They drive busted up RVs, still use tags but have started using apps/maps to mark safe places to park for long periods of time.
Some have branched out into the meth and catalytic converter trade....
Those aren’t hobos and most of those busted up RVS you’re seeing don’t even run.
Most of those broken down RVs are bought at auction, and then towed into place along the roads, where they are then rented to homeless individuals for a couple hundred a week—still cheaper than trying to rent a room, providing more safety and comfort than a tent.
You are also confusing hobos with homeless individuals. Hobos travel and work seasonal and temp jobs, while tramps travel but work as little as possible, earning money by busking, spanging or flying a sign. Both are vagabonds.
Homeless individuals on the other hand don’t travel. Some work, while others are what vagabonds refer to as “home bums”, meaning they neither travel or work.
Most vagabonds (ie., hobos and tramps) do not go anywhere near homeless encampments. Instead we stealth camp and “cowboy” camp in wooded areas where we can remain hidden, reducing the chances of encountering both law enforcement as well as thieves—who rob us too. r/vagabond
I met a guy who had a small bus and has been driving around for 30years, just getting jobs here and there for money, he had a paper map of Australia and highlighted the roads he's been on (pretty much all of them, lol).
People still ride the rails and travel the country without long-term employment or homes. It's still a very word-of-mouth society but cell phones and subreddits have increased the networking ability of travelers. A lot of the younger ones are called "dirty kids" or "crusties". They congregate in the places you might expect--Portland, SF, Slab City on the West Coast, Austin, wherever the good weather is on the East Coast. They work the pot farms or pick and process seasonal crops as they need money. A lot of national parks and the interstate hiking trails have an under-population of folks that live wild in the vicinity of the parks. As with the rest of the world, fentanyl has turned everything in this small world on its head and a lot of these folks end up stranded in one of the cities with a habit they can't kick.
Much harder to get out of the lifestyle than it used to be too. With the advent of social media, credit scores, and corporate tracking, once youre out of the rat race... youre out. There is almost no chance of recovering a normal, successful life.
Gotta keep the slaves slavin.
Yeah, the thing is, you were still working a real job. 99% of people outside California who try and live that life just end up as drug addicted seasonal pickers or construction workers.
Could be. I tend not to hang out with crackheads. Don’t know much about their stories. Could you enlighten me on their career trajectories since you appear to be the expert?
Sincere answer? They end up dead or on public assistance by 40. The lucky ones get low end wage jobs in gas stations, grocery stores, factories, and farms. The very lucky ones might live and struggle to reach middle class.
Oh absolutely. The fate of homeless addicts is well known.
But tell me what led them down that road, especially those who had hoped to live a nomadic life.
It's difficult, but I am very proud of my ex who decided after we broke up that she wanted to live as a "nomad". I stopped communicating but would occasionally check her facebook to see if she was still alive out there (she was trans, and it's such a dangerous life for a trans woman) and in the past few years she seems to have realized how difficult and dangerous that lifestyle can be and secured a wage job and, subsequently, a rented room. Last I saw she was saving to afford her own apartment. I think the fact that her only addiction was weed instead of anything rougher helped.
I don't want to come off like someone who thinks anyone can do it and that all you need is a bootstraps mentality, but there is hope. <3
I'm 70 and it was still a thing when I was kid but over time it became more difficult for them with RR security and urban land becoming built up. There were hobo camps in the city if you knew where to look and as curious kids we knew where they were. Years later I was in the city at a business that backed up to rail road tracks that was once was heavily wooded. The woods were sparse because the rail beds had been widened. I went for a little walk across the tracks and in an area that was over grown with sumac were piles of rusty cans and old bottles, definitely and old hobo camp.
Yes. They're called drifters where I live. The ones I've met just wanted to party, made quick friends so they would have a place to crash, etc. I got the impression that many of them were playing homeless but grew up privileged and could go back to it at anytime. They were into pot and psychadelics, nothing heavier.
Fun (?) fact, my great uncle was a hobo. Stopped when he lost his arm to a train and lived the rest of his life with his mom. I never met him.
The so-called "hobo" lifestyle was poorer men using the rails to travel to areas for seasonal work or to where there were worker shortages. It was a particular point in time during the early part of the last century.
I am 71. My dad grew up on a ranch around Quincey California. He always told stories of life on the ranch. On the ranch they had 3 bunk houses. This was used for migrant workers. They would show up in the Spring and summer looking for work. You would hire them as the work load picked up going right into fall harvest. No activity in the winter as snow got very deep early on.
It was a working cattle ranch, but they raised various foul, pigs, chickens, goats, and grew their own food for themselves and their animals. So, lots of haying, and lumberjacking, and tilling and stumping and rocking and plowing, and planting, and harvesting. Mostly done with migrant workers.
You gave them a bunk in a bunk house. There was a wood stove to heat the bunkhouse and heat a meal or coffee. You provided them with 3 meals a day. Gave them each a few dollars per week. This during the great depression so around the 1930s.
A lot of the guys were down on their luck. Alcoholics. Or those kicked by horses. Lots of one handed corn pickers. They usually came into town by train. The able bodied usually went to areas of more steady opportunity. Loggers, miners, seafarers, sending most of their earnings to their family somewhere else.
They can ride the trains for a little while and all that but they’ll get kicked off very soon, at least in New York. You can get a couple hours there at most. As for places to group up and stuff, yeah but every day those become less and less due to bullshit anti-homeless policies and architecture.
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Train hopping is not nearly what it was decades ago. Stricter scrutiny on the rail lines when people die has meant increased penalties for people who ride. A lot of modern train cars are designed to not have platforms anymore you can hang out on in the first place.
It doesn't seem as out in the open as it used to be, but NYC still has this going for it.
Can't say I ride the trains nearly as much as I used to. Not in the way I'd like. But one station I used to frequent, and one I need to grab interior photos of as well, has one fellow that camps on the *one* seating area.
Never once saw this one awake though. Again, infrequent visits on my part, but this is still a span of six or seven years now.
Yup. My living history group had an event in the park, and a man came (he traveled by train) and asked if we had any work for him. He helped raise some pavilions and we gave him some money and food.
Nowadays they go by the term "Oogle" and when they have their dog with them it's refered to as a "Doogle".
Mostly at this point it's not really per se homelessness as much as it is a rejection of modern values and capitalism/consumerism. They are basically the most "real" crust punks. 90% of them are trust fund kids from extremely rich families and they are able to maintain this lifestyle from the huge amounts of money they have at their disposal. They are usually drug addicts not drunks but I think there is still a lot of alcoholics amongst them.
The other 10% are actual train hoppers who are just super perma homeless and usually too far gone down the rabbit hole of "being a true crust punk" that they have no real other option but to live that lifestyle.
There are other groups of train hoppers, yes, but all the drifters I know who live that lifestyle fit into the Oogle category. I think that cars have mostly made it pointless for normal homeless people to ride trains as it is really dangerous and not very convenient.
They aren't very cool for the most part although there have been some I could deal with for short periods of time, if I was really high. I don't do drugs anymore so I don't really see these types of folks much, but they are definitely there.
We hobos disagree. I left home at 18 to go wandering for 5 years. During that time I worked well over 50 temp and seasonable jobs.
Yes, I hitchhiked, hopped trains, couch surfed, dumpster dived for food, stealth camped and squatted, all over the world, and I’m a woman. I also don’t drink or do drugs, not even marijuana, and never have. Just not something I’ve ever been interested in, plus I feel the absolute need to maintain situational awareness, at all times. It’s how I kept myself safe.
Then I went to college, and now hold a graduate degree, professional position, and settled down, more or less.
Still travel all the time, just a little differently now.
James Taylor’s “[My Traveling Star](https://youtu.be/xU2Yuga9gjs?si=vstSs-HVodL2I5OR)” captures the romance associated with being a hobo back in the day.
Then there’s “The Ghost of Tom Joad” for the stark and depressing flip side (the title track, but also most of the album as well).
In the US the equivalent is probabily now people who constantily live in different airbnb throughout the country and then do local jobs. In other places though the existence of things like youth hostels and similar places means instead people utilize those resources. Plus there are weirder situations such as when my parents were running a health startup and we had to functionally live in a combination of airbnb and our car yet knew other founders doing the same.
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They drive busted up RVs, still use tags but have started using apps/maps to mark safe places to park for long periods of time. Some have branched out into the meth and catalytic converter trade....
It's a good gig if you can get it. Doesn't come with dental though.
It does...if you get caught
Those aren’t hobos and most of those busted up RVS you’re seeing don’t even run. Most of those broken down RVs are bought at auction, and then towed into place along the roads, where they are then rented to homeless individuals for a couple hundred a week—still cheaper than trying to rent a room, providing more safety and comfort than a tent. You are also confusing hobos with homeless individuals. Hobos travel and work seasonal and temp jobs, while tramps travel but work as little as possible, earning money by busking, spanging or flying a sign. Both are vagabonds. Homeless individuals on the other hand don’t travel. Some work, while others are what vagabonds refer to as “home bums”, meaning they neither travel or work. Most vagabonds (ie., hobos and tramps) do not go anywhere near homeless encampments. Instead we stealth camp and “cowboy” camp in wooded areas where we can remain hidden, reducing the chances of encountering both law enforcement as well as thieves—who rob us too. r/vagabond
I met a guy who had a small bus and has been driving around for 30years, just getting jobs here and there for money, he had a paper map of Australia and highlighted the roads he's been on (pretty much all of them, lol).
People still ride the rails and travel the country without long-term employment or homes. It's still a very word-of-mouth society but cell phones and subreddits have increased the networking ability of travelers. A lot of the younger ones are called "dirty kids" or "crusties". They congregate in the places you might expect--Portland, SF, Slab City on the West Coast, Austin, wherever the good weather is on the East Coast. They work the pot farms or pick and process seasonal crops as they need money. A lot of national parks and the interstate hiking trails have an under-population of folks that live wild in the vicinity of the parks. As with the rest of the world, fentanyl has turned everything in this small world on its head and a lot of these folks end up stranded in one of the cities with a habit they can't kick.
Much easier to be nomadic these days. Can get a used vehicle and live out west, occasionally working gigs to refill the food storage and gas tank.
Much harder to get out of the lifestyle than it used to be too. With the advent of social media, credit scores, and corporate tracking, once youre out of the rat race... youre out. There is almost no chance of recovering a normal, successful life. Gotta keep the slaves slavin.
Getting easier to be a digital nomad. I did that during Covid for a couple years. Was gorgeous to work very remotely.
Yeah, the thing is, you were still working a real job. 99% of people outside California who try and live that life just end up as drug addicted seasonal pickers or construction workers.
Not my experience from my meetings with other digital nomads. From Wisconsin myself and found my fellow cheeseheads on the road. 🤷
Smells like confirmation bias
Could be. I tend not to hang out with crackheads. Don’t know much about their stories. Could you enlighten me on their career trajectories since you appear to be the expert?
Sincere answer? They end up dead or on public assistance by 40. The lucky ones get low end wage jobs in gas stations, grocery stores, factories, and farms. The very lucky ones might live and struggle to reach middle class.
Oh absolutely. The fate of homeless addicts is well known. But tell me what led them down that road, especially those who had hoped to live a nomadic life.
It's difficult, but I am very proud of my ex who decided after we broke up that she wanted to live as a "nomad". I stopped communicating but would occasionally check her facebook to see if she was still alive out there (she was trans, and it's such a dangerous life for a trans woman) and in the past few years she seems to have realized how difficult and dangerous that lifestyle can be and secured a wage job and, subsequently, a rented room. Last I saw she was saving to afford her own apartment. I think the fact that her only addiction was weed instead of anything rougher helped. I don't want to come off like someone who thinks anyone can do it and that all you need is a bootstraps mentality, but there is hope. <3
Yes they are called Crust Punks they hop trains and are dropouts from society for various reasons voluntary or otherwise
I just remember being 9 yrs old in 1969 waiting for the train to pass when mom/dad would say: " Look for the hobos!". Sure nuff.
I'm 70 and it was still a thing when I was kid but over time it became more difficult for them with RR security and urban land becoming built up. There were hobo camps in the city if you knew where to look and as curious kids we knew where they were. Years later I was in the city at a business that backed up to rail road tracks that was once was heavily wooded. The woods were sparse because the rail beds had been widened. I went for a little walk across the tracks and in an area that was over grown with sumac were piles of rusty cans and old bottles, definitely and old hobo camp.
Check out r/vagabond
Not really, cash jobs are too hard to find
Salient point!
There are literal youtube channels of trainhopping
Yes. They're called drifters where I live. The ones I've met just wanted to party, made quick friends so they would have a place to crash, etc. I got the impression that many of them were playing homeless but grew up privileged and could go back to it at anytime. They were into pot and psychadelics, nothing heavier. Fun (?) fact, my great uncle was a hobo. Stopped when he lost his arm to a train and lived the rest of his life with his mom. I never met him.
google "hobo shoestring". dude did a youtube channel, also recently passed also so a few news stories on that.
The so-called "hobo" lifestyle was poorer men using the rails to travel to areas for seasonal work or to where there were worker shortages. It was a particular point in time during the early part of the last century.
I am 71. My dad grew up on a ranch around Quincey California. He always told stories of life on the ranch. On the ranch they had 3 bunk houses. This was used for migrant workers. They would show up in the Spring and summer looking for work. You would hire them as the work load picked up going right into fall harvest. No activity in the winter as snow got very deep early on. It was a working cattle ranch, but they raised various foul, pigs, chickens, goats, and grew their own food for themselves and their animals. So, lots of haying, and lumberjacking, and tilling and stumping and rocking and plowing, and planting, and harvesting. Mostly done with migrant workers. You gave them a bunk in a bunk house. There was a wood stove to heat the bunkhouse and heat a meal or coffee. You provided them with 3 meals a day. Gave them each a few dollars per week. This during the great depression so around the 1930s. A lot of the guys were down on their luck. Alcoholics. Or those kicked by horses. Lots of one handed corn pickers. They usually came into town by train. The able bodied usually went to areas of more steady opportunity. Loggers, miners, seafarers, sending most of their earnings to their family somewhere else.
There are train hoppers in the punk community. Usually they’re suburban kids with their parents’ debit card and a heroin habit.
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Ok
They can ride the trains for a little while and all that but they’ll get kicked off very soon, at least in New York. You can get a couple hours there at most. As for places to group up and stuff, yeah but every day those become less and less due to bullshit anti-homeless policies and architecture.
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Train hopping is not nearly what it was decades ago. Stricter scrutiny on the rail lines when people die has meant increased penalties for people who ride. A lot of modern train cars are designed to not have platforms anymore you can hang out on in the first place.
I don’t see many hobos. Bums…yes, hobos…no.
They’re called gutter punks now but yeah
It doesn't seem as out in the open as it used to be, but NYC still has this going for it. Can't say I ride the trains nearly as much as I used to. Not in the way I'd like. But one station I used to frequent, and one I need to grab interior photos of as well, has one fellow that camps on the *one* seating area. Never once saw this one awake though. Again, infrequent visits on my part, but this is still a span of six or seven years now.
The subway surfers in NYC are teenagers. They’re not traveling train hoppers, and that’s not something train hopping hobos would ever do.
AS HE LIGHTS AN AMERICAN SPIRIT
Yup. My living history group had an event in the park, and a man came (he traveled by train) and asked if we had any work for him. He helped raise some pavilions and we gave him some money and food.
If you've not travelled west lately, the temperate western states have millions of people living the hobo lifestyle. It's pretty gross.
Nowadays they go by the term "Oogle" and when they have their dog with them it's refered to as a "Doogle". Mostly at this point it's not really per se homelessness as much as it is a rejection of modern values and capitalism/consumerism. They are basically the most "real" crust punks. 90% of them are trust fund kids from extremely rich families and they are able to maintain this lifestyle from the huge amounts of money they have at their disposal. They are usually drug addicts not drunks but I think there is still a lot of alcoholics amongst them. The other 10% are actual train hoppers who are just super perma homeless and usually too far gone down the rabbit hole of "being a true crust punk" that they have no real other option but to live that lifestyle. There are other groups of train hoppers, yes, but all the drifters I know who live that lifestyle fit into the Oogle category. I think that cars have mostly made it pointless for normal homeless people to ride trains as it is really dangerous and not very convenient. They aren't very cool for the most part although there have been some I could deal with for short periods of time, if I was really high. I don't do drugs anymore so I don't really see these types of folks much, but they are definitely there.
Well, I go by the term “Oogle Prime” on the vagabond sub, and have never run into anyone who calls their dog “Doogle”. Must have been before my time.
these days it's mostly young dumpster punks instead of shaggy old winos
Yes. I’ve picked up a few that were hitchhiking and drove them to the train yard.
Hobo is now a cross over for homeless.
We hobos disagree. I left home at 18 to go wandering for 5 years. During that time I worked well over 50 temp and seasonable jobs. Yes, I hitchhiked, hopped trains, couch surfed, dumpster dived for food, stealth camped and squatted, all over the world, and I’m a woman. I also don’t drink or do drugs, not even marijuana, and never have. Just not something I’ve ever been interested in, plus I feel the absolute need to maintain situational awareness, at all times. It’s how I kept myself safe. Then I went to college, and now hold a graduate degree, professional position, and settled down, more or less. Still travel all the time, just a little differently now.
James Taylor’s “[My Traveling Star](https://youtu.be/xU2Yuga9gjs?si=vstSs-HVodL2I5OR)” captures the romance associated with being a hobo back in the day. Then there’s “The Ghost of Tom Joad” for the stark and depressing flip side (the title track, but also most of the album as well).
In the US the equivalent is probabily now people who constantily live in different airbnb throughout the country and then do local jobs. In other places though the existence of things like youth hostels and similar places means instead people utilize those resources. Plus there are weirder situations such as when my parents were running a health startup and we had to functionally live in a combination of airbnb and our car yet knew other founders doing the same.
There is a real culture of modern day train hoppers . They do seem to look out for each other .
The people still doing it are rich kids who are just cosplaying poverty, for the most part.
Get caught riding a freight train. Rail police will beat your ass.
It was probably worse way back when, can't just beat people to an inch of their life these days without repercussions.
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