# What happened to being a tramp? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 5, 2025, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176 "2025-03-05T20:53:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/41 "2025-03-06T16:48:15Z")
> [@solost](#): > > I think the reality of it would wear thin for both of us after not too long. But maybe when we retire… 🤔 I’d run out of fingers on both hands if I tried to count the number of retiring couples I know (including both sets of parent/stepparent in the 2000s and a set of grandparents back in the 1970s) who sold everything to hit the roads in an RV or trailer\*. I can’t recall a single one sticking it out for more than 18 months. \*For my dad and stepmom it was a 30 foot sailboat. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/42 "2025-03-06T17:01:33Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > I’d run out of fingers on both hands if I tried to count the number of retiring couples I know (including both sets of parent/stepparent in the 2000s and a set of grandparents back in the 1970s) who sold everything to hit the roads in an RV or trailer\*. I can’t recall a single one sticking it out for more than 18 months. Yeah, I think keeping the homestead and not 1000% committing to the RV/trailer/sailboat lifestyle would work best. Doing the ‘snow bird’ thing maybe-- I do love Michigan in the summertime, but I can’t stand winters. One of the ‘RV Life’ YouTube channels I’ve followed a little bit involves a woman who started out alone; then met, fell in love with and married a fellow traveler. They opted to each keep their separate travel vans, which seems very sensible. They park with side doors facing, which adds a little measure of security. They can choose to hang out and stay the night together, or be alone if they’re getting on each others’ nerves or someone snores. If one vehicle breaks down in the middle of nowhere, they’re not stranded. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/43 "2025-03-06T18:19:16Z")
RVs (that’s “caravan” in Brit) are like the modern version of gypsy wagons. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/44 "2025-03-06T20:19:25Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > I can’t recall a single one sticking it out for more than 18 months. IANA RVer. But one of my good pals was/is. They did a ~3 year stint of not quite full-time in a Class A back when they were both early 50s. He was working, she was not, but the work was portable enough. They really enjoyed theitr life on the road, despite some hassles. Fast forward to now. They’re both age 64 and he’s closing in on 100% retirement in less than a year. He’s / they’re acutely aware that despite being lean and fairly fit, the rigors of living in, operating, and maintaining even a newish good-condition Class A are a lot to take on at age 65+. Their current plan is to try it promptly upon retirement, fully expecting to run out of ambition and / or physical capability along about age 67 at best. So store household goods and landside furniture, not sell / donate. If they owned a home, they’d keep it and perhaps rent it out. In their case they’re renting now so that’s not an issue. They’ll buy a well-depreciated Class A so they can sell it at most 2 years later and not be out too much money round trip. Etc. Bottom line: In their experience, full-timing is great for early retirees and FIRE types. Not so much for the Social Security set. There are exceptions of course, and I will say these folks are very conservative / cautious about their planning. But RVing isn’t necessarily carefree or troublefree. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/45 "2025-03-06T20:50:32Z")
Academics and activists would talk about itinerant workers from the 1890s to the 1920s as hoboes, tramps, and bums. Hoboes travelled and worked; tramps travelled and dreamed; bums travelled and drank. In that period, the heyday of itinerant work, there was a large, seasonal migration around Canada and the US: people would work as wheat harvest hands, then logging, then rail and road construction, then other farm labour, etc. There were hotels and eateries that catered to them in the “skid roads” of cities, job agencies that helped them find work, a culture of hobo camps, and union organizing by the IWW. Notably, the IWW claimed it was much harder to contact and organize itinerant workers in the 1920s than earlier periods, because they travelled more by car than freight train, which ended the hobo camps as well as chances to organize on the trains. Jack London wrote about tramping in the earlier period, and IWW memoirs often have chapters on the experience. The experience of the 1930s was somewhat different as much of the travelling workforce was largely unable to find work anywhere, and was chased out of towns that did not want to be responsible for the meagre welfare they were called on to provide. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/46 "2025-03-06T23:59:31Z")
I also know of someone (college roommate’s sister) who did that with her three teenagers after getting a divorce. I don’t know how they handled things like mail, or for that matter visitation rights, assuming he had them, but I did know that she had homeschooled the kids, and for a very interesting reason: She was pagan, and did not want them exposed to Christians. I have a feeling that this contributed to her divorce. Travel nurses, which have really taken off in recent years, are another category of this kind of thing. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/47 "2025-03-07T00:07:19Z")
My 91-year-old mother grew up in a house near some railroad tracks, as did Andy Rooney, and men would sometimes knock on the door, and Grandma would make eggs, toast, and coffee, and bacon if they had it, and offer them a cigarette (keep the times in mind) but would never let them in the house; same with Andy’s mother. Both of them asked why no women ever knocked on their door asking for food, and they didn’t know. I do know, and it’s because for the most part, the rails were not a safe place for women. The few who did often traveled in big groups, and truthfully, women who fell on hard times could often go back to their families, whereas men were less likely to do so, for a lot of reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/48 "2025-03-07T00:35:44Z")
I imagine that men were more likely to constitute the class of itinerant workers, as opposed to the flat-out homeless and indigent (though in the Great Depression those lines got blurred). ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/49 "2025-03-07T01:22:06Z")
> [@ziper1221](#): > > I’ve just finished reading _The Jungle_ by Upton Sinclair from 1906, and for a few chapters the protagonist is a tramp I think that is called being a Hobo, as opposed to tramp. > [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > Because we now have cheap labor from south of the border to exploit, and they don’t complain becasue they are not American citizens. Not that cheap, but also really good at what they do- for not a lot of $. They often share cheap motel rooms, 4 to a room, paid by the week . > [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > I thought tramps (unlike hobos) eschewed any kind of labor. Yep, that is the difference between a Hobo, a tramp and a bum. Tramps can work, sure- _Ah, but, two hours of pushin’ broom_ _Buys an eight by twelve four-bit room_ _I’m a man of means by no means_ _King of the road_ But the like the transient lifestyle- trains, hitchhiking etc. But those are getting harder. Then there’s a Bum- they dont work or travel. They are part of the homeless.- which also includes Hobos and Tramps to an extent. We try to stay away from using “Bum” to refer to that sort of person today. > [@Chefguy](#): > > Aren’t [Irish Travelers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers) pretty much the modern day equivalent? They have their own society. They travel in family groups, doing cons and sometimes work, like as carnies. > [@ThelmaLou](#): > > And Roger Miller about the same time. (This is not the whole song.) Good cite. > [@XOldiesJock](#): > > They were called “drifters” then too. A drifter is more a specialize Hobo looking for ranch work, like with cattle or horses. IMHO. And now there’s the Van Life, aka RV life. They generally have some sort of fixed income- social security, whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Orville\_mogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/aeb1de/32.png) [@Orville\_mogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orville_mogul)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/50 "2025-03-07T13:08:09Z")
I meant to hint that they were of a particular demographic without explicitly singling one out ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/51 "2025-03-07T14:09:58Z")
I seem to remember that a number of years back Smithsonian Magazine had an article on tramps, which I found very interesting. There were interviews with people (men and women) who lived the “tramp lifestyle”, why they did, and how they managed. Unfortunately my back issues are buried so I can’t find it for more details. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/52 "2025-03-07T14:29:40Z")
I think a lot of the jobs that used to be done by American hobos are now done by undocumented immigrants. That being said, my neighbor had a friend who was an itinerant roofer. He traveled with the seasons and did roofing work in places where the weather was generally okay, and i think he had a home somewhere and spent a few months there every year. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/53 "2025-03-07T15:32:23Z")
My brother lives in SoCal and is in construction. Has been for decades now. He often hires day laborers off the well-known street corners where such folks gather. His rule of thumb: hire the Latin Americans if you can; they will work hard, fast, and skillfully. Hire the blacks if you must; they’ll do OK, but not like the Latins. But look out for the smell of weed on 'em; stoned folks are both dangerous and slow. Never hire the white guys; they are universally total useless drug-addled lazy losers. I can’t vouch for the quality of his anecdata, but I can tell you his opinions are not motivated in any sense by general racism; he’s just not that kinda guy. FTR he’s white. So yeah. The quality of white hobos has declined since the e.g. 1930s and the advent of significant competition from the undocumented has further eroded their value on the marketplace for casual semi-skilled labor. And definitely for skilled hands-on labor. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/54 "2025-03-07T15:43:04Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > His rule of thumb: hire the Latin Americans if you can; they will work hard, fast, and skillfully. Hire the blacks if you must; they’ll do OK, but not like the Latins. But look out for the smell of weed on 'em; stoned folks are both dangerous and slow. Never hire the white guys; they are universally total useless drug-addled lazy losers. “But we don’t want the Irish!” ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/55 "2025-03-07T15:50:15Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > And Roger Miller about the same time. (This is not the whole song.) I recently listened to _The Stand_ audiobook, and this song now makes me think of Randall Flagg. In the book he seems to have led the lifestyle of a tramp before Captain Tripps came along. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/56 "2025-03-07T18:05:53Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Never hire the white guys; they are universally total useless drug-addled lazy losers. > > I can’t vouch for the quality of his anecdata, but I can tell you his opinions are not motivated in any sense by general racism; he’s just not that kinda guy. FTR he’s white. Given the generally better options for whites, I could see that only the far end of the curve would be reduced to day labor. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/57 "2025-03-07T18:27:38Z")
I haven’t seen this mentioned, but one reason fewer people ride the rails now is that it’s much harder to do. In order to compete with trucking, freight rains travel faster and tend to be longer than they were in days past. Because they’re longer, they make fewer stops. (Long trains can cut communities in half when stopped.) Also, technology has enabled railroads to make security much tighter. At one time, you only had to fear the railyard “bulls.” Now body heat sensors and other measures make it almost impossible to hop a train undetected. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/58 "2025-03-07T18:43:27Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I think a lot of the jobs that used to be done by American hobos are now done by undocumented immigrants. Immigrants yes, but a good number did enter the USA legally and a surprising number have green cards. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > His rule of thumb: hire the Latin Americans if you can; they will work hard, fast, and skillfully. Well, from my project with the US Treasury on migrant farm workers, I can tell you that yes- they will work hard, fast, and skillfully… And honest. Some % were undocumented- we were on a “dont ask dont tell” rule. I calculated with some pickers that if they could get that work year around (they cant) they would earn about $60k/yr. This was back in the late/middle 1980s. The rest is a bit too racial profiling for me. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/59 "2025-03-07T19:26:21Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > The rest is a bit too racial profiling for me. Me too. But it seemed relevant to the thread, warts and all. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176/60 "2025-03-07T19:52:49Z")
In @DrDeth ‘s defense, I think a relevant difference between the Latinos and both of the other groups is that (I assume) the percentage of Latinos who are immigrants is higher. It’s not racial profiling to assert that people from poorer countries than the U.S. will work harder for low wages than American citizens will. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-being-a-tramp/1015176.md?page=4)