Life on the Road - 1
Just a bunch of odds and ends about what life is like living in a car and biking too much.
What’s a typical day like?
On a typical day, I’ll wake up at 7-8am, head to the nearest Tim Hortons and get an extra large black coffee. From there I spend 1-4 hours planning, writing or doing life stuff. Then I’ll bike / drive as required and be at my sleeping spot by around 8-9pm and sleeping by 10pm.
My office for the last month. Almost nobody sits inside anymore, they just use the drive-through. You can bum al the wi-fi you want, even from the parking lot; nobody’s using it but you.
Drug addicts/ bums love Tim Hortons. They will sit in them for hours just starring off into the distance or making random noises, going back and forth between the bathroom and their seat. In Calgary one guy was yelling at the cashiers for a solid 10 minutes. They just hid and the back and giggled. Then he sat down with a coffee and jittered / rambled alone for a solid hour.
Another day some kid who said he couldn’t hear or talk because of a car accident sat at my table and I still have no idea what he wanted.
Where do you sleep?
I’ve used a mix of avenues so far.
Boondockers.com, iOverlander, calling / asking businesses or just staying at Wal-Marts. IOverlander is useful mainly to know if the town’s BS “no overnight parking” laws are actually enforced. They slap those idiotic signs all over the place but people clearly ignore them ( at least at Wal-Mart ) and cops don’t do anything.
I’ve also stayed at two campgrounds and they are just too expensive for this purpose. You’re paying 50$+ for overnight parking.
So far I’ve stayed in just one Motel, in Drumheller. It cost 56$ and they did my laundry. It was awesome. Not the cleanest or most modern place though…
Where do you shower?
There’s two methods: The random bathroom method and the Anytime Fitness method.
First after a bike ride I wipe myself down with baby wipes:
Then just go into any Wal-Mart / Tim Hortons / Park bathroom with a sponge/ shampoo / soap / towels and clean clothes and wipe yourself down / clean yourself in a stall. Not the best but it works even after a long hot sweaty bike ride.
Most places have hot/cold water too so that’s a bonus.
The second method is the Anytime Fitness method I’m trying to far. They really suck ass honestly. Very expensive to sign up, very expensive monthly fee and your membership isn’t really active until 30 days after you sign up. What? Until then you can only access the gym / shower during staffed hours which is PRETTY MUCH NEVER. Even during staff times the person in charge is roaming around the gym somewhere and the door is locked half the time so you can’t even sign in.
Garbage system but once your membership is active then you can shower there any day, any time and they’re all over the world.
They told me you can pause/resume your membership any time and not pay a signup fee again.
I haven’t tried Truck Stop showers yet but they seem to run around 10$ a shot. Anytime Fitness is 100$ a month + signup fee so it’ll take a lot of those showers before you rival truck stops but in my case I think it’s worth it, especially if you’re going to use the gym.
If you just lived in your car and didn’t bike or do sports, I think the free option of sponge baths could tide you over basically forever since you won’t be covered in sweat and sunscreen every day.
Glorious sponge wipe down after a ride. I’ll do this anywhere now, I don’t care. Just in some random parking lot. No one’s ever going to do anything about it.
If you really want hot water, leave bottles on this side of the windshield cover while you’re out riding.
What do you eat?
I make sandwiches and eat my protein goo of oats/greek yogurt / peanut butter / protein powder. Canned beans and chili also nice, along with tons of garbage like those Wal-Mart soft sugar cookies. Holy christ why are they so good? 3.50$ for 1600 calories in my mouth. I’m boycotting pretentious bakeries forever now. Get out of here with your 9$ pastries plus tip, you use the same 3 ingredients Wal-Mart does anyway.
Sandwich factory process. Still testing the limits of the cooler.
In Vancouver I went to Bon’s Off Broadway twice. They had 3$ breakfasts. This is two of those stacked in one plated. Still more expensive than buying stuff at Wal-Mart, but it’s something different. Restaurants are just scam-levels expensive most of the time.
Still partial to a buffet but I’d need to stop eating jars of peanut butter first. 6000 calories for 5$…
Where do you go to the bathroom?
There’s public bathrooms everywhere, it’s great. The smaller the town, the easier it is to find too. Large cities are infested with hobos and drug addicts who destroy everything with their diseased buttholes.
How do you do laundry?
First time I tried a laundromat with a drop-off service. That costs 40$ but you don’t have to sit there for a few hours watching your clothes spin.
Lot of laundry….
The second time, the people at the Dinosaur Hotel in Drumheller did it for 5$. So if you figure that saved me 35$ of laudromat then that 56$ motel room was just 21$ haha.
The third time, a Boondockers host offered to do it for me. I happily accepted!
Laudromat cost about 11-12$ for a big laundry and takes around 2 hours. Saves about 30$ doing it myself vs drop-off and it doesn’t save that much time since while the clothes are being washed I can find something else to do, especially if the laundromat has wifi or outlets. Always be doing something while you’re doing nothing!
Some people also have all sorts of contraptions to do laundry in their car / van but those seem strictly for off the grid living because they definitely seem completely useless vs a laudromat.
Sometimes I’ll leave wet stuff on the car roof while I’m eating or doing something else. Lot of heat and wind makes things dry relatively fast.
Some random odds and ends:
After a month I believe I’ve solved all major issues and could keep going like this without stopping at hotels indefinitely. Wouldn’t want to actually live in there full-time, but it’d be possible.
If you’re young and live in an expensive place like San Francisco or Vancouver, maybe you can manage this instead of paying rent, though at that point you should get roommates. But hey if you’re paying 1500/month in rent and utilities, which lots of people do, then that’s 18 000$/year you’re earning by living in a car. Not saying it’s worth it though but it’s always good to think outside the box and compare options.