Nomadic Hippie: Migratory Living

Nomadic Hippie: Migratory Living

By Alraune

I intend to create a migratory plan for the future. My idea is that of three stages of migratory plans with several plans for each stage. There will be a foot or hiking migratory plan, a cycling plan, and a vehicular migratory plan. This way, I have many options and several plans to fall back upon depending on what the future holds.

The idea behind all of this is to follow the fruit seasons for food and medicine, which consequently also tend to follow the hippie festivals. Afterall, the concept here is to live free and simple and have as much fun as possible, as I believe the purpose of this life is purely to have as many positive experiences as possible in the least intrusive manner as possible.

The foot or hiking plan will likely consist of the Pennsylvania Mid State Trail, some sort of trail network that leads around Pennsylvania, the Appalachian Trail, the American Discovery Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, and basically any long distance trail network that easily provides for a migratory pattern on foot. For this, as with all potential migratory patterns, I will likely require a lot of maps and research, which is right up my alley.

The cycling migratory plan is intended to serve as a secondary means of transportation and will likely follow the vehicular plan with perhaps a few discrepancies, as mountain biking is allowed on some hiking trails. In all honesty, the cycling plan is primarily intended to be a backup for any vehicle problems that went horribly wrong.

The vehicluar plan will perhaps be the most exiciting as I intend to plot several courses across the United States (and maybe also Canada and Mexico), with at least four tighter loops incase I become interested in a particular region which I like to hang out in, in which case I will have a plan for living in and migrating through that particular region on a yearly basis.

It is my hope that with these prelimenary plans I can develop some very well thought-out migratory plans which will enable me to live free, simple, and mobile, in such a way as to promote peace, happiness, independence, and a minimalistic life which is attuned to the cycles of the earth.

The three stage migratory plan is not necessary, but it gives me peace of mind in knowing that I will have so many options to fall back upon, and it will allow me to transport a bicycle and hiking equipment in the vehicle, which, if it becomes permanently disabled, will then afford me the opportunity to travel via bicycle, and then on foot if necessary or desired. Such a plan will greatly reduce the chances that I will be stranded anywhere against my will without requiring any dependence on the "system", particularly economic dependence.

It will probably take me some time to create these plans, but it is something I intend to work on a little here and there for some time throughout the near future. The great thing about this multi-stage plan is that since ideas and plans can change, it is highly adaptible, and I am not stuck following any one plan. In fact, if I decide in the future I'd prefer to stay closer to home, it would be absolutely no problem, nor would it be a problem if I decided otherwise, and most certainly it would be no problem if I decided a long-term trip was not feasible. It is pretty much a migratory plan that covers any option I might decide to take – so it works.

Flexible is good!

Peace. Alraune.

The Beginning Stages of the Ultimate Hippie Trip

I've been living for this dream I call my permanent vacation, or the ultimate hippie trip, since about 2002. The dream started as a much smaller plan, of which I could even mention some traces of it beforehand (perhaps as early as 1992), in which it was just some crazy high school kid's dream of a crosscountry trip, but it truly had its roots as it stands today, in late 2002 or early 2003.

I had just had my second great relationship completely fall apart. I lost my job, my first ex-fiancee and I were engaged in a brutal custody battle, I was evicted from my home, and frankly, I believe it was, at the time, the lowest point of my life. For the first time in my life—and I was always a pretty chipper guy—I was truly depressed, devastated, and a complete wreck.

At that time I did what I think a lot of people do under such circumstances – I thought a lot about my childhood and the things that made me happy. I realigned myself with my childhood fascination with the great outdoors, and I took my first overnight hike.

During that hike along the Old Loggers Path, in what was then Tiadaghton State Forest in northern Pennsylvania, I did a whole lot of thinking, a whole lot of soul searching, and it was there where I ultimately decided I was beginning a journey that had long awaited me. It was there where I destined myself for a life I had always secretly longed for, and that life is the 'ultimate trip'.

But what do I mean by the 'ultimate trip'? I can assure you the concept has had quite an evolution, but basically it boils down to adventure and freedom. Call it control-freakism or a love for liberty, but the concept has always been shaped around placing as much of my life into my own hands and out of the control of others as is possible.

Now don't get me wrong and think that I decided on my hike that all of my problems were the fault of others and if I somehow could keep them out of my life I'd be happier. On the contrary, I accept full responsibility for my personal decisions which eventually allowed the problems I had developed in my life to manifest, but the fact of the matter is, my decisions were poor because they weren't mine. I was not doing what I thought was best for me, but rather living according to the way I thought I was supposed too in accordance with society and others. The truth of the matter was, I was a mindless moron.

I thought happiness was a wife, kids, a dog, a house with a white pickett fence, and a great 9-5 job. I was all gung ho for mom and apple pie and the American dream, but that dream was doomed to failure because although I thought it was, it was never mine.

That realization, the realization that the dream was never mine, which finally struck me at age twenty-eight (yes, I was a very late bloomer) amid a turbulent life crisis, would lead me down one hell of a road of discovery and transformation! This blog is the story of that discovery, of my plans for that trip, and in a few short years, a record of that very life I have been plotting and planning for since that glorious walk through the woods in which I climbed to the top of that mountain, up to the vista, and looked out over the world through God's Window.

For now, it's "peace" until I type again...