Episode: 641
Title: HPR0641: Urban Camping ep 7
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0641/hpr0641.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 00:18:00

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Hi everyone, this is Class 2, and this is episode 7 of the How To Be an Urban Camper mini-series.
This episode is going to be talking about daylight hours as an urban camper,
which doesn't really seem like a topic, but it kind of is.
So previously we were speaking about money, how to make it.
And I mentioned in that episode that I kind of liked having a job while urban camping,
because it gave me sort of something to do during the day,
because I feel like I wear out my welcome pretty severely at most of the places that I go to.
So again, the theory of rotation is not a bad idea for this kind of topic,
and I guess it's something that I don't do all that well all the time.
But I do try sometimes.
And so, yeah, what do you do during the day when you're urban camping?
You don't really sit around your apartment, for instance, so what do you do?
Well, one of those things is a job.
If you've got a job, that will eat up four to six hours of your day right there.
Some place to sit and work on your own stuff while pretending to work on someone else's stuff.
Perfect. What else might you do?
Well, of course my favorite is cafe.
Cafe is in theory great places, because you very frequently,
and you have to kind of look around for the good ones.
And sadly right now, I just recently moved out of the area that I used to look
to the little neighborhood that I used to live in, and there was a great cafe there.
It was fantastic cafe.
And I've moved into a different neighborhood, and the local cafes are jokes.
They're just not real cafes.
You know, they're franchisey kinds of cafes, not the big evil one,
but other lesser evil ones.
And they're just not as good.
But there is one kind of good place. It's not quite as close as it should be,
so I don't go there as often as I might.
My point being that a good cafe is one with free refills, obviously, right?
So if you go to a cafe and they have free coffee refills after you just buy one cup,
you're set for the whole day.
And I've literally spent from, I mean, there was one cafe that I used to go to on weekends,
and I would, I showed up at 6 a.m., and I stayed until 8 or 9 p.m. at night.
And that was, I mean, it was a great place.
It had a power outlet and free refills on coffee.
There was literally nothing else I needed all day.
Oh, I needed food.
But they had food there, too.
Not great food.
But it was food enough to keep me going.
So yeah, it was, that was really great.
And so cafes can be wonderful for that.
And again, rotating around so that you're not just camping out every day at the same cafe.
They start to notice you after a while.
If you're really friendly and amicable and outgoing and everything,
they might not really mind it.
I mean, you can become that regular customer who's a real pleasure to have around.
Unfortunately, I wasn't really that all the time.
Not at every cafe.
Now, there was one cafe, the great one that I mentioned earlier.
And one day their internet went down.
And the first I just ignored it because I wasn't using their connection anyway.
So I didn't really care.
And I didn't want to be like that guy who, you know, knows everything and comes up and says,
oh, you have to do this.
I just didn't want to add to that noise.
So finally, I kind of, they were really kind of concerned about it or whatever.
And people were asking about it.
So I just poked around on, got to their router, you know, looked around.
It was the default password, of course.
Kind of figured out what their problem was.
And then I spent like, actually, like half an hour on the phone with their ISP trying to get them to reset their connection.
Because their modem is like sort of gotten disconnected and it wouldn't get the IP from the ISP.
Anymore, so finally that got fixed.
And then after that, I was like, I was that guy.
I was, hey, it's you.
Thanks for that internet fix here.
Have some more coffee.
And that was really great.
So I could stay there all day, every day, and they would never mind it.
So little things like that really do help.
Other cafes, I didn't do that.
I wasn't friendly.
I was more like on the creepy side of things, I think.
And I would sit, huddled off in a corner, typing away, not looking up, drinking all the coffee I wanted,
and ordering like one bagel all day.
So I don't think they really cared for me all that much at those places.
But you know what, I don't care.
So cafes are good for that.
And they tend to be really, really good when they get the free refills and when they have power.
Those are two important things.
Let's see what else can you do.
Well, libraries, of course.
City libraries are fantastic places.
Because once again, you can basically camp out there all day.
Now, I don't tend to love them as much because they tend to be very strict.
That you're not allowed to have food or drink there.
And that kind of annoys me.
And then you have to get up and leave to go get food.
And you have to stay out.
And then you have to go back.
I just, I don't like that.
I like to camp out.
I like to sit down and be there all day.
Or at least for a very long time.
But maybe you're not that way.
Maybe you like a change of scenery.
So that might work perfectly fine for you.
Libraries are also, they tend to be very distracting.
I mean, there's a lot of cool stuff that your typical library.
More books obviously than you can ever think to even begin to read.
And of course, every time I go into a library,
I end up bringing like 20 books back to my table.
As if though I'm going to read them all in that one sitting.
And it never happens.
So I have mixed feelings about libraries.
I mean, as places to work, I mean, they're great to work in.
But they're also very sort of distracting and not very...
They don't make many allowances for comfort at your typical library.
But they can be great because they really don't bother you.
They don't think twice if you go in there every day for half the day.
I've done it.
They're almost one of the places that you just don't even wear out your welcome somehow.
They don't really ever mind it when people show up every day all day.
That's really nice about them.
So libraries are good.
Their hours tend to be fairly poor.
Cafes tend to have better hours.
I have sounds.
So libraries kind of, they're not open quite as often.
Schools are usually very good too.
Because schools, especially if you can kind of pass yourself off as a like you belong there,
you can go to schools and just hang out.
No one's going to notice everyone thinks you belong there.
If you're on a computer, they don't care.
I do that all the time.
I'll go to, well, now I do it literally all the time because I work at a school.
But before that, I used to do that all the time.
I would just go to one of the local universities into the student lounge kind of area.
And I would go from the student lounge downstairs to where they have the little student cafe
with some patentedly bad coffee, with horrible coffee.
And you can just sit, but they did have pretty good sandwiches like Hokies.
But yeah, you can just sit there and work all day.
And no one's going to bug you because as far as they can tell, you belong there.
You're a student there.
So those are really great resources.
If you've got a university close by, this was like a city university.
It was like right in the middle of the city, really easy to get to.
You just walk in. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
So I would do that a lot.
I actually saw Richard Stallman at that university.
That was the one that I saw Richard Stallman speaking of.
Schools are good.
And you know, their hours tend to be fairly good too.
So if you're finding that your schedule is such that you need to be in a place
and kind of start working on your own stuff early or late.
And then you work during the day or something.
The schools are not bad for that kind of scheduling.
City parks are really great.
I've spent a lot of time at city parks.
They're beautiful.
They've got a lot of green things around like grass and trees and leaves and stuff.
They're really beautiful.
During the summer and the spring, well not so much the summer, but you know,
the spring before gets too hot.
Sometimes there's just nothing nicer than just sitting in the city park
and doing whatever you're going to do.
Do a podcast, read your book, work on your laptop,
as long as the battery holds out, anything like that.
City parks are wonderful for that kind of thing.
I find that they tend to take a little bit of a little bit more planning than cafes do.
You know, if you go to a cafe, pretty much everything you need is right there.
If you go to a city park, you're going to have to think,
how long I'm moving to stay there.
If I'm going to stay there like half the day,
should I go stop by the grocery store first and get some, you know,
picnicky kind of food, you know, food that you can eat like out.
So you have to kind of do that.
And then if you get thirsty,
well you'd better have some juice or something.
And then if you want coffee, you're kind of out of luck.
So, I mean, city parks are great.
They're fun. They are really, really nice.
But in terms of some of those creature comforts,
they may not be as convenient as the cafe.
But at the same time, a cafe is a cafe.
And the city park is the city park, you know,
the city park, the skies above you, clouds.
It can just be, it can be the most beautiful thing you can ever imagine.
So yeah, city parks are really good.
As I think I mentioned in episode two or so,
staying in the city park like too long or too late can be a real issue.
I don't know about other city parks,
but the city park, well certainly the city parks in big cities that I've been in,
have been constantly patrolled by traffic and not traffic cops.
But like meter cops, you know, like the parking meter people,
because some of the city parks had only parking on the perimeter of the park,
so they were patrolled constantly by cops.
Definitely after sundown, you're a criminal.
So you need to get out.
They will harass you.
They will be suspicious of you.
They will watch you.
And if it's too late, as I found,
they will make all kinds of threats and insult you.
And threaten to take it you and to take you into the station
and everything you can imagine.
Really, really dangerous place if you're concerned about cops.
So city parks are good and also bad if it's too late.
So be sure to check into the times that they close officially and stuff like that.
And don't rely on signage.
Sometimes they'll have no indication that they ever close.
But trust me, if it's sundown, it's probably closing.
There might be some ball games or tennis games or something within the city park
if there are like, if there's a soccer field or something like that or a tennis court or something.
Keep your eyes out for whenever you and else kind of starts to clear out of the park.
And that's probably a good sign for you to clear out of the park as well.
Of course, there are friends places.
If you've got friends, you can hang out with them.
That kind of breaks up the repetition of cafe library city park, cafe library city park.
You can go to friends places.
I mean, it's really weird.
I've had friends who will have you over all the time all day long.
And then you say you have to go and they'll still not be ready to get rid of you.
They'll still want you to hang out.
It's great.
I love people like that.
They're wonderful, beautiful human beings.
I guess the negative side of that could be that they want to have you around too much
and then you start feeling like you have to get away from them.
But honestly, I rarely feel like that.
It's really cool to find people who want to hang out.
For whatever reason, whether it's the industries that I work in or whether this is just the way real life is.
I don't really know, but a lot of times people seem to be too busy to hang out at a certain point.
It can be a weird thing trying to find people who have just that right mix of,
hey, let's hang out and be friends and then let's also kind of just work on our own projects.
But you can stay in the apartment and work on your projects while I work on mine.
It's a very weird balance and you just have to feel that out.
And also it's going to probably go into phases, you know.
And then last but not least is the question of streets.
What are the streets like?
Streets aren't really the greatest place to just kind of hang around.
They tend to be, well, not comfortable.
And they tend to be places where you can attract a lot of attention that you may not want.
And again, we're talking about people either in that neighborhood who might start to notice that you're always around
and start to kind of become suspicious of why you're always out on the street all the time.
What are you doing? Who are you?
Why are you here?
That kind of thing, as well as police.
You know, I mean, loitering is apparently a very real offence.
And if you're in one area for too long and they decide that they don't like the way that you look,
then they may very well start to harass you and tell you that you need to kind of move on or whatever.
So the streets aren't quite as open as you think they might be, at least in my experience.
Maybe your town is different. Maybe you've got a different setup where you are.
In that case, hang out on the streets all day, knock yourself out.
I tend to not really do that because I prefer to have electricity for my little technical things that I do,
and coffee, and food, and stuff like that.
So I don't tend to be real street dweller.
I tend to use the streets for conveyance and not really as a living room.
And I said last but not least, the streets.
And really, I meant second to last but not least.
So last but not least, our community, or not even community, just establishments.
And I guess I'm thinking of things that are like jobs, but not quite like jobs.
And by this I mean places that you can volunteer and thereby have social experiences,
as well as maybe work on your own things in your spare time.
So the things that I'm thinking of would be if you're into this sort of thing.
Info shops, which of course are the anarchist bookstores without being bookstores.
So you can volunteer at those. Those are typically sort of co-ops.
So you would volunteer there and work there for no money, but you would help manage the place.
You can volunteer at Christian science reading rooms.
If you're into that, Christian science reading rooms are a really miniature libraries
that are run by the Church of Christ scientist.
And they typically have not only religious texts there, but also just kind of philosophical.
And all kinds of texts, really.
It's dedicated to, as the name suggests, reading, learning, things like that.
So they very often could use volunteer help or you can just go there to hang out.
They're really great places. I love those places to hang out at.
So if there's a Christian science reading room near you, you can go check that out.
They might be a little bit.
Their hours don't tend to be all that great.
But again, if you volunteer, you know, if you get known there and you kind of integrate yourself
and then you volunteer, you might be that person to make the map better hours Monday, Wednesday, and Friday or whatever you choose.
So those are always good.
And other community, I keep saying community, but I guess they're not, well, they are community.
They're for anyone, really.
So things like, I don't know, out-flog lodges or lion's clubs or whatever.
You know, just places that are kind of open to the community and are run in some fashion by the community.
You know, like hacker public radio, except in real life.
Those are great places to hang out.
And I think they're fantastic because you're not only getting to hang out there
and use the existing infrastructure that is there, you know, their power.
You get their climate control.
You get maybe they're, you know, they probably have a coffee maker there.
You can eat there, usually.
You know, it's a good place to be.
But you're also there for a good reason, probably.
You know, because you're probably helping out with something, whether it's folding clothes that a thrift store
or explaining anarchist or Christian science ideals to people who are coming in.
Whatever you're doing, you're doing something that you might think is productive
or that you might feel productive and is good.
And you might also have some interesting social interactions,
because those are kinds of nice ways to meet people that you might not have met otherwise.
And that's always fun, I think.
So, and it's good, I think, for geeks.
Because there is that kind of stigma and cliche that geeks don't socialize.
That they don't go out of their mother's basement.
Oh, speaking of that, mother's basement.
That would be, that would be a place you could hang out as well if you're urban camping.
But I guess then you're not really urban camping.
You're just living in your mom's basement.
But anyway, that's it.
That's what you do with your daylight hours when you're urban camping.
I hope you can think of even more things to do during the daylight hours.
But those are, those are some of the things that you might find yourself doing
or look into doing if you find yourself urban camping.
Have fun with that.
And in the next episode, I believe we're going to be talking about other activities
that you can do while urban camping in general.
Other general activities.
Okay, hacking.
We'll be talking about that next episode.
So, stay tuned.
She wanted the wrong, so she left the old home.
She wanted the wrong, so she left the old home.
She wanted the wrong, so she left the old home.
She wanted the wrong, so she left the old home.
She wanted the wrong, so she left the old home.
She wanted the wrong, so she left the old home.
She wanted the wrong, so she left the old home.
She wanted the wrong, so she left the old home.
She wanted the wrong, so she left the old home.
She wanted the wrong, so she left the old home.
She wanted the wrong, so she left the old home.
She wanted the wrong, so she left the old home.
She wanted the wrong, so she left the old home.
She wanted the wrong, so she left the old home.
She wanted the wrong, so she left the old home.
She went to the heart of the city.
I think I'll restrain yourself.
But nobody's there.
You are being misled.
For what is the strain you're there?
In the home of the city, that has no heart.
That's where they meet.
And that's where they find.
That's where the fire is at.
So strong.
So strong.
And so strong.
And so strong.
So many care is misled.
All died.
So many times.
That's the cry.
It's just a love, it's just a love.
So many times.
In the home of the city,
where there's no meaning.
In the city,
that has no heart.
In the home of the city,
that has no heart.
That's where they meet.
And that's where they find.
So strong.
And so strong.
And so strong.
So strong.
And so strong.
So many care is misled.
All died.
So many times.
That's the cry.
It's just a love, it's just a love.
So many times.
Is there in the city,
where there's no meaning.
In the city,
that has no heart.
And so strong.
And so strong.
And so strong.
And so strong.
And so strong.