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Monday, February 3, 2014

Guerrilla Camping - Introduction and Table of Contents

About Guerrilla Camping

Guerrilla Camping 101 was written starting in September 2005, as images of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina flooded the airwaves. As most of the 9th ward lay submerged, I began writing after looking at a backpack sitting packed and ready to go by my front door. Unlike most people who have a bag packed with four days of food sitting next to the door, it wasn't meant for the end of the world. At the time, I was working two days a week in San Francisco, and spending the majority of my time living in a tent. 

Having spent quite a bit of time doing long walks, hitchhiking and "tramping" as the old timers called it, I was shocked to hear about people who had been unable to evacuate the city due to lack of vehicles, and felt it was important to share the knowledge I had gained over the years, both as a soldier and a hobo. Rather than your traditional backpacking guides, I wanted to focus on the realities of going off trail and travelling the roads, highways and railroads of the world. .

Published on GNN, the initial response was overwhelming, at one point garnering over 80,000 readers a week. In march 2006, my girlfriend and I walked out of the city to find a place in the woods to settle down. Lacking internet access, and only having access to a computer as resupply stops, the blog fell off, with only a few new articles being published as we homesteaded an off-grid 40 acre parcel in the mountains of northern California.

A lot has changed since then, the girlfriend is now my wife, I'm now a dad, and far from being the carefree vagrant I was in my youth, I am a "professional" working in the fields of sustainability and renewable energy. I still have wanderlust deep in my veins, and fully expect to begin indoctrinating my son into the art of gracious trespass this year. I still have hopes to get this mess published, but until then, here is a table of contents for you.