Originally Posted by
Smallwheels
Take away the motorcycle and that guy would really just have a big backpack full of things. Of course he could only live that way on the west coast. Inland the weather would be to drastic. This also means somebody on a bicycle could do the same in the coastal area.
If you want it keep it
really simple you can just live out of a backpack. A few years ago I took the train to Salinas, then took a bus to Monterey, then to Big Sur. For the entire vacation (about 10 days) all I had was my backpacking equipment: tent, sleeping bag, pad, headlight, etc. I camped in Veterans Park in Monterey and Pfeiffer Big Sur Campground for $5/night. Both places had showers, so I was able to keep clean.
While it was a great 10 day experience I think it would be kinda difficult to live that way in the long term. Relying entirely on public/mass transit, walking and hitchhiking for transportation seems pretty dicey in the long-term, and limits where you can reliably go, unless time is absolutely no option. Also, while camping in inclement weather is fine occasionally, over the long it gets really tedious, so you have to make sure you to find locations where the weather is mostly hospitable. And with camping your location options are somewhat limited (usually not in cities, suburbs, towns, and it's dicey in many rural areas as well).
Then again the money saved by not having a vehicle (or even a bike) would allow you to get hotel room occasionally which is also nice.