Something important when falling into the homeless situation is how much you will take with you. If you have an issue carrying an amount of weight, don’t worry because that will be taught to you by life and boy she don’t give mercy. What you carry day to day is going to define how mobile you are.

Camping is where you do not carry everything and try to make a spot to sleep and live in peace leaving behind some gear that is not needed every day. Extra clothes, spare tools or utensils, bedding, and repair materials all could fall into this. This way means you can carry more back for comfort with more of a base in mind. Downside though is you are going to be open so thieves are more then likely and cops will be trying to move you out. Honestly, unless you have a car to make it a rolling base, I would not suggest it until it is your only viable option because the cons make a lot more problems and security

Many risks come up when you do not have full line of sight on your stuff one being how other people may swipe your gear. When dealing with your camp try to find somewhere close enough to travel to town while still being far enough that the risk of anyone getting into it stays as low as possible. Thievery aside be aware that making camp in many areas is either completely illegal or looked down upon heavily and the worst thing you can do while homeless is burn bridges. Police in some areas have to give 24 hours notice so if you need to camp then learn the laws of the area. Even if the police break down your camp you still have rights to your stuff that would be taken in. Still as it can be seen that you may want to stay away from camping. The best possible plan is that if you could couchsurf a schedule every so often so you don’t need to wear out your welcome maybe you can place a small amount of your stuff at each point and still have the ability to travel lightly.

By the way this article is set up I do prefer the pack set up. It has its own negative points like how much can you carry, how can you pack it and actively thinking about what you will take. It will be more of a workout and if your pack isn’t stable it could be a problem. Going from place to place leads in to some other problems as well one being your physical ability to move around, with my issues I had to use a cane to begin with. Using public transport also will most likely have a limit of stuff you can and if you need to my suggestion is to learn the rules because there will be some that will argue it as lower to make their own lives easier. Knowing the rule keeps them honest but it also gives a hard cap and without an area to lay your head it could be difficult.

Going to public transport for a moment the one I use keeps me to either four grocery bags of normal size or two pieces of luggage and a carry on bag or backpack before anyone can deny me I have to be over that limit, and I found they did not define the size of the luggage. So a large hiking pack and an army mail bag with my backpack would give me the space and the ability to carry.

If you noticed I didn’t actually use a suitcase or rolling case, and that is also important because the kind of bag will be instrumental in figuring out how you get stuff from place to place. The heavier the pack the harder to carry. The combination of backpack and old military sack gave me a fair amount of options without worrying about corners and hard cases. ( picture of it here)

Going the carry route means you have to find bags that can hold up to the strain. Rolling luggage breaks easily for the comfort it provides rolling on asphalt and cement and it is harder to control if there are cracks or potholes. Organization of how you pack will be important and by a small amount of time you will be great at tetrising everything with as much space left over as you can get. It will have bearings on how and where you can go and how you will even travel.

Tetrising – The act of packing so that everything takes up as small a space as possible.

English is the chaotic neutral of languages. I make up my own words sometimes.

Sleeping with your bags is going to be hard but doing so with make any attempts of people trying to grab it that much more difficult. There are some places you can put them that may also add to your own comfort since pillows can take up too much space if you try packing them. A soft bag can work well though and a back pack could be used to keep your feet up turning any slab of sidewalk or bench a touch closer to a bed. In this article it could seem like a lot, but that just shows how important it can be. No matter what you pick there is a lot to keep in mind so stay strong.