Tiny A cabin...

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grubworm

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We could start something similar here on OB. I have heard and seen of other people offering their place up as a safe haven to other members traveling.
yeah, see what michael and the others think and maybe have a thing under Overland Bound Members or Travel and Events where people can see that this actually exists and maybe just have a thread for participants to list a brief description of what they offer and where they are located. interested people can DM the person with the property and go from there.
if this were to take off to some degree, then i guess it would be possible to use the Map feature on here that could identify members offering a place to stay so people could see that on a map and plan routes that would utilize that. (more work for the OB staff, of course! :grin:)
some members might have an actual place to share and some might be able to just offer a driveway and extension cord for the night...but i figure anything that promotes more travel and safe travel is a good thing

this would really be helpful east of colorado where pretty much everything is private property. i tried a little stealth camping in texass and it wasnt easy. you could be parked on a desolate dirt road 50 miles from the nearest house and as soon as you doze off, someone will come bitching that you cant be there. times like that, even just having a member offer his driveway for the night would mean a peaceful sleep knowing you wont be getting hassled...
 
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Viking1204

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Love the idea you've started @grubworm! I currently live in a rental townhouse but the long term plan is to buy a property in the North half of one of the counties around the area we live. I'd like to retire in about 10 years and when I do I don't want to live in the city so if we get a property I'd be interested in building something for travelers too! So what are the details of your solar setup, I imaging that was probably one of the more expensive pieces of your build i would think!
 
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grubworm

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Love the idea you've started @grubworm! I currently live in a rental townhouse but the long term plan is to buy a property in the North half of one of the counties around the area we live. I'd like to retire in about 10 years and when I do I don't want to live in the city so if we get a property I'd be interested in building something for travelers too! So what are the details of your solar setup, I imaging that was probably one of the more expensive pieces of your build i would think!
awesome!

actually solar was pretty cheap. i had (2) 100w renogy panels just sitting in my shop left over from other projects so i just took a piece of pipe and cemented it in the ground and made a frame from left over unistrut and welded it to the pipe. If i had to purchase the items, it would be about $100 per panel and roughly $40 for pipe and unistrut. i ran that thru a charge controller made for a lifepo4 battery. The controller was $40-ish and a 50ah lifepo4 battery was around $300. i could have used a agm battery for around a third of the cost, but i wanted to try lithium and figured now is good since i can have it outside in case it catches on fire.
i then ran off the battery to a 12v switch panel i got off amazon for $35.

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it has 5 rocker switches for lights, fan, etc and USB charge ports for phones and a voltmeter for seeing how the battery is doing. then i just bought various led lights off amazon and i went with a 12v radiator cooling fan because they are pretty well built and move a lot of air for a good price. seems like any 12v fan for boat or RV has a crazy high price when the radiator fans move more air for a lot less money.


200w with a 50ah lifepo4 does great running lights, fan and other small items like speakers and charging phones. the wife does pottery and wants to set up her pottery wheel out there, so i will run power for that, but otherwise, the 200w and 50ah battery does well.
 
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OTH Overland

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@grubworm , Its a great idea, we have offered up our driveway and use of our space for people travelling to be able to have a safe place to unload their gear to do some cleaning or use the shop and tools to do repairs and maintenance. getting so hard to find anywhere to do these tasks while on the road. In our little corner of NW Washington unless you are up in the mountains on FS roads, its hard to find a good place to stay that you either don't get chased out of or is not already filled with homeless camps. We have yet to have a bad experiance with anyone, and all have left everything as good or better than when they arrived. Best part is we allways get to hear some good stories from thier travels over a BBQ dinner on the deck or in one case Christmas Dinner.
 

grubworm

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@grubworm , Its a great idea, we have offered up our driveway and use of our space for people travelling to be able to have a safe place to unload their gear to do some cleaning or use the shop and tools to do repairs and maintenance. getting so hard to find anywhere to do these tasks while on the road. In our little corner of NW Washington unless you are up in the mountains on FS roads, its hard to find a good place to stay that you either don't get chased out of or is not already filled with homeless camps. We have yet to have a bad experiance with anyone, and all have left everything as good or better than when they arrived. Best part is we allways get to hear some good stories from thier travels over a BBQ dinner on the deck or in one case Christmas Dinner.
LOVE IT!!!
very cool you are doing that. the wife and i have seen some amazing places, but some of our greatest moments were meeting nice and interesting people. we get quite a few invites and have met OB members all over the country and have yet to meet anyone on here who wasnt enjoyable to be around. no matter what has been going on in the world, OB has always kept a good vibe and we've met nothing but cool members, so definitely want to help out in anyway possible to keep that good vibe going!
 

Trout Bumming

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Grubworm, Love the A frame! My favorite kind of building. Nice work. I second M Rose suggestion on Warm Showers. Great program and we participate. Have a little cabin on the Wind River just east of Teton Nat Park that Overlanders have used and folks bicycling across America. The way we do it is to hide a key for folks. Has worked well. We put in a guest book and ask for comments so consider that. Don't charge a thing. Folks have left grocery's, coffee, drinks over time for future visitors. So, I encourage you to go down that road. Met a lot of fun folks. Even take them fly fishing for a day if around. Again, Nice Job. Mark at Trout Bumming.com
 

grubworm

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UPDATE:
well, the wife has pretty much taken over the cabin just like she did with my side of the closet. apparently this is now her "utopia" (i.e. place to escape doing housework)

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just wait until i run 220v in there and move in the washer and dryer!

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