Photo Essay: At Home With Technomadia
Chris Dunphy and Cherie Ve Ard are two “gen-x geeks” who live on the road full-time with their RV. They’re currently making their way across the USA, headed towards Tampa. In their words, they’re “living at the intersection of Epic & Awesome – traveling, living, working and playing full-time in a small solar powered RV, embracing nomadic serendipity.”
How could you not love a couple like that?
Their secret to living this way is total lack of debt. They’re not rich, but they don’t have credit cards, mortgages, rent payments, student loans, child support, or anything of the sort.
Here’s a glimpse into their tightly compacted life, complete with all the great technology and a fluffy cat.
1. Orion, the 2009 Oliver Legacy Elite Travel Trailer.
2. Chris Dunphy and Cherie Ve Ard, owners of Orion, their first day as full fledged RVers.
3. Kiki the kitty hanging out in the back of the RV, where Chris and Cherie have favored a full size bed over a four-person dinette typical of many RVs.
4. The back upper bin of the trailer is all that is needed for the couple’s tech gear. Here they stash a Mac Mini, a WiFi long-range antenna, a back-up drive, a small Canon printer, and a few other essentials…like books.
5. The kitchen view: occupying only about four cubic feet of space, the refrigerator comes complete with freezer and can store enough food for two weeks. The drawers are also deep and great for storage.
6. A larger view of Orion’s kitchen.
7. Fun photo art by Ben Willmore. The technique used here is “lightpainting.”
8. Cherie hard at work in her comfortable office.
9. No such thing as a hot bath here, only room for a shower in this tiny bathroom.
10. A rising moon at one of Technomadia’s campsites.
11. A curtain attached to the ceiling with suction cups helps separate the bed area from the living area when privacy is necessary.
12. Technomadia’s Burning Man camp where many Matador team members camped as well.
Community Connection
RV travel not for you? Check out some inspirational articles about traveling by cargo ship or motorcycle.
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16 Comments... join the discussion!
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Thanks so much for the awesome tour of our little home on wheels
The interior space may be small, but our yard is huge. And would you believe, Orion is our big RV upgrade? Our first year on the road, we traveled in a trailer almost half the size.
– Cherie
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Cherie, not once while seeing your home did I think “Wow, that’s small.” Because it’s huge in so many other ways.
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Thanks so much for the tour of your RV.
We camped right next to you at Burning Man, but I was so overwhelmed with the millions of insane things going on at my first burn, I didn’t even think to ask to come in and take a look around. Next time we’re both in Black Rock City — which will probably be the next time our paths cross — I’ll bring a bottle of something for us to all share.
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I love love love seeing your Orion, Cherie.
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I had a chance to check out Orion at Burning Man and it was surprisingly roomy (not to mention ridiculously dust free, compared to my humble abode).
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Wonderful organization of your space! We have an RV also, which we take to Burning Man, but I’m SO envious of your ability to live on the road – it’s still a few more years before my youngest stepson is “out of the nest” but boy are we anxiously awaiting our opportunity to move that nest! Until then I’ll live vicariously through your tales
and maybe we’ll meet up at this year’s Burn if you’re going!
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AWESOME!
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Its a lovely tour of home I would like to own .I want this to roam in india,Bhutan,Nepal,sikkim.
Free from paying the ridiculous rents hotels charge,Free from the limits on the amount of time, you spend in any beautiful place.↵ -
Thank you everyone for your comments on our little home on wheels – it’s so incredibly wonderful to be able to travel all over without ever leaving home
@Trisha – We will indeed be at Burning Man this year. And we’ll be hosting Camp Nomadia again – for future, present and past nomads. Details are at http://www.technomadia.com/campnomadia
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I’ve been living in my minivan (or “mini-RV”) for about 8 months. I started out just traveling but now I’m working on a business. I pop into local libraries during the day and go to a McDonalds if I need more wifi. I sleep at WalMart almost every night and have *never* had a problem. Even if I end up getting a normal corporate job for a year or two, there’s no way I would go back to paying rent. As they say, “the meat is sweeter close to the bone.”
Here’s a little photo album of my setup: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2597128&id=4912461&l=a777914b19
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so sweet of you both…very sweet kitty and your orion
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Hi,
Great plan, great life, wow!
I just wanted to know how does Kiki the cat handle the travelling? I have a cat and long to go nomad but I don’t know if he’d cope.Thanks
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Simply awesome.
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@journokid Kiki does fantastically with the travel.. but she grew up with it. We added her to our journey when she was 7 weeks old, so she really knows nothing else. However, we have met many cats on the road who were once stationary house cats who have made the transition well. Start out by taking some road trips that don’t involve going to vet to see how he adjusts over time.. cats are adaptable, they just need to think it’s on their terms
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Kiki’s all grown up now! Please give her a cuddle from me…and hug yourselves while you’re at it. Your parking space here in Studio City awaits you anytime.
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