Originally Posted by
Bike Jedi
I know there is ways of doing it, but I am wondering how I can do it legally, so I don't lose my residency in Colorado, AND wouldn't have to lie on many applications that say, "have you live in the state for the past 12 months?" ...
I lived in Colorado for half my life at the age of 50 now. It's my home. It will always be my home. I want to always come back here and consider this home. But I would like to leave and see a lot of the world while not losing my status of this being my home. If something was to go terribly wrong, this is where I would want to come back to for health, recovery, or ride out whatever time I have left if I can't bike anymore.
How would I even vote if I don't have a legal residence?
Some of these questions are probably cases where it might be useful to get a more formal information than from an internet forum. However, I will make a few observations:
1. You aren't the first to have this type of issue. Look for "expat" and see what happens when people try to retire overseas, etc and how things work.
2. There is both State and Federal jurisdictions here. My guess is programs like Social Security might likely have Federal laws governing residency. State laws will govern other things like state taxes, community college access, etc. States can have different laws here.
Originally Posted by
saddlesores
you'd best check colorado law. most likely, you remain a resident of colorado even if not physically present until you have residence (or intent) established elsewhere.
you can have absentee ballots mailed anywhere, but you need to check with the state registrar on requirements. texas now emails ballots and envelope pdf files - print 'em out and mail 'em in.
you can file tax returns from outside the state even if no tax due to show intent to return.
for health insurance, you need a policy with worldwide coverage including repatriation.
you need to get all your banking/financial accounts set up before you set off, usually no way to open us-based accounts from outside the us. need a us address......banks won't send credit cards outside the us. (one exception is navy federal, they accept foreign addresses and will post cards ex-usa)
Agree with this advice.
What I've done on my more extended trips wasn't quite as formal and in particular, I was still maintaining some residence/presence in the state. I was ideally looking for the opposite e.g. how can I *not* be a resident of CA so I don't have to pay state taxes
...
In 2001 when I went cycling outside the US for 12 months, I rented out my condo to a friend and commissioned her to forward important ground mail to my parents. I paid CA state taxes during that time and since I didn't have residence anywhere else I considered it my residence.
In 2007 when I went cycling outside the US for 10 months, I rented the bottom of my duplex with a management company and kept my stuff in the top otherwise unoccupied. I paid CO state taxes during that time and since I didn't have residence anywhere else I considered it my residence.
In 2016 when I went cycling outside the US for 18 months, I rented out my townhouse, put everything in storage. TX doesn't have state taxes, but I did vote in 2016 in a visit back to TX.
Originally Posted by
PedalingWalrus
I have only recently discovered usps informed delivery service. It is free. I get an email every day with scanned images of my incoming mail. It could be useful for someone touring away from home when they receive mail that is best retrieved to safety by their relatives or friends.
I discovered informed delivery early this year and started using it. They do occasionally seem to miss some of the mail that appears in my mailbox. Here is what I've done in combination:
1. Change many of my accounts to "online access/statements" where I can. This way I can check on things from the road.
2. Take sensitive accounts like my bank or investments and change my home address to a trusted party (e.g. my parents). These are often also "online statement", but every once in a while they also sent paper mail e.g. tax forms. I like this type of stuff going to a trusted party rather than a mail scan service.
3. Take everything else and change my home address to be the mail drop service. They send me email notification when new ground mail is received and give me a change to scan it.
4. Tried to use USPS change my address forms to send to my maildrop account and change things over as much as I can if I missed any mail. You can do this for 6 months with another 6 month renewal.
-- One mistake I made this last time was mark my move as "permanent". This was a big problem because once the order expired (after 12 months), the USPS put a message into state where any mail sent to me at the old address was bounced back by automated machines at the sorting center. When I returned to my same address some but not all of my mail was getting bounced back to the sender. If it didn't use an automated system it was OK. Fortunately, some new accounts like utilities were kind enough to alert me they got bounced mail. Unfortunately, my local post office was not much help since they only knew how to deal with delivery issues on the local route and seemed to be clueless about the sorting center.
-- So I devised a sequence of experiments in mailing myself letters from various post office locations and using the maildrop as a return address. From this I was able to characterize what letters were getting bounced and which ones got through. I was also able to generate evidence I could take to the post office to demonstrate my mail wasn't being delivered. Once I had the hypothesis of the sorting center, I went searching for contacts since the USPS kept directing me to people at my local post office who couldn't help. I even filed an issue with my congressional representative. Eventually a combination of my letters to the postmaster and some semi-randomly chosen people who worked at the sorting center got someone to look at my evidence and they were able to fix the issue. However, all this took ~2 months during tax season when a bunch of my mail was getting bounced (since I had started changing it over from the maildrop). It was a big mess... (the site isn't live anymore but part of my efforts involved creating a website where I documented everything here is an archive -
http://web.archive.org/web/201808292...eismymail.com/)