Since about 2018, I've been calling myself a "technomad".

(There's a portable speaker system with this brand name. Not related. At all.)

I count myself a member of the group of folks who do high-tech work and live a nomadic life. Here are the two key criteria:

• I write books on computer programming. That means I've got some high-end computing, complete with 200Ah of portable power so I can write -- well -- anywhere.

• I have a truck and a boat. I share a house in NC. Otherwise, I rent.

My partner knits, and reads, and is active in a number of environmental concerns permitting them flexible travel. And. They're an avid birder, which means cameras, spotting scopes, binoculars, running the E-Bird and Merlin, and using the internet resources for planning trips and following the rare bird alerts.

Some Questions on the Technomad Lifestyle

I got some questions recently.

What is that?
How do you sustain it?
And why did you choose the life you have?

What is that?

A few more words on what "technomad" means to my partner and I.

First. The Nomad part is my partner's idea more than mine. They get it from their grandparents.

In the 60's -- before RV was a thing -- they had an F-150 with a "fifth wheel" camper, and a 40-foot trailer. For 27 years, they drove from campsite to campsite, chiefly to avoid hot summers and cold winters. My partner saw those grandparents in exotic locations.

(Eventually, they had to settle down and moved to a small house near one of my partner's aunties in Sun City, Arizona.)

They wrote some family history while they traveled. On a typewriter. I think they eventually got a Tandy-Radio Shack TRS-80 to create a computerized version they could edit and print.

Second. The Tech part is my idea. If I keep my skills sharp and write, I can make some money. Writing isn't a great source of income. I'm not a terribly good writer.

How do you sustain it?

This isn't easy. There are a number of lessons that have to be learned. I can summarize some of it with the following three points.

1. Income.

• A 401(k) savings account we dip into to pay some of the bills. If we're careful, we can avoid spending all of the interest and income from the investments, and reinvest some. That's a big if.

• Income from writing. Mostly advances. (Royalties aren't great because I'm a mediocre writer.) This pays the rest of the bills.

2. A minimalist lifestyle to keep the bills low.

3. And one more point...

This third point is not as clear as the first two. Mostly because we didn't have any idea what we were doing when we started. It's not a simple checklist item. This key point is a series of lessons learned.

While we started shopping for a boat in '09, these lessons didn't begin until I retired from work for the first time in 2012. (See Inventory.)

In 2012, we had jobs and the idea we would sail away in a boat. We could plan for the proceeds from the house and the cash in our pockets to last us just about two years. This was not really a technomad life, though, since neither of us was even attempting to work.

We had the nomad thing. But not the tech part.

Eventually, the day we'd been dreading arrived. After reviewing the budget, my partner announced

Put on pants and get a job.

Which ended our first retirement. It wasn't a surprise. We knew the money was finite.

Important. We'd sold everything to buy Red Ranger. We'd packed our last sticks of furniture (Herman Miller Aeron chairs, and really nice Anthrocart desks) and sent them to our kids. We even sold our F-150. For two years, everything we owned was on the boat. (A few keepsakes were in partner's sister's attic.)

Coming back to land to get a job means living -- well -- where exactly? And how? What does "home" mean?

Bounce house

The job I landed was in Richmond, VA. The cheapest choice is to live on Red Ranger in a marina and commute. The job I landed, however, wasn't conducive to marina life. The nearest marine was in Deltaville, VA, and winters in central Virginia are harsh. It snows. Creeks freeze. It was a long drive from the office. So, living on the boat was out.

It took us a bit of time to adjust our thinking and understand this bounce from boat back to shore.

One of our sources of struggle was our personal history. The partner and I grew up in suburban tract housing in upstate New York. Everyone we knew lived in a house. Everyone we knew paid the bank dutifully. We used to own furniture and cars and TV's and all the things. At this point, however, we no longer owned anything beyond a boat. And some computers.

When we bounce back to Richmond to work are we going back to a house?

Back to bounce 0

Before we talk about Richmond, let's review our first bounce from a house to an apartment, back in '09.

Moving to Norfolk had been a large step from suburban drive-everywhere house to urban walk-anywhere-you-need apartment. We brought two cars because two cars was helpful in the suburbs where nothing is close.

Living in Norfolk, we only needed to move one of our cars weekly -- and that was for street-cleaning. Before long, we sold it to my mother for $1. (She had sold her car to one of her grand-kids for $1. The kid's money went a long way that day.)

The other vehicle was an F-150, full of tools and boat parts. It went to the marina each weekend. Once the boat was ready, we retired for the first time, and bounced to the boat.

Bounce 1 -- set sail

Moving to the boat emptied the Norfolk apartment. We only owned what fit in the boat. See Living Aboard: Week Zero

Bounce 2 -- put on pants and get a job

Now we have to make another bounce, back to land. Unlike our first apartment, this was much smaller. Like our first apartment, we could walk to almost anything. We needed a very few things: mattress, chairs, desks. Car.

Also. I've got my first book contract with Packt Publishing. This means writing in the evenings and working during the day.

I've gone from no jobs to two jobs.

After two years on a boat, we found we didn't need much.

Bounce 3 -- Washington DC area

My employer -- carefully -- broached the idea of one member of the team relocating to the Washington, DC, area. I immediately volunteered. They thought I might need convincing.

Nope. Nothing's tying us to Richmond. My parents live in New York. My partner's family lives in Fort Worth. One of our kids lives in LA. The other kid lives in Las Vegas.

We bounced from Richmond to Tysons's Corner. We brought most of the furniture, since, it fit in a rental van.

We actually bought a few new things. The apartment in Richmond had kitchen bar. All we needed were stools. The place in Tyson's didn't have a bar, so we needed a small high-top table to go with our stools.

In 2015 and again in 2017, I few out to the Linked-in Learning to courses on software design. This meant remote work from hotels and their studio facility. This was a little like technomad life. It was a teaser. A taste.

This is all pre-COVID-19. It's all work-in-the-office during the day and write books at night.

Up until we had an emergency.

Bounce 4 -- Las Vegas technomading

Our son-in-law got very, very ill. A life-threatening kind of illness. Weekly procedures. Transplant waiting lists. Our daughter was frantic.

What can we do to help them?

Well. We don't actually own much. A truck and a boat. And a few pieces of Ikea furniture we can donate to Goodwill. Which means we can move to Vegas. Why not?

| We can move.

See The Land Cruise. We put Red Ranger on the hard. We packed what we needed in the truck (her name is Seeker, BTW) and drove to Las Vegas.

I fully expected to be forced to retire. Work remote was a rarity pre-COVID-19. My employer, however, didn't want to lose me. So they let me work remotely. Each month, I'd fly back to Tyson's to hang around in the office for a week.

This is my first deep exposure to technomad life. Working remotely at a day job and working on books at night and on weekends.

In Vegas, we tried to get a one-bedroom apartment, but there was a last-minute glitch, and we wound up with two bedrooms. Since we had no furniture, we went to Ikea and bought -- approximately -- the same things we had in Richmond and Tyson's Corner.

I'm working remotely for an employer in DC. Flying between DC and Vegas. Writing books at night. Very tech. Lightly Nomad.

My son-in-law didn't die. In fact, he started to get better. Unexpected by the doctors. A delight to everyone concerned. Especially, I think, him.

Bounce 5 -- back to DC

We're done in Vegas. Lease is up. Son-in-Law's doing okay. He's stable. The crisis is past.

I still have the same work-remote job with an DC-area employer. Offices are mostly closed because folks are still getting sick. I have yet another book to write for Packt Publishing.

Pack the truck. Drive back across the US. See End of this Land Cruise.

Unpack the truck in Tyson's Corner. We wind up in the same apartment, actually. (It's fun to move back. No exploring to find the ideal location.)

Go to Ikea and replace the furniture we once had in this apartment with (almost) exact duplicates.

It was kind of weird moving back to the same apartment. But this time, with slightly different furniture. We've made a few optimizations.

Also, I'm older. We're only going to live here for about a year, waiting for second retirement.

Bounce 6 -- back to Red Ranger

On the timeline, it's 2021, and I'm ready to retire again. See Parting Gifts

I'm done working. For the second time. This time, it's going to stick because I qualify for Medicare. (My partner doesn't qualify yet, but one person's health insurance is affordable.)

Where do we stand? What are our assets?

1. An apartment in Tyson's Corner. And a truck.
2. A boat in Deale, Maryland.
3. Another book contract, instead of a day job.
4. We're not taking Red Ranger anywhere until October when the seasonal migration southward starts.

That's fun. We really liked driving across the country. So, we're going to do it again. See Land Cruise Part I

Then. We can head south. See 2021 South-Bound Phases I and II

Sustaining the bouncing life

That's a lot of addresses between 2009 when we left New York and 2021 when we left DC. New York, two places in Norfolk, the boat, Richmond, Tyson's Corner, Las Vegas, Tyson's Corner, the boat. Nine places in 12 years.

It takes a source of income. We're blessed with several.

It takes a minimalist lifestyle. (We use an old gin bottle as a rolling pin to make pie crusts.)

It takes this other point. Something about bouncing from place to place. Maybe it's the mental flexibility to consider the place where you charge your computers and cook your own food as home.

Why did you choose the life you have?

Key points extracted from the previous long stories.

1. My partner fully expected retirees to live in RV's. One set of their grandparents lived like that.
2. Recognizing we could simply move. Job in DC? Move. Sick family? Move.
3. Having remote work as a source of income. First an employer, then books to write.

My partner is very clear about the need to keep moving with the seasons.

The fixed address life-style seems to be recent invention of mankind's.

And not a particularly good one.

Why do people go camping for a week or two? It's a taste of technomad life. A taste many people cannot live without.

Nomadic living suits us.