Nomadic Homes (174)

I recently got home from a two-week trip to Peru with my wife Chelsea. We flew into Lima and hung there for a day. From there we flew to Cusco for two days then took a train to Aguas Calientes where we stayed for three nights and visited Machu Picchu. We then went back to Cusco for a night and then onto Iquitos which sits directly on the Amazon, Iquitos is the largest city in the world not reachable by a car. Everything must come in by boat or plane, we stayed at an eco lodge for three nights. One of the best parts of the trip was seeing all of the different building techniques which are employed from the Andes to the Amazon. Hope you enjoy.

The Fortune Cookie was featured in Tiny Homes on the Move. Here are more examples of Abel Zimmerman’s wonderful work:

First: Wood creates its own pathways. I am only following as best I can.

Second: My work is about people. Every time I collaborate with somebody on a little house, some new “flowers” seem to bloom in the world. Despite the newness, I more often intend to build things that feel “magnetic” and familiar. If people appreciate it 50 years later, then I/we have done the right thing. Read More …

The other day on my way down to Bolinas beach I met Jean Hervé, Sylvie, and Luka in the midst of a trip around the world.  From their native France they shipped their rig to Nova Scotia, drove down to Florida and across the southern U.S. to California. They are now on their way to Mexico and Central America where they plan on staying a year or two. After that it’s down through South America for a few more years where they will end in Chile. From Chile they are back on a ship and heading to Asia for a few years, then they will make their way thru Russia and back to France eventually. Jean Hervé built this custom diesel-powered, all-wheel-drive, torsion-free subframe beast that will take you almost anywhere on the planet. The interior has beds, a kitchen, and a full bathroom and is built immaculately with space saving in mind. Read More …

I have been seeing this van around for a few weeks and trying to catch up with the driver. I love these vans and wish California/U.S. Customs would relax some of their crazy import laws and allow some of these in. I finally found them in Bolinas today! This is Drew De Panacis and his friend Justin Artuso. They are on a surfing/rock climbing road trip from Vancouver, Canada and went as far south as Big Sur for surf and out to the sierras for rock climbing. They are slowly making their way back up to the great north and hitting as much good surf as they can along the way. The van is a 4×4 diesel and it has a veggie conversion kit on it and holds 35 gallons of oil. To get something like this in America, you’d really only have one option — a Sportsmobile — which start out in the $30-$40k range for a used one. These Delicas go from $5-$10K in Canada which makes them a lot more affordable to younger folks and people who don’t make a ton of money.

  

A new paint job on the Gypsy Wagon

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I’ve only spent a few hours so far with the book and it’s already sent me into day dreaming mode about adventures and alternate ways of living out there on the road or water. This book … serves as a sort of inspiration guidebook. It’s full of free thinking and artistic people who are among a growing trend of people who are attempting to down scale their lives and simplify what we are doing with our time. Smaller spaces mean less stuff; less stuff means less to take care of; less to take care of means more time and more money; more time and more money means freedom. These core philosophical beliefs are not always supported or represented very well in the mainstream media. This book is proof that there is a movement afoot and to simplify is at the top of the list: be it a French woman who sailed her boat with no engine to the canary islands, or the English artist who built a tiny home on the back of a 1959 French army truck, or even a homebuilder/woodworker from Texas who is doing his best to build a more simple existence.

–Tohner S. Jackson
One Tree Woodworks

I was going over some old files in preparation for working on our new book on 21st century nomadics, and ran across this letter from Serena in Home Work (p. 176). It refers to the 37 Chevy flatbed truck converted to a rolling home by Joaquin de la Luz and his wife Gypsy, and featured in Shelter (pp. 90–91), and in later years used as a bedroom by 4-year-old Serena. It was such a nice example of happy childhood memories, I thought I’d reprint it here.

My earliest memories of the Gypsy Wagon begin when I was three or four years old. At that point, our family had settled down in a little house on the Klamath River, in Northern California. We had all moved out of the Gypsy Wagon but I really missed it. I remember begging my mom and dad to let me use it as my bedroom. Luckily for me, my parents were such free spirits that they could really relate to my independence. The wagon became my room.
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