That is good advice and very true. My biggest storage unit expenses are for my art collection (paintings and sculptures). It has cost a lot over the years but I still think it is worth it.
My small storage locker in London costs about £30 per month. So far, it is the best solution for me as I store my summer stuff there during winter and vice versa. Plus I have some books and other belongings there too. I don’t think I can be a full-time nomadic sitter and travel with 4 seasons worth of clothes all year round. Is that possible?
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You must definitely look after your art collection and books, but don’t you have a kind friend who could enjoy your art and books to save the expense of storage?
As for carrying 4 seasons of clothes, I tend to have one or two seasons with me while housesitting in the UK, leaving the others with kind friends and pop there as I can to swap, treating them to meals etc for the big favour they’re doing me!
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Dear full-time nomads, what address do you put on forms when you need to renew your passport or driving licence, or if you take up or renew an insurance policy, or when you submit your income tax self-assessment? Is it legal to put down the address of a family member or friend on such official documents?
I have given up my rental flat several months ago but still have that old address on everything official, and have a mail redirection to my daughter. But once that runs out I will need a new solution. And sadly, some official letters - such as those for road traffic fines (I drive a motor home) - have “Do not redirect” written on them…and they can sum up to big amounts with add-on non-payment fines and even go to court if the new tenants at my “official” address just throw them in the bin. That’s my biggest worry. Any advice?
I’ve been living nomadically for about a year, mostly on the eastern side of the U.S. and Canada. The majority of my year has been caring for cats on THS and through existing relationships I’ve had cat sitting. Greetings from Halifax where I am with a wonderful cat!
To a couple of the questions I saw in this thread, I’ll share my personal thoughts:
In terms of residency, if you’re a U.S. citizen, South Dakota has more upsides than down and one of the most attractive states to be domiciled. Even though I’m originally from Minnesota, and spent a decade living in Honolulu and Washington, D.C., when I finally decided to go fully nomadic, SD has a number of things set up for full-time travellers that wouldn’t be as easy if I declared D.C. or MN my home. SD has no state income tax (I do not mind paying taxes, but prefer to not pay taxes to a state I’m not living in!), and working with absentee voting and vehicle registration remotely is easy. My driver license and my legal address with everything is South Dakota. Some more info here.
For mail, I use Anytime Mailbox. When researching online mailboxes, I found an address in South Dakota that appeared multiple times across a couple different providers. I Googled the address and found the storefront, which was part of the PostalAnnex chain. I called, the owner answered, and he walked me through the pros and cons of the three different online mailboxes he works with at his shop, and Anytime Mailbox was the best match for me. I just get a notification when something arrives, and I can choose to have it opened and scanned, recycled, or in some cases bundled and forwarded to another address.
Healthcare is a drawback with South Dakota unless you are covered by an employer. I know a lot of nomads are independent contractors, self-employed, or not working and saving on expenses, so this is kind of a hitch: South Dakota only has two main health plan providers and many of the services are geared to use them in South Dakota and may be expensive for use across the rest of U.S. and especially outside of the U.S. If someone can inform me of a plan otherwise, I’d love to see it! There was a brief period last year where I was on a non-ACA plan geared towards RVers and it was sketchy (but cheap).
My main dentist and doctor are in Washington, D.C., so I’m still working through the pros and cons of making sure I swing through there periodically or finding an alternative.
I have a few bins of things stored at my sister’s place but otherwise all my belongings are in a few suitcases that fit nicely in my car.
Looking forward to more house sitting through 2023, and getting to know more people doing this! I’m already booked through early April!
-Aaron
Post moderated - referral link removed in line with guidelines
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It’s a wonderful life @s4xton
Just keep going. My “base” is Florida for same reasons you describe.
It just works and the more you do the more you learn and things just keep getting better and better.
Travel well
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Fulltime nomdic sitter with no home. I keep a PO BOX as my permanent address where i sit most often and pay for a storage unit for my things.
Being nomadic is allowing me to work fulltime and save to establish a more solid future with a hopeful fluffy rescue of my own🤎 and then I can transition from pet sitter to pet owner
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Good morning Auderary,
We will be giving up our airbnb rental end of Feb to become full-on nomads. Our main concern has to do with the French government needing a proof of stable address when comes time to renew our Visitor’s Visa. Would you consider direct messaging me your online service’s coordinates with us please? Your post made my heart a little liter this morning. Thank you
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I live in Ocala Florida and have been seeing the same dentist for 7 years. I have my teeth cleaned quarterly, but I waive the dentist checking in unless I have a problem. The normal charge for cleaning is $80, when the dentist checks in its $125. I found this out quite by accident once when he was too busy and I said that’s fine. From then on, I waive the exam. I do get an exam and X-rays annually.
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Thank you!
Having recently sold a UK car in Germany, and pre-Covid, a motorhome in France, I have looked into all this and my understanding of DVLA rules is that if you officially ‘export’ your car out of UK you will need to ‘import’ it into a new country which will require local registration and new numberplates of that country. Best to contact DVLA directly.
Hi all. Please be aware that tax laws differ greatly between countries and even within countries in many cases. And then there are the tax agreements made between countries to take into account. Always consult a tax advisor who is an expert regarding the countries involved before making any drastic changes to your payment of taxes. At least in the US, there are lots of small details in tax law that can make a big difference to your specific tax situation.
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Thank you for that, Lokstar, and I will contact DVLA, but can you tell me whether the DVLA has ever checked whereto and whomto you have sold your vehicles in the other countries? Or do they get automatically informed by that country’s vehicle authority? Obviously, in my case I cannot register my vehicle (a small motorhome) anywhere anew, unless I become a resident there first, and I am not planning to sell it.
I don’t know how they do things in the UK, but there are a number of states in the US that deem license plates as property of the state.
Florida is one such state. When you sell your vehicle without transferring the tags to a new one, move to another state and register your vehicle there, or cancel the insurance on the vehicle, you must surrender the old license plates to the DMV. Even when you move to Florida from another state, they require that you surrender your old license plate before they’ll issue you a Florida plate or register your vehicle. Florida’s DMV monitors the old plates and ensures owners bring them to the DMV within a fixed period of time. If you don’t, you will be fined for illegally retaining them.
Given that they track vehicle re-registration in other states, that means there’s a system in place across all the states to track such info, even if the other state doesn’t deem plates as property of the state. And it’s been that way for years. If the US states have such a system in place, I’m guessing other places have similar systems.
Again, it’s best to get advice on matters such as these from authoritative sources, not just word of mouth, before you set any plans in place.
Hi @Romana when we sold the motorhome in France it was to French couple. We had to give them the V5C (log book) which they needed to register the car in France. We just sent the section about permanent export to the DVLA along with a cover letter giving details of the buyers- name, address etc This was pre- Covid when things were easier…
We sold the car in Germany to a spare parts dealer and all we had to do was send the Permanent Export section to the DVLA, again with a cover note saying the car was off the road and sold for scrap- no dealer details needed. The dealer did not need or want the rest of the V5C so we just disposed of it.
If you are driving mainly around Europe you don’t need to register your motorhome in different countries- you just need to make sure your insurance will cover you wherever you want to drive. That’s what we did for years. If you go outside of Europe I’m really not sure- that’s where you need to get fully informed. Good luck on your adventures!
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Thanks a lot, Lokstar, this information helps.
Question: Did you have to tax your vehicle during that time and/or get any certificates from technical inspections similar to the British MOT, or not?
You will need to keep your vehicle taxed at all times and you will need to return to the UK once a year for MOT! Unfortunately there’s no other way if the car remains UK registered.
This is what I feared, Lokstar. My vehicle will not survive another British MOT due to rust, I’m afraid, but it has still many years of life in it. I have sold all my previous vehicles in such a good technical condition to a dealer who exported them to Africa where, as he said, “they will run for another 20/30 years”. Do you know whether it is possible to register and insure my vehicle in some African country if I am not a resident there?
I have written to the DVLA yesterday and expect their reply this week. In the meantime, I have seriously considered switching to a horse-pulled gipsy wagon, but that would make house-sitting a bit difficult…!
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This is my beauty in Bilbao a month ago, and I’m not parting with her. Her name is Marmite and she has almost 100.000 views on YouTube, probably the world’s most famous Romahome ever. I am now in Portugal and my next destination is Morocco.
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Hi @Romana I can understand your position! I would be very hard to part with such a ‘family member’! I can’t answer your questions about registrations, but I just wanted to say, I am originally from South Africa, and there is no such thing as annual MOT’s! We were there twice last year, and we couldn’t believe the number of cars broken down next to the road. We would drive past one every few minutes! So keep faith, I’m sure you will find a solution.
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