Quote from brazilianwonder:
Take your girlfriend and go enjoy life. Go travel the world. You will spend much less than living in a RV in the middle of nowhere. You will learn who you really are and when you come back, you will be a new person ready for any challenge.
Leave the RV space for the desperate old man with kids and crazy bills to pay.
You've got so many choices out there, don't pick the worst one.
My personal view is this: I expect the US to fall into total chaos over the next decade. I don't think the stimulus will work, and I think we're looking at a real depression that's 5x as bad as the great depression. I feel as if the American population has become morally bankrupt, and that I need to take care of my housing needs and have the most flexibility as possible if I want to live and survive in the next few years. There are good Americans, but good Americans have been outnumbered by the sort of Americans who feel entitled. An entitled population will lack all civility.
I want an RV that I can use to relocate out of troubled areas and I want to keep firearms that are not allowed in NYC. I also plan to buy a device that'll create water from the humidity in the air, and a few solar cells to keep me up. I'm putting ham radio equipment into the RV, and a few security cameras. If I buy land, I'm going to be armed to the teeth with guns and security.
This isn't because I'm a gun-nut crazy, it just has to do with how afraid I am that the whole house of cards is going to come down. If I can finance my escape in under $30,000, I'd be much better off than buying a 50 to 100k house. If I'm wrong, I'll still have enough cash to convert into a regular lifestyle. If I'm right, it could mean the difference between living and dying while my fellow Americans will have lost their collective minds as they revert to the sort of brutish, uncivilized men Hobbes described them to be in Leviathan.
I've thought about leaving the country, but it doesn't make sense. No place is immune, and it's best to form alliances with other people who have the sort of libertarian mindset I have and battle the unprepared hordes.