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Interview with Frances McDormand on her new film – Nomadland – UK Exclusive

Oscar winning Frances McDormand is the most fascinating and enigmatic actor on the A-list right now.  Having her pick of the most heavily funded movies, its revealing she chose Nomadland (see the brilliant trailer here)  – which she produced as well as starring in – a relatively low budget feature about the Snowbirds – mainly older Americans -who travel the country in RVs and other vehicles, looking for work and sun.

The film opens February 2021, and has already received once-in-a-decade reviews at film festivals.  Chloe Zhao‘s ‘‘Nomadland” is that rare creation that not only lives up to the hype but also makes you forget about it, ” said one reviewer.  “This is a gentle, humane and dizzyingly poetic ode to the people on the fringes of American society, the ones who choose to wander and drift across the great Western landscape,” says another. “Frances McDormand gives a performance that is so alive and unguarded that it feels like non-fiction.”

It’s relevant that 63-year-old McDormand is one of the few in Hollywood who manages to preserve a normal life outside the film world, appearing in public only rarely – usually  to promote a film – but only if she believes in it.  Nomadland is a passion project for McDormand, and for Director Chloe Zhao.  “As I get older, the most important thing for me became the environment where my cellular structure feeds. And in that sense, it has nothing to do with bricks and concrete. I love the land.”

McDormand spoke about her similarities to the person she plays in the movie, Fern – a 60-something woman searching for work and identity and opening up to the possibilities of life on the road.

“It’s interesting, because the biggest difference between me and Fern is that I left my house, left behind my working class life when I was 17, and never came back. But in the film, Fern makes a very important decision to align herself with a man who fell in love with her,But she doesn’t create her own destiny until she was 61. I mean, she starts at 61, which I had started at 17. That’s why I don’t think her life is so much like mine.”

“Well, I’ve been practicing the idea of pretending to be someone else for 38 years now. I think there’s always a part of every character which has some resemblance the actor’s life. And in this case, it’s much closer. But I don’t know if I can say she’s just like me.”

As a child McDormand lived a nomadic lifestyle – travelling with her parents.  Is this relevant to the nomadic lifestyle portrayed in the movie?

She was adopted with her sister, by the McDormand family, and together lived in Georgia, Kentucky, Tennesee and Pennsylvania.  Frances won a place at the prestigious Yale Drama School. It was there …

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Luxury Volkner Motorhome

The Volkner mobil performance s is the future of road living. The 40ft luxury motorhome comes with all of the mod-cons you could possibly wish for. However

you may need deep pockets to purchase one. There is no doubt that this mobile home has the super wealthy in mind. With a price tag of $1.7million (£1.2million) it is out of reach for most people, but it never hurt to dream.

The Performance S also offers a fully-equipped kitchen, sleeping quarters, wooden and leather fittings, state-of-the-art entertainment, and a wall that slides out to provide extra space.
Stephanie Volkner, director of German firm Volkner Mobil, says one of the greatest features that shows off the home’s lavishness is a cooking island, something that cannot be found inside most of the motorhome’s competitors. Going on to say “It is a house on wheels”.

  • The made-to-order machines take around 12 months to build.

Customers can choose from a range of fixtures and fittings to customise their motor homes to their preferences. With high-quality leather seats to real wood units and stone tiles in the kitchen and bathroom on offer. It even includes a supercar garage fitted with a electrohydraulic lift. So, if you happen to own a Ferrari, Porsche, BMW or Mercedes, You can bring it with you on your travels.

Volkner also says ‘Our clients normally have big companies. They want to travel freely.

‘They want to decide when they start their journey, where they can go, not before. ‘They look at the weather and start. They want to live in their own, very personal area. Exclusive is for everybody very different. Some need a golden faucet to be exclusive.

‘For me, it’s exclusive that the interior has harmony and all the materials are of the highest quality and their processing is at the highest level.’

Would you buy one if you had the cash ?

Find more luxury mobile homes here: https://www.billionaire.com/luxury-mobile-homes/1659/the-best-luxury-mobile-homes-

Looking for a cheaper alternative? Read: https://off-grid.net/mobile-homesteading/

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Van living is road to freedom

“Living in a van, I can make money, be an artist, and travel three continents,” says Nathan Murphy, an accomplished amateur rock climber from Cornwall in the UK, who has spent the past two years fitting out and then travelling in his Ford Transit.

With the number of van conversions and purpose built motor homes at an all time high, what used to be a tiny subculture is going mainstream. The mobile life is no longer seen as a family vacation option. Improved technology, better camping gear, mobile phones and the internet mean it just as viable long term as owning a bricks and mortar home.

We have written about Nathan before, but recently he was featured in The Sun newspaper, and that was a reminder at how mainstream the lifestyle has become.

These days, retirees and students are just as likely to be buying a recreational vehicle if they can afford it, or converting a small van if they are on a budget. From snowbirds (the retirement generation seeking the sun) to snowflakes (as thin-skinned millennials are sometimes known) there is a growing realisation that a McMansion has too many overheads that eat into your freedom.Van living is a way to “make your life cheaper so you can do more with less.”
“Why engage in a system that is broken?” says Nate in an interview on the off-grid youtube channel. “I just don’t want to waste my entire life paying the bank interest.” There is a housing crisis affecting the generation that are leaving college now – because not enough homes are being built, and scarcity is keeping prices too high. “More and more people are choosing a different option,” says Nathan. “There are hundreds of thousands of people across Europe looking at alternatives – tiny homes, off-grid, van living. Its a huge trend.”

He was brought up in a big old house in Cornwall that needed constant works – which gave him the skills he uses van living.

“I can do a huge amount for very little money,and my rent is zero. I can do so many things that most people don’t dare to do – I just want to show people they can do it all,” by reducing their living costs to nearly zero, meaning they no longer need to be wage slaves.

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Living in small camper vans

campervan2
I am learning more and more about people who live nomadic lives, driving and living in smaller camper vans rather than buying into the larger campers and such. The nice thing about these smaller camper vans is they can park in more places, they have less problems with stealth camping in town, they are unobtrusive, low profile and fit in just about anywhere.

I think the hardest thing (for me at least) would be not having so much stuff, though honestly that would probably be a good thing. These 2 videos show a couple and a single guy, it probably wouldn’t work so well with kids, but for the singles or couples, younger and empty nesters, it would be a doable thing.

Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5u3thpouPM


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRX9kRQy2P0

Could you live this way? Do you live this way? What do you think? Be sure to comment below :)




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Mobile living

Mobile living
A few months ago, a long lost friend appeared back in my life, a friend I knew when I was an early teen but lost contact with, all these years later we reunited and picked our friendship right up where we left off. I learned that my friend lived in her van, that does not mean she is “homeless”, she lives this way by choice and actually lives a pretty interesting life. You can read about her here.

Through following her on FaceBook and making friends with her friends on there, people who also live a mobile life, I found a very interesting fellow, Bob Wells, he is an experienced, long term, successful and happy vandweller. After perusing his website, where he shares so much of his experiences to help other people live this life, I had to share him with you. I am so very impressed with him, turns out I’m not the only one impressed with him, he is in a documentary about people who gave up a permanent stick built home, who have gone off the grid, on the road, who travel where they wish, when they wish, the freedom these folk enjoy is beyond words.

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Vandwelling

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Modern technology, we have shunned much of it, but sometimes it’s a great thing to have around, the internet, FaceBook and the such, these things allow us to communicate, to keep in touch with, and to find those we lost track of.

In this case, I reached out on FaceBook, searching for a long lost friend, a person I knew back when I was not even a teenager. I found her and discovered she is living a parallel life to us, living off-grid, but her life is mobile, she is a gypsy at heart.

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Getting Off the Grid – options for city dwellers

Living off the grid was popularized by our editor, Nick Rosen, in the mid-1990s, back before social media took center stage or the pressing environmental issues of our time were fully understood by the everyday person. Though today “living off the grid” might look different
than he initially envisioned it, it is definitely something everyone needs to consider, whether you live rurally or in a city. Living off the grid today does not mean that you need to run off to one of the eco-havens in North America or elsewhere.In the USA, Lasqueti Island, Common Ground, and Earthaven are certainly settlements to look towards when designing future housing developments that promote the environment and health, but you don’t need to get onto their waiting list or uproot your life to start cutting yourself away from the city grid today.
It is also important to remember that “living off of the grid” is not something people always
choose. In the USA it is estimated that 1,300,000 people live off the grid, in 50–75% of cases this is due to poverty. When taking into consideration how much renewable electricity and other renewable options can be (even with government subsidies) it can feel that being eco-friendly and reducing your utilities bill is a pipe dream.
It is not.
There are many different options to help you reduce your reliance to the grid, make your home more eco-friendly, reduce your carbon footprint, and even boost your wellbeing right at home – even in a city.

Why Live Off the Grid

Living off of the grid as much as possible has multiple benefits. Most of these benefits are seen over long periods of time, making your investments now the better choice.

Extreme Utilities Savings

Powering your home predominately with renewable electricity that you have produced is one of the best ways to keep your utilities costs as low as possible, especially if you live in an area that refuses you to disconnect entirely due to health and safety concerns.

Great for the Environment

We need to completely stop our use of coal and other non-renewable resources and instead switch over to renewable alternatives. The benefits are obvious. Currently, we reach Earth Overshoot Day in between July or August, depending on reports. This means that we strip the earth of more than can be replenished in a year, and we still have five months to go.
By investing in renewable energy, we can reduce the carbon impact of coal, which currently is responsible for 30% of CO2 emissions around the world.

Boosting Wellbeing

By getting off the grid, through renewables, home-grown gardens, and reducing the
number of electrical gadgets, we can actually boost our wellbeing. Humans need nature. When we are connected to it we feel calmer, happier, and healthier. By getting off the grid in many ways, from energy to food production, you can …

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Off-Grid 101

My Off-grid plan

Treetop Jen has returned home to the UK, and now she is wondering how to reshape her life.

Aim: to live off-grid in the back of  a minibus, simply parked in a  ‘normal’ town, with a job in the charity sector, still part of  ‘normal’ society.

WHY? Hmmm…where to begin?

Well – like most people, I have spent some of my time in life pondering on the future; imagining how my life may turn out & how I might feel in each of the imagined outcomes.

I also spent (& still spend) time observing my others’ lives around me as they currently are. These two activities left me less & less inclined to live in an ‘ordinary’ house with a mortgage & equally less willing to rent accommodation;

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Mobile

I live in my car

Jassen Bowman lives in his car out of choice – here’s a unique glimpse into the thought process of a car-dweller

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