For most of us in the Western world, life follows a predictable path, at least in the most basic sense. You live with your family; you go to school; you get a job; you get your own house. There may be a million and one checkpoints and variations, but that’s often how it works. Whether you live alone or with others, in an apartment, a house, a condo, or even a boat, the basic idea is the same.
But some people just need to march to the beat of a different drum, and that includes how they decide where they're going to hang their hats at night. Let's take a look at 10 of the most unexpected places people have chosen to live.
10. The man has been living in the Beijing airport for 14 years.
Tom Hanks directed the famous film "Terminal" about a man stuck in an airport, inspired by the true story of a man who spent 18 years living in Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport. Since the film came out, several stories have emerged of other people stuck in airports around the world, sometimes for years. The common theme in most of these stories is that for one reason or another, the airport resident found himself in a difficult situation. This was not the case for Wei Jianguo from Beijing.
In 2022, it was reported that Jianguo had been living in Beijing Capital International Airport for 14 years. However, he could leave whenever he wanted, and in fact, he had a whole family right in the city. He chose to live in the airport because he did not like living at home.
According to Jianguo, he left home back in 2008 after he had a fight with his wife. He claims he has no freedom because his family doesn't approve of the fact that he drinks and smokes , so he opened a shop in Terminal 2 of the airport and has lived there ever since. He says his family will take him back if he quits drinking and smoking, but he has no desire to do so.
9. Mario Salcedo has been living on cruise ships for about 22 years.
Usually, when cruises make the news, it’s for a less glamorous reason. Disease outbreaks and sewage problems have been two of the reasons cruises have made the news in the last few years. But none of that has put Mario Salcedo off a life at sea. In fact, he loves cruising so much that he’s been living on cruise ships for the past 22 years.
Salcedo spent years working in finance and realized that he was away from home more often than not anyway. He got tired of it and retired in 1997 , deciding to see the world on his own terms, which included, essentially, just living on a Royal Caribbean ship. Aside from the 15 months when Covid made that impossible, he's been doing it for more than two decades.
This idea seems a little crazy to people who still own homes, but in practice it’s not hard to believe. If he doesn’t own a home, he has no rent or mortgage, no utility or grocery bills, no car insurance or gas costs. He never has to cook or clean up after himself. He has activities planned for every day, and he can socialize without interruption if he wants. He pays from $60,000 to $70,000 per year to live like that. Considering that experts recommend that you earn at least $80,000 per year , to live in New York. It might be on to something.
8. Van Lifers have been living in vans for decades
In the last few years, thanks in part to Covid-19, you may have heard about Van Lifers, people who have decided to leave their permanent home and start living on the road. They live in vans and travel wherever they need to, saving money on rent and utilities, and basically only having to worry about food and fuel in terms of expenses. Vans can be equipped for sleeping, cooking, and even with toilets.
However, not everything is new in this idea. In Canada, Thomasina Pidgeon is already 25 years old lives in his van And it's not necessarily a situation where she can't have a home, she prefers not to have a different style of home. She runs her own business, and while she's not a millionaire, she says she prefers living in a van to a house because she feels free.
Others who do this have found that their lifestyle is suitable for life on the road . People who travel for months at a time and pay rent on a house they barely use. In a van, they can still do their jobs but travel literally all over the world.
7. A couple from Colombia spent 22 years together in the sewers
In a sense, home is any place you can settle down and be with the people you love. It may not always be a nice house or apartment, and necessity may mean that some people have to make do with unusual or extreme conditions. But some places end up feeling a lot more unusual or extreme than others. Unless you’re a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, that is. And Miguel and Maria Restrepo, as far as we can tell, did not have turtle strength.
Miguel and Maria lived together in Colombia for more than20 years in the sewer. They even had a pet dog. The space was nine feet long and six feet wide. It was also five feet high, which meant they couldn't stand up completely.
The couple furnished a bedroom with a bed, a small kitchen and even a TV , which they were able to watch thanks to Miguel, who managed to get the electricity connected.
6. Panta Petrovic may have lived in a tree for 10 years before moving to a cave.
Few hermits can say they have achieved any degree of fame, but Panta Petrovic is a Serbian hermit who seems to keep making the news. Most recently, he made the news for leaving the cave he called home long enough to get vaccinated against Covid-19. At that time, he had lived in this cave for about 20 years.
The details of Petrovic's story are becoming a bit sketchy, which says something about the story of a 70-year-old man in a cave. He may have worked in Pirot on the black market or as a technician. on cargo ships In a 2016 story about a man, he lived in a tree house rather than a cave. He has a small farm of animals that he also cares for, including goats, kittens, and a boar.
5. Heidemarie Schwermer gave up money and simply traveled and lived anywhere
Most of us have a hard time separating where and how we live from money. They tend to go hand in hand. But imagine for a moment that you’ve just decided that money is too much of a hassle and that you don’t need it anymore. So you give up. Do you think you could still survive and thrive? You could! Because that’s what Heidemarie Schwermer did, and she did it for 21 years. She stayed with friends or strangers and did odd jobs in exchange for shelter and food. She didn’t accept money, and if she did receive money, she gave it to those who needed it.
Schwermer worked psychotherapist when she decided to give it all up and live without money. She did this in the early 50s. She gave away everything she owned and sold her apartment, keeping only what would fit in a suitcase. The original plan was to do it within a year. But it grew until she was about 16, when a documentary was made about her life, and eventually reached 21 years old by the time she died of cancer in 2016, still living penniless.
4. Xiao Yun lived in an internet cafe for ten years
There is a term you may be familiar with from the gaming world called the Xbox Widow. Variations over the years have included the PlayStation Widow and the WarCraft Widow. The joke is that some men spend so much time playing games that their wives or girlfriends lose them. Jokes aside, some people do sacrifice their families for gaming, and in Xiao Yun’s case, it really did seem like a matter of life or death.
Xiao left home when she was 14 years old , and never returned. Her parents assumed the worst. She had been missing for 10 years and was presumed dead when she was discovered in an internet cafe in a town about 100 miles away.
She actively lived in internet cafes and bathhouses throughout decades , doing odd jobs or receiving handouts from other players to survive.
3. Father and son spent 40 years in the Vietnamese jungle.
While some of these stories seem a little silly, some are incredibly serious, and that's the case with the almost unbelievable story of Ho Van Thanh and his son Ho Van Lang. The couple were discovered in 2013, 40 years after Thanh fled with his then-young son into the jungle at the height of the Vietnam War after his wife and other children were killed.
For 40 years, a man raised his son in the jungle in a treehouse, guarded by homemade arrows and other weapons. The father let his conversational skills fall by the wayside, meaning his son could barely communicate and, at the age of 42, knew only a few basic words They lived off the plants they collected and animals that were hunted. . They had no contact with other people for 40 years. Unfortunately, Ho Van Lang passed away from cancer in 2021.
2. Italian man spends 30 years alone on island
Have you ever been so bored with the world that you thought it would be a great idea to live on your own island? Mauro Morandi did just that back in 1989, when his boat washed up on Budelli Island after being damaged and he discovered that the island's caretaker was about to retire. He took over and became the only person on the island. for 32 years along with several cats. The problem was that the Italian government didn't necessarily want him there.
The government declared the island part of a larger archipelago, a National Park and an Area of Special Interest. This cut off the tourism industry in the interests of protecting the island, so only Morandi remained. The government tried to evict it in 2018, but a public petition collected 18,000 signatures from people who believed it should stay. So they let it stay.
In 2021, the situation changed again, and Morandi, who despite being alone still had social media, announced that he was finally giving in to the pressure and leaving the island. At 82, he had pension accumulated during his time as a teacher, with which he bought a house in a real city.
1. The loneliest man in the world
If the media calls you the loneliest person in the world, there must be a hell of a story behind it. And it's true, the story of this Brazilian native is unflattering and sad.
We don't know the name of this man, and we don't know what his people were called. In some places he was called Indian Hole He was from a very remote tribe in the Amazon, and all his people were destroyed in 1995 Since then, he has lived alone in the jungle, watched from afar by indigenous rights groups, but in complete isolation and without anyone else in the world.
People had previously tried to contact the man, but to no avail. He shot arrows at anyone who came too close. The rest of his men were believed to have been killed in a dispute with farmers who left poison as a trap.
They believed the man was between 50 and 60 years old, and there was evidence that he was hiding in holes dug in the jungle, or perhaps using them to catch animals. While the local foundation monitoring him would like to leave him alone, they have also tried dozens of times to protect him from threats.
In August 2023, the loneliest man in the world was reported to have died. His body was found in a hammock outside his hut. He had surrounded himself with feathers, indicating that perhaps he knew he was dying and had prepared for it.
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