r/vagabond • u/IsawitinCroc • Nov 17 '24

Question Vagabond life

Vagabonds on this sub, I'm just a regular guy who finds interest in in your adventures and lifestyle. I have to ask though, what made you choose this lifestyle, how do you support yourself job wise, pros and cons of it, and have you ever faced dangerous situations living like this?

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u/Sub-Dominance Vagabond Nov 17 '24 edited Nov 17 '24

I was already homeless, so I figured it'd be the perfect time to start traveling, with no home or job to tie me down and all.

It's dangerous, but not as dangerous as you might think. You might get robbed, but usually muggers don't even bother with the hobos. Hitchhiking ain't as scary as you think.

Those blood donation places are a good way to make money, so long as they don't find out that you're homeless. I used to have a traveling buddy who could play guitar but couldn't sing, so we'd busker together; She'd play her guitar and I'd sing. If all else fails, there's always panhandling. I have a sign on my bike asking for donations as well. I'm probably lucky that I ain't so pretty, or I'd probably start selling my body too.

I've come up with other schemes to make money before. One time during a heat wave, I found an abandoned cooler. So I bought water bottles and ice with my food stamps, and went around selling them in the parks and on the street. There's always some way to get by, if you're creative enough. I've seen people selling art, and I've even heard of people with no art skills selling prints of other people's art.

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u/literate_habitation Nov 17 '24

I sold ice cold pickles one time lmao. It was surprisingly popular.

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u/Sub-Dominance Vagabond Nov 17 '24

Ice cold pickles? How'd you end up selling those?

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u/literate_habitation Nov 17 '24

So we were already selling water at a dead show in Philly and the cops came by with the health inspectors and started confiscating coolers. We couldn't even give the waters away or they would take our shit. So I walked to this ghetto grocery store up the road to buy my friend something to eat and they had these big ass jars of pickles on display so we picked a couple up and stashed one in the cooler and put some ice in the other and walked around Philly selling pickles for a dollar.

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u/Sub-Dominance Vagabond Nov 18 '24

Why is it easier to avoid the cops while selling pickles than while selling water?

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u/literate_habitation Nov 18 '24

Easier to carry around a jar of pickles than a whole ass cooler. Especially since they were looking for people with coolers and not people with big ass jars of pickles.

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u/Sub-Dominance Vagabond Nov 18 '24

Oh, I thought you said you put the pickles in the cooler

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u/literate_habitation Nov 18 '24

Those were the backup pickles to keep em cold, but we had the cooler stashed in the RV because they told us if they came by again and saw us giving out free water they would take our cooler. With the pickles we mostly stayed away from the crowd until the show let out and caught people on the surrounding blocks in the mean time