service or Forest Service family are not living in luxury.
Geologists. Hydrologists. Game & Fish. Mining. Bush Pilots. Most everyone living in Alaska and Canadian citizens living one hundred miles north of the Canadian/USA border. Shall I go on? Only if you can.
The most basic conditions of trailer camping, without outside power, water or food sources (Full Hookups in the Woods), are learned. They are skills that may lay dormant for years, decades and can be easily retrieved from memories and applied to tent camping to... trailer camping in luxury.
Many from an Urban Environment yearn the option to Boondock, but have no previous experience how. The photographs of the wilderness are magnetic. There is a basic fear of the unknown. It is normal. I would not have the skills to sleep in an alley within a large City, sleeping on a blanket upon a subway steam vent, than they would want to be hiking the Appalachian Trail for two weeks. Yet... either of these "skills" can be easily transferred to Off the Grid camping when financially possible.
You cannot make the change overnight. Or a week... but there comes a period of time that one becomes comfortable with this new environment. Some never find this comfort zone, unless traveling with a group, at first. Then venturing out with fewer individuals in progressing isolated conditions. Eventually... there is no fear to travel further from populated areas. Confidence is earned, not given. It is the PhD of trailer camping Off the Grid.
Boondocking is a mild form of independence. Off the Grid is a test of one's soul and confidence. It can be a slow process to many, but not impossible.
I will never be swimming from Fisherman's Wharf to Alcatraz Island in San Francisco. But maybe across a swimming pool. It is the same with Off the Grid trailer campers. The swimming pool might just be... enough. At least you are not a sinker... like myself.
Boondocking and Off the Grid camping by tent or trailer can be a challenge. Do not let the challenge limit your options. Try it with a group experience and then expand it to return to these same places... yourself. The confidence by repeating an event... solo, might be the key to successful Off the Grid camping any time you are needing some independence from modern conveniences.
For some, it is as natural as driving to work. For others... a little preparation is needed. Once you are ready to "fly on your own", your options for traveling have increased ten fold. Nobody will remember staying up late watching the National Geographic channel on television, when you can actually be there for as long as you are prepared to stay.
Myself... traveling East of the Rocky Mountains... I might as well be swimming to Alcatraz Island. As I said... I am a sinker.
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Human Bean
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