Dirtbag logistics: address, register car? etc

Lets not get into is dirtbagging alive or dead, good or bad. Im gonna live in my cave in J Tree this winter no matter what you say (I left a cooler buried in a crack in a rock behind my cave, I gotta go back!). Anyway, with the passing of my Dad, I no longer have that convenient home base to rely on. So my questions are:

1. What do you do for an address? This seems to be the most confusing. I dont know what state I am a resident of, if any? I have a Montana drivers license from when I lived out there but have since moved from the address on my license. Is it fraud to just go ahead and use that address anyway and register in Montana? I mean I DID live there at one point..

2. How do you register a car? Have to be resident in state where you register? Ideally I'd like to pick a state that averages lower car insurance rates than others.

Im sure other questions will arise, but thats where Im at now. I inherited my Dad's 06 Civic and will now need to transfer the title to me and to register it and all that.

I had to use a friend's address for everything, claiming I lived there for several years. When I used the "I don't have a fixed residence" line, most people (state, insurance co, etc) would tell me they can't help me.

This requires a friend in a fairly fixed location nearby.

You can register out of state and it is an absolute pain. It took me several phone calls to have the plates sent to a hotel. Call up the DMV and get instructions from them. Tell them you're working out of state or such and they'll let you send in a pre-addressed/paid package with your cashier's check and mail your plates back.

I think the requirements for a resident are something like an address in state, employment, and billing statement. It varies though. The state website should have the requirements on their website.

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My style was a bit easier than a cave though as I was in college (engineer) at the time and had access to computer labs, lounges, and rec centers for showers.

Probably varies state to state.

In NH when my girlfriend moved in with me and wanted to register her car (its registered locally via town offices and she was already a NH resident) I actually had to get her a notarized letter stating she lived with me. Otherwise you need a pay stub, utility bill, etc with an address.

For five winters I lived in Colorado and couldn't even rent a post office box to have mail forwarded since I wasn't a resident (was working remotely). Solved that problem by having all my mail forwarded to "general delivery" with my name and it got held at the post office for pick up.

Open a PO Box in the area you will be in.
Forward all your mail to it.
Register your car and insurance to your new PO (pretty sure you can do this in CA).
Don't worry about changing your address on your licence unless it is going to expire soon.

I've herd of people using the post office address as there residency. Fill out your address with the PO box just remove the words "PO box" from the address, but include the actual number.

Check out some of the websites that full time RV'ers use and talk about what states to register in. South Dakota, Florida and Texas are all pretty popular states because they allow mail forwarding of driver's license and such and have no state income tax.

Pretty in depth discussion at myrvparks.com/forums/showth…

A couple of points.
Remember that while you are in J-tree National Park, you are NOT in California you are on National Park Property. (your 215 is not valid, etc.). Park rangers are less inclined to hassle about you state reg. BUT...they are wise to cars that have been in the park more than the 2 weeks allowed, they are writing license plates down and enforcing the 2 week period. This from experience.
And the state of California,(outside the park) on the other hand, is very aggressive about out of state registrations, and if they note a car hanging around a lot, will attempt to get you to admit that you are on the road, don't live in (fill in the blank) state. Has to do with smog checks and registration fees.
J-tree has the last couple of years really cracked down on the long term visitor, and enforce it hard. Actually checking plates at entrance!?
If you can afford it ($100 +/-) renters insurance is really worth having.
Why not just transfer title in state where your dad lived? Easy if you are executor.
Sorry about your dad, btw.
¢.02

Get a job! Just kidding.

Super Fluke wrote:Open a PO Box in the area you will be in. Forward all your mail to it. Register your car and insurance to your new PO (pretty sure you can do this in CA). Don't worry about changing your address on your licence unless it is going to expire soon. I've herd of people using the post office address as there residency. Fill out your address with the PO box just remove the words "PO box" from the address, but include the actual number.

In my experience, the post office will require proof of a physical address before they will let you open a PO box (lease/rental agreement, utility bill, etc.).

Do you have a friend who will let you use his/her address for things like receiving mail, registering your car, etc., etc.? Ideally you could use the friend's address to open a PO box, then you could use the PO box for everything.

Re: your car -If you plan on leaving it in NJ, you could, transfer title into your name. Rent a cheap storage unit that is just big enough to park car(climb out window/sunroof, leave on empty, and use a fuel stabilizer). Then all you have is storage fee(cars safe) and then when your ready to drive it go to dmv and tell them it's been garaged for x time and sign the reg. exemption waiver and re-register it.

Greg Petliski wrote:Lets not get into is dirtbagging alive or dead, good or bad. Im gonna live in my cave in J Tree this winter no matter what you say (I left a cooler buried in a crack in a rock behind my cave, I gotta go back!). Anyway, with the passing of my Dad, I no longer have that convenient home base to rely on. So my questions are: 1. What do you do for an address? This seems to be the most confusing. I dont know what state I am a resident of, if any? I have a Montana drivers license from when I lived out there but have since moved from the address on my license. Is it fraud to just go ahead and use that address anyway and register in Montana? I mean I DID live there at one point..

Use general delivery. I have used this a lot, and there have been no problems. For example, if you will be in BFE, Montana, your address would be:

Joe Dirt
General Delivery
BFE, MO 98989

They will hold it for a certain amount of time (which is a good length of time, although I'm not sure about the duration exactly). I didn't take the time to read through everyone's responses, so if this was mentioned, sorry.

Jared Moore wrote: Use general delivery. I have used this a lot, and there have been no problems. For example, if you will be in BFE, Montana, your address would be: Joe Dirt General Delivery BFE, MO 98989 They will hold it for a certain amount of time (which is a good length of time, although I'm not sure about the duration exactly). I didn't take the time to read through everyone's responses, so if this was mentioned, sorry.

30 days. It would be worth paying for the smallest possible PO Box in BFE, MT, they're not that much money.

doligo wrote: 30 days. It would be worth paying for the smallest possible PO Box in BFE, MT, they're not that much money.

Not sure about this. Like someone said earlier, you need to have proof of residency in the area to get a PO Box. If you are dirtbagging, you don't want to spend money on stuff unrelated to climbing. General delivery is free, and while they will only hold things for that length of time, you can continue to get packages sent via GD as long as you want. I have been living in my area for a while now. For the first year, we used GD. The only reason we got a PO Box is because once we started renting proper we were able to get it for free.

If you live on the road GD could be PITA. He already has a driver's license with an MT address, he could use a passport as a second ID... You can always print out your cell phone bill as your utility bill as well: poboxes.usps.com/poboxonlin…

Bryan Manning wrote:Re: your car -If you plan on leaving it in NJ, you could, transfer title into your name. Rent a cheap storage unit that is just big enough to park car(climb out window/sunroof, leave on empty, and use a fuel stabilizer). Then all you have is storage fee(cars safe) and then when your ready to drive it go to dmv and tell them it's been garaged for x time and sign the reg. exemption waiver and re-register it.

Some states will require you to notify them when the car is put into storage, otherwise you will be liable for all the late/overdue registration fees. This is to stop people from driving unregistered cars around for a while, then re-registering them when they get some cash or all the unpaid parking tickets have aged out of the DMV's records.

Open a PO Box in the area you will be in.../quote>
Opening a PO box requires a fixed address.

gription wrote: Opening a PO box requires a fixed address.

Not entirely true. UPS offers "Private Mail" boxes that you can setup without a physical address, you just need 2 different id's (i.e DL, Passport, phone bill ect.). Its even better than a USPS PO box, they give you a physical address rather than a number and you can ship anything to it. It's primarily for businesses but not limited to.

You can get a mailbox at a "Mailboxes Etc/UPS Store/Kinkos" type place. They are not technically a Post Office Box and could probably pass for a legit residence address. They won't care about your living arrangements, as long as you pay them on time.

Most of the addresses for them won't even indicate what the place is, it will look almost like an apartment address: 123 Sesame Street, #301, etc.

only by providing even more documents that require a fixed address. Best option is to have a friend allow you to use theirs.

Will S wrote:You can get a mailbox at a "Mailboxes Etc/UPS Store/Kinkos" type place. They are not technically a Post Office Box and could probably pass for a legit residence address. They won't care about your living arrangements, as long as you pay them on time. Most of the addresses for them won't even indicate what the place is, it will look almost like an apartment address: 123 Sesame Street, #301, etc.

There are online companies that can do this for you. Basically, you pay them $20 a month or so, they give you an address, and any mail that comes to them is scanned and you can view it online. Then you can choose to destroy the mail or have it forwarded elsewhere. I did this for the first year I was dirtbagging. However, as with a PO box, you typically need two forms of ID to prove you are who you say you are.

After the first year I learned that paying for any type of address or PO box is a waste of money. Simply use your parent's address as your official address, or whatever address you have on your driver's license. Registering a vehicle can be easy or hard depending on the state. Some states let you register a vehicle out of state with no issues, others not so much. If I recall right, Montana is a state which is known to be very friendly to people who are mobile in nature. You can claim MT as your legal residence without ever stepping foot in the state. You might want to look into the MT DMV. Search RV forums. Tons of info on this on RV forums.

The address thing is probably the most difficult for me. I've lived in a place with no mailing address for six years and though I actually get very little mail, one often must provide an address when doing things. Maybe for some people this wont come up much, but for me it does. I purchase art supplies, and need return address for items I have sold and am shipping out.

One does not want to be "changing address" on any sort of regular basis. Internet passwords are bad enough to remember, but I would forget which address I used if I hadn't had the same one for the duration. It is a local friend's address, and they hold the mail in a bin and I pick it up on occasion. If I am "expecting something,"9debit/credit card renewal, insurance card, tax information etc.) I try to give a heads up and follow up. Nonetheless, there have been a few times when an expected item goes missing. Sucks.

I would suggest using the home of a reliable relative who will likely stay at the same residence long tern, if possible.

When I am on the road, if I have someone whose residence I can have items sent to, I ask their permission and do that. But I do not assume their address. I have it sent to me "Care Of" the person at their address.

A post office box is nice, but you need someone to go check it as needed. And yes, the post office requires proof of residence to have the box.

As said, mail from a PO box or address can get forwarded to a different address as needed. But having this done through the post office(Mail Forwarding, not the same as Change of Address forwarding) is not cheap.

Helpful Hint: Do whatever you can via online(assuming you regularly access it). Learn about security and how to avoid getting your accounts compromised. Krebsonsecurity.com is a blog that is lay-person friendly(and hilarious or scary, depending, when hackers start posting in the comments) and can provide a good education

can't you just sell your Dad's car? Keeping it sounds like a money pit, while it's getting devalued over time...