Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century

Linda’s journey as a nomad began on Thanksgiving Day of 2010, when she was sixty years old. She was living in a trailer in Arizona unable to pay her utility bills and no longer able to access unemployment benefits. Her family members had recently downsized to much a smaller apartment, meaning they no longer had room for her to stay. She considered suicide, but realized she could not bear to leave her pets behind. This low point eventually sparks her interest in van dwelling and living off the grid.

A few years later, Linda finds herself working at a Home Depot for $10.50 an hour in California. Despite her associate’s degree in construction technology plus her previous experience working at a Home Depot in Las Vegas for $15 an hour, it took months for her to be hired for the job at all. She learns that her social security checks, when she receives them, will not be enough to cover her rent. She has suffered several financial setbacks, including losing a business due to a corrupt business partner. This experience had made her more charitable towards the homeless and downtrodden.

Linda is resourceful; she raised two daughters as a single parent, and she knows how to make her money last. Yet, as Bruder notes, “[Linda’s] options for work would dwindle with age, rather than broadening to reflect her years of experience. There seemed to be no way off the treadmill of low-wage jobs […] By her sixties, the question loomed: How would she ever afford to stop working?” (33-34).

Despite these challenges, Linda’s retirement dream is to build her own Earthship, an architectural style of house that is fully sustainable, would not need to be on a utility grid, and could be built using recycled materials and trash. Michael Reynolds, the radical architect who came up with the idea for Earthships in the 1970s, saw the design as a way for every human being to have shelter without being subjected to the whims of capitalist economics.

Linda views her Earthship dream as a form of both freedom and art, and has been searching for land to purchase for years. As she ages, she realizes she will need to find a way to build her dream home before it is too late. Linda envisions her Earthship as “her shot at posterity, a monument that might stand for a century or more” (37) and a means for her to become self-sufficient at last. Her Earthship might also provide a legacy that she can leave to her children.

She is hardly alone in worrying about how she can retire: nearly twice as many women live longer than men of the same age demographic, and women earn on average $341 less through Social Security, in part due to the gender wage gap and a lack of meaningful career opportunities. Aging women in America, like Linda, are facing poverty at higher and higher rates. Linda is unsure how she will achieve her long-term dream of buying land and building her Earthship, but she works towards it, nonetheless.

Around the same time Linda decided against suicide in 2010, the village of Empire, Nevada learned that United States Gypsum, the company that manufactures Sheetrock, would be closing the factory that employed nearly everyone in town. United States Gypsum had subsidized workers’ rents and utilities. When the news of that the manufacturer would be leaving town in December 2010, workers were told they had until June 20, 2011 to move out. Employees not only lost their jobs but their homes as well. Unlike other former company towns that survived after the corporation left it behind, Empire would completely fold and eventually disappear.

Bruder covers the story of what unfolded in Empire in 2011 as a journalist. She observes, “When the last of [the people] departed, the town was sealed away behind chained gates, with security cameras and no trespassing signs. The cottages along with the public pool, two churches, a post office, and a nine-hole golf course were left to rot. Even the zip code, 89405, was expunged” (44). Yet Bruder notices that, as of 2017, she could still virtually walk through the village of Empire on Google Maps.

Yet while towns like Empire were being shut down in the early 2010s, new forms of company towns were thriving, particularly ones built seasonally by temporary Amazon warehouse workers. Bruder calls these workers members of the “precariat,” or “temporary laborers doing short-term jobs in exchange for low wages” (44).

These Amazon workers are a part of a program called CamperForce, a labor force made up of nomadic, seasonal employees at several fulfillment centers (FCs) nationwide. According to 2014 estimates, there are at least two thousand of these laborers employed by Amazon every holiday season. Nomads can expect to work ten-plus hour shifts, walk up to 15 miles of warehouse floor per day, and must be able to withstand hard physical labor.

Over the course of her reporting, Bruder speaks with Don Wheeler (a pseudonym), a sixty-nine-year-old CamperForce worker who had his house taken from him during a messy divorce and his life savings demolished by the 2008 recession. Don tells Bruder he is one of a growing number of “workampers” who he defines as “modern mobile travelers who take temporary jobs around the U.S. in exchange for a free campsite […] and perhaps a stipend” (46). Bruder also spoke to workampers who called themselves retired despite the fact that they still worked, while others called themselves rubber tramps, vagabonds, and many other nicknames.

Workampers take on itinerant jobs throughout the country, with their own online news sources and methods of communication. Some of these jobs include running campgrounds, seasonal farm work, employment at mall kiosks, and other kinds of labor. Although it is difficult to pinpoint just how many nomads there are, anecdotally speaking, Bruder can tell that the number of American nomads has grown in the wake of the 2008 Great Recession as more and more foreclosures happen nationwide.

Amazon’s CamperForce targets these nomads, marketing work to them and offering referral fees if they bring their friends or family. Bruder wants to visit a CamperForce “town" and decides to go to Fernley, Nevada’s Amazon warehouse in October 2013. She is stunned by the number of RVs filling RV parks in the area, admitting, “I’d long assumed RVers were retirees tooting idly around America, sightseeing and enjoying the relaxation they’d earned after decades of employment” (54). However, it is clear to her now that many of these RVers may actually be nomads in search of work.

Bruder speaks to several CamperForce employees who had either never had a warehouse job or who had sustained chronic injuries from their time working in an Amazon warehouse. Many laborers at Amazon were so sore and in pain during their shifts that the company installed free painkiller dispensers.

Bruder introduces Bob and Anita Apperley, who found themselves facing foreclosure on their home as the property value plummeted during the housing bubble, forcing them to abandon the house all together. Rather than fulfill their retirement dream of living on a sailboat, they move into a trailer and become nomads. Bob, disillusioned by Wall Street greed, works seasonally at CamperForce while Anita works odd jobs. The Apperleys are just two of the many foreclosure victims Bruder meets at CamperForce, describing her experience as if she is, “wandering around a post-recession refugee camps, places of last resort” (57). Victims of foreclosure had often lost their financial stability either through bad investments, divorce, illness, lay-offs, student debt, or a combination.

CamperForce began not long after the 2008 recession. CamperForce laborers benefit Amazon because they are seasonal, don’t require benefits, legal protections, or job security, and bring their own housing. In fact, the company prefers baby boomer workers at CamperForce despite the physical demands of the job because of how dependable and determined they are. Additionally, Amazon receives tax credits from the U.S. government for employing disadvantaged workers. While Amazon is not the only company using this type of labor, it becomes a symbol of a movement in which “RV parks were jammed with workers who had fall a long, long way from the middle-class comforts they had always taken for granted” (61).

Bruder outlines the history of retirement in America, with its roots in the dreaded “poorhouse.” Retirement and social security as they are known today began in the 1930s during the Great Depression as a way to help and support the elderly who could no longer work. Americans could rely upon the “three-legged stool” (65) for retirement, which included private pensions, individual investments and savings, as well as social security.

Yet since the 1980s, more companies have relied upon cheaper, employee-driven 401k retirement savings accounts as opposed to offering private pensions. The Great Recession destroyed many of the financial assets older Americans were depending on for retirement. What remains are social security payments, which are often far too little to live upon. In recent years, legislators critical of social security have begun to attack the cliche of the lazy and greedy senior citizen, arguing that if Americans want to retire, they need to work harder.

Linda, concerned about how she would survive on her meager Social Security payments, stumbles upon the nomadic living lifestyle blog CheapRVLiving.com, created and written by Bob Wells. Bruder describes the website as “an anti-consumerist doctrine preached with the zeal of the prosperity gospel” (69) that advocates for people to abandon traditional housing, typically a person’s biggest expense, in favor of “wheel estate” (70), including RVs, vans, and cars. He argues that he can help readers subsist on $500 or less each month by living on the road, an idea that is very appealing to Linda.

Wells, originally from Alaska, began his van dwelling journey in 1995 while struggling through a divorce and debt. Unable to afford an apartment while working at a grocery chain, Wells drained his small amount of savings to buy a box truck he decided to renovate and make livable. He lived in his truck for the next six years, and along the way realized he did not miss or want to move back into traditional housing.

In 2005, he began CheapRVLiving.com, first as his own budget-friendly how-to guides for van living. Wells emphasizes the significance of “boondocking:” removing oneself from the grid, and sometimes living in remote wilderness. Wells watches his website traffic increase exponentially in 2008 during the Great Recession and housing bubble. His philosophy shifts responsibility from larger social systems to the individual, offering people like Linda productive ideas and steps to take in order to live cheaply and sustainably into old age.

Manmade house trailers like the ones Wells promotes were once solely used for camping. They grew popular in the 1930s in the midst of the Great Depression as alternative, cheap housing options. The trend shifted in the 1960s to the “mobile home,” a roomier option that required staying in a trailer park.

Bruder notes that unlike the wave of trailer-goers in the 1930s who eventually moved back into traditional housing, the “jobless recovery” after the 2008 recession has not provided the same relief. Contemporary nomads are making a permanent switch, and Wells’ site provides information, articles, tutorials, reviews, advice, ,and stories of how other nomads are making their new lifestyle work for them long-term.

Unlike the vagabonds of the 1930s, these nomads view their shift to nomadic living as permanent, with few actually hoping to return to “normal” living. Wells views this change in perspective as indicative of a growing movement in response to imminent economic, social, and environmental crises. Now, nomads have a virtual place to learn, exchange tips and advice, and create their own community.

This community has blossomed beyond Wells’ site. Other sites popped up that were meant to assist nomads nationwide find safe parking lots, trailer parks, and other locations for essentials. One nomad named Ghost Dancer started a prominent Yahoo community forum for van dwellers, and content creators have also popped up on social media platforms like Reddit and YouTube. George Lehrer, also known as “Tioga George,” began his blog about van dwelling in 2003, detailing his travel adventures in addition to budgeting advice.

Virtual community eventually turned into in-person events and meet-ups. Nomads teamed up in person after meeting virtually in order to support one another. Many became “vanily,” or makeshift van families who spent more time with one another than their blood relatives. To counteract the isolated nature of the nomad lifestyle, many began to meet up at the annual two-week gathering of the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous (RTR) every winter in Quartzsite, Arizona. The small Southwestern town has become a winter main-stay for many low-income retirement-age van dwellers seeking a cheap, warm place to rest with likeminded people during the winter months.

Wells became the coordinator of many in-person social events for van dwellers and nomads, but as he noted online while replying to a commenter on his blog, “…many, many more people are going to be forced into a much simpler life. My goal is to help them make the transition as easily as they can” (89).

Linda fell in love with the idea of nomadic living while reading Wells’ blog, and she was particularly excited by the idea of living with “liberation instead of deprivation” within a widespread community of fellow van dwellers (89). After perusing Craigslist and working hard, Linda saved up the money for an El Dorado motorhome. However, she quickly realized the trailer would need an immense amount of work. She planned to work as a CamperForce employee and campground host, with the hopes of attending the annual RTR. With her daughter’s blessing and willingness to subsidize her phone and data plan, Linda set out on her nomadic journey.