Episode: 626
Title: HPR0626: Urban Camping ep 4
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0626/hpr0626.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 00:05:01

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Hi everyone, Klaatu here. This is Episode 4 of How to Be an Urban Camper. In the previous
episodes we have covered why you might want to urban camp. We have covered how to find
shelter and how to maintain personal hygiene. In this episode we're going to be talking about
an organization, how you need to pack your stuff, and what you need to keep on you, what you can
stash, where you can stash it. Some listener feedback about the hygiene issues, specifically about
the shower. I'm telling you the shower for some reason, big topic. And admittedly it does become
more of a concern or more of something that you have to think about in your daily life when you're
urban camping. Do you think about how much of a no-brainer it is when you've got an apartment
or a house with a shower, even shower whenever you want, whenever it's convenient, whenever you feel
the need? When you're urban camping it's not necessarily a no-brainer. It sometimes takes real
planning and real thought. So it's no surprise that that would be a topic of much discussion.
One person emailed me about patchouli and patchouli of course is a spice or an herb or something that
people use as a sort of um not a deodorant but well okay maybe a deodorant. I've never used
patchouli. I've always liked to smell patchouli actually. I don't mind it at all. But it is
associated a lot with sort of a group of people and those groups of people are called hippies.
And I have no problem with hippies and I have no problem with the hippie lifestyle. In fact a lot
of things about it I really admire. But I never really identified myself with hippies. So I never
really kind of looked into patchouli and never really knew how to go about looking into it.
You know it's kind of one of those things that you just I think get to learn from other people.
So I've never really tried that. But I certainly wouldn't be opposed to trying it. And so yeah
that is an option. And the controversy of showers as I had put in the last episode. Some people
were asking me why I said that there was a controversy. It just boils down to it. I heard from a
couple of people. One of them was a real-life dermatologist who said that showers on a regular
like daily basis aren't actually that good for the skin. So it's it's not actually an and water
apparently is kind of a harsh substance. Like if you think about what water does to stones you know
in on mountainside or in riverbeds it actually polishes the stone you know just just from running
over over it a lot. So water is a very it's not corrosive I guess. It is a very intense substance
obviously not a scientist. But yeah so it can be it can be a harsh thing. So there is a little
bit of controversy among people who know about science and stuff about whether showers you know
how much how much showering is really appropriate. So that's what I was referring to. I have no clue
myself. So I hesitate to sound like I'm trying to give advice or anything. And then the other comment
was or rather the third comment was the possibility of basically sponge baths you know like going
into a private bathroom in a cafe or something. And just using that you know you sink and and the
soap there and and just kind of bathe that way. I'm pretty sure that doesn't work. It seems like it
would right. I mean it's soap water your skin together again but it just doesn't have the same
effect really as a real life shower. So you might want to avoid that as an option. I know that that
doesn't work just from like cross country road trips or or or long road trips not necessarily
cross country but you know road trips to some location on a ridiculous budget where all you're
buying it basically is gas. That just doesn't work. After a while your body starts to smell even
that pure L stuff it just doesn't work. There's just nothing like the real thing the real thing being
a shower. That's probably the last any of us wants to hear about personal hygiene on hacker
public radio. So I'm going to close the issue there. Oh and someone mentioned actually that I
didn't really give my contact information. I didn't mean to do that. I didn't mean to make
everyone hunt my email address. So it's clat2 at hackerpublicradio.org or clat2 at member.fsf.org.
You can email me either of those should go through should work fine. So anyway the topic for this
episode is organization because I found that even though you only have a little amount of stuff
you also are consolidating all those few items into small spaces. Obviously if you had a big
apartment or even a small apartment and you had very very few things you could just line them up
and you'd always know where everything was because they are there they are right in plain view.
But what you're doing really is reducing the number of things that you've got and reducing the
space that you store them in. At least for me I find that well I have a four backpack
system I guess you could call it. I don't really think of it as a system but I have four backpacks
and one of those is full of books. It's a big gym bag. It's got all of my geeky and science
fiction books and and technical books in it and that's one bag that I have. Now that I could do
without. I ever lose a place to store that. I would simply leave it behind because I certainly
wouldn't want to carry that around. So that's one thing what I do is I store them at whatever job
I have. Okay so three jobs so far. The job where I was living in my office I had all those books
in my office. I mean they're all most of them are reference books anyway except the
science fiction novels. A lot of the books are really good things to have as a reference if you
have like a geeky job or anything like that and then I got a different job as a technical writer
and I put those on my desk. Most recent job that I have also has an office and so I just have all
the books there. So you can store certain things at whatever place you decide is going to be
more or less your home base. So that's what I did with that backpack. So I don't tend to think of
that book bag quite literally as part of my belongings. I mean I do own those books so they are
part of what I own but like I said I consider them very expendable. I don't carry it around on me
on any regular basis. So really I consider it almost a three backpack system and the three
backpack that I carry around break out into a backpack for toiletry items. So all the things like
toothbrushes, razor, shaving cream, nail clippers, floss, cologne, deodorant, whatever you carry
around for sort of well hygiene. That's one backpack. The other backpack is for clothes and then
the other backpack. The third backpack is for the stuff that you're actually using during the day.
So for me of course that would be a computer or three iPod with rock box on it of course.
A Santa fuse with rock box on it of course and cables and things like that. Those are my three
backpacks and one thing that you should always make sure that you've got should never forget
your towel. That was a sort of a reference to a hitchhiker's guide never mind. So you've got one
backpack that would be your toiletries backpack. What you might want to do here is I honestly I find
this backpack to be one of those things that I carried around a lot and if it wasn't the whole
backpack then I would at least subdivide the sort of everyday items like toothbrush and floss and
stuff like that in and contact solution and contacts and things like that. I would put those into
a separate little zipper bag and I would put that zipper bag into my everyday backpack you know
with my computers and things like that. Not right next to my computers in case of spillage and stuff
that I would have it on on my person because like I say when you're urban camping you just never
know well where you're going to be and whether you're going to be near the gym that you typically go
to for for showers and brushing teeth and shaving and stuff or wherever you end up doing that kind
of thing. So again the opportunities arise to take care of yourself and so you should have some of
the important more usual toiletry items on you at all times. The bulk of it you may want to stash
somewhere and places to stash stuff would include well like I say your office if you have an office
or you're you know like in the filing cabinet under your desk at work or something wherever you can
can stash it and count on having it when you need it that would also include of course a friend's house.
So even if you don't stay with that friend all the time if they let you store the bulk of your clothes
there then that would be nice. We're just your shaving kit as it were and then you could just go
there whenever you need to shave and give yourself a haircut whatever. I mean obviously this is
all personal preference and stuff so but I think you're getting the idea there are some items that
you can stash places. Of course again if you've got a gym that you're a membrose you often get
a locker so you could stash your stuff in a locker. If you're at a college you might also be able
to get a locker. I know that one of the schools that I went to had lockers available for like four
dollars a semester or something ridiculous like that. I think you had to provide your own lock
or something but really really cheap and of course they intended it for film supplies and stuff
but you didn't have to put film supplies in there. So stashing the stuff that you don't want to
carry around is a good idea and the clothes typically that's one of those things that are really
nice to stash because clothes I don't care how few clothes you've got they always take up room.
It's really quite amazing and unless you want to go to laundry mat like every other day then you
kind of have to have a backlog of clothes so those are really nice to stash somewhere not actually
have to carry around. Definitely wouldn't want to have to carry my clothes backpack around all the time
and if I had to I'd be getting rid of a lot of t-shirts. Those are the ways that I keep all my things.
Now the technical or the I guess personal every day backpack that is the one that is always on
your back or in my case my back and that's an important one because I've got your computers in it
or your spare battery or your cables or your mouse or the book that you're reading at that
any given moment whatever. So keeping that one organized is really key I think and the way that
I ultimately managed to really get that down was well first of all get a backpack with a fair
amount of pocket. Pockets can be kind of annoying in one way because you never exactly know where to
you can never seem to remember which pocket hold what or you forget that a pocket exists and
you're looking around for your little sands of fuse and wondering how you manage to lose it and
then you remember oh yeah there's that little media player pocket at the top of the backpack and
then you dig down in there and there it is the sands of fuse that can get annoying but if you get
used to it it gets really really efficient. Now even in those cases I've I have found that I just
have so many cables I mean many USB to USB micro tiny little weird USB to normal USB power cables for
every device those sort of hybrid USB power and data cables for various media players you have USB
thumb drives ethernet cables mouse USB to micro SD adapter all kinds of things and if you just
throw them into one pocket and figure oh I'll just I'll dig through it whenever I need it I find
that that really doesn't work very well so what I ended up doing was one day someone at one of my
jobs brought me like 20 sharpie pins that she had gotten on sort of no demo or promotion that's
what I'm trying to think of it was a company promotion or something as if she had gotten like 20
sharpies so she brought me like 20 sharpies and absurdly each sharpie was packaged in its own
individual zip lock bag and so what I did was I took all the sharpies and put them in a pocket
of my backpack I took the individual zip lock bags and I used them for all my cables and I really
kind of subdivided pretty severely like so I'd have my iPod data USB and my fans of fuse data USB
because of course they don't take the same kind of connector on the other end so I put both of
those cables in the in in one ziplock and then I put the power cable for my Nokia in another ziplock
and then I put some mini USB cables in another ziplock and it turned out to be the most brilliant thing
I've ever done because at least then you're you're you're reaching in and you're kind of taking out
ziplock bags to look for that one little cable that you need at least you're not reaching in and
just pulling out this spaghetti spider web of tangled cables with a mouse dangling from somewhere in
the middle of it it's frightening when that happens so to avoid that I've found subdividing them into
ziplock bags works brilliantly everything else pockets are great but if you don't have them
hey you got ziplock bags left over from the cable organization throw all your stuff in there
you know USB keys in one SD media in another media players in yet another whatever kind of setup
you've got keep subdividing in mind as a good way to kind of keep yourself sane it helps a lot
I found also when urban camping that having a fork knife and a spoon is the best thing you
can ever do and a cup to be honest like a travel mug the fork knife and spoon I just got from
a camping supply store um well I didn't actually get it from the store I got it from my dad who
got it from a camping supply store it wasn't like a fancy spork or a titanium spork from think
geek or anything like that it was just a set and they kind of collapse into each other they
or they fold up so so they're kind of one to one one unit but then you can take them all apart and
you get a fork and a knife and a spoon that's brilliant that that just I don't know it just
makes things so easy and it's weird because I think I mean I still have them and so now that I'm
not urban camping currently um it's still great to have because you just never know when you're
gonna get free food and I'm always looking for free food sometimes people have already taken all the
knives or all the forks or they're all plastic forks and spoons and knives and again I mean
not to be like all ecological and stuff but really it is kind of stupid to use plastic knives
and stuff when you can have just a metal fork knife and a spoon set right there on your person
pretty much at all times so it's not really a bad idea you might want to look into that eventually
I might try to locate like just one of those multipurpose sporks with the fork and the knife or the
fork and the spoon or the spork on one end and then sometimes the edge of the unit will be like a
knife sort of a lightly serrated or at least kind of a butter kind of knife so that that sounds
kind of cool I just haven't really hunted one down because what I have works so I don't really
want to go spend the extra money on a fancy spork um that's a great thing to have another great
thing to have like I said was a travel mug my only problem with travel mugs is that they seem to be
all really poorly made or or or or they're made in such a way that they're very hard to clean
and they end up kind of getting gross and and they fall apart and and stuff like that so I'm not
married to the idea of having a travel mug I like having a travel mug and I love going out and
getting a cup of coffee and just being able to put it in my own mug because it does again just
it feels more efficient for people to have a mug of their own then to go to stores or restaurants or
whatever and use a mug and then throw it away or whatever so if I'm gonna take the coffee out
I like to have the travel mug but that does it just I don't know I have not found a very great
travel mug yet and I'm talking about a really good travel mug like one that's gonna be sturdy
that I can chain to like a backpack or something but also that when I'm finished drinking my coffee
I can just kind of rinse and and know that it's not going to get all grimy and smelly afterwards
and I want the lid to be secure and not to like fall apart after 10 uses which so far has been my
experience so if you know of any good really good travel mugs let me know and and and honestly if
it was good enough I'd probably spend some money on it like if I was sure that it was a very robust
travel mug I'd I'd put down some money for that because I mean it would be an investment that I
could use for a long time ideally that's about it for organizing it that I can think of um it's
it's kind of easy and easy topic it's not that hard to figure out and yet it is one of those
things that you kind of have to live through in order to come up with your own system I think
initially you might find it a little bit difficult to keep track of all your stuff or at least to
understand where all that stuff is and and and initially for me at least I would inevitably find
myself out somewhere and I would think oh I should have brought such and such and I didn't so it
it would always seem like I never had the item that I would end up actually needing but the more
that I started understanding which items were important they just always have on me the the
less I would encounter those issues and and that's why I have a bag a backpack just of the stuff
that I use in real life you know no keep my Nokia my computer my cables all that other good stuff
and then I've got those kind of almost auxiliary backpack like the clothes and the non-standard
toiletries that I can I I don't have to bring everywhere I go with me and that's um that's
organization for you so I hope that helps or I hope it will help if you ever try this for yourself
and um I wish I had a good recommendation for what backpack brand to go get honestly I don't
I haven't really fallen in love with any backpack brand yet lately I've been really into this one
called Augio I think OGIO maybe one of my jobs gave me one and it's it's brilliant it's a great
backpack so far it's got padding on the back so that it's not always like bouncing against your
spine and it's it's got a lot of pockets and it's it's pretty nice I'm I'm really digging it but
it's it's it's still fairly new in my life so it's it's hard to commit to that yet um so just
you know try a couple of different brands out see what you can afford see what you can see how
how durable they are don't be afraid to swap them out if if they're just not working for you
just try to upgrade however you can okay so that's it that's all for organization hope that helps
hope it was all informative next episode we're going to be talking about food how to get food
when urban camping hmm interesting problem well we'll explore it in detail next time
on how to be in urban camper on hacker public
you
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