For most of us in the Western world life follows a predictable path, at least in a very basic sense. You live with your family; you go to school; you get a job; you get your own home. There can be a million and one roadblocks 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. A Man Has Been Living at the Beijing Airport for 14 Years
Tom Hanks famously made a movie called The Terminal, about a man who was stranded in an airport, inspired by the true story of a man who spent 18 years living in Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. Since that movie came out there have been a handful of stories of other people stranded in airports around the world, sometimes for many years. The common theme in most of these stories is that, for one reason or another, the airport dweller was stranded. This was not the case with Beijing’s Wei Jianguo.
In 2022, it was reported that Jianguo had been living at Beijing Capital International Airport for 14 years. He was free to leave any time he wanted, however, and actually had an entire family right in the city. He chose to live at the airport because he didn’t like living at home.
According to Jianguo he left home back in 2008 after getting into a fight with his wife. He claims a lack of freedom because his family don’t approve of the fact he drinks and smokes, so he set up shop in Terminal 2 of the airport and has been living there ever since. He says his family would take him back in if he quit drinking and smoking, but he has no desire to do that.
9. Mario Salcedo Has Lived on Cruise Ships for About 22 Years
Usually when cruises get in the news, it’s for a less than endearing reason. Disease outbreaks and sewage problems have been a couple of the reasons for cruises making the news in the last few years. But none of that has turned Mario Salcedo off of a life at sea. In fact, he loves cruises so much he’s been living on cruise ships for the past 22 years.
Salcedo spent years working in finance and realized he was away from home more often than not anyway. He got sick of it and retired in 1997, opting to see the world on his own terms which included essentially just living on a Royal Caribbean ship. Aside from 15 months when Covid made it impossible, he’s been doing it for over two decades.
The idea sounds a little crazy to people who still have homes, but in practical terms it’s not hard to believe. If he has no home, he has no rent or mortgage, no utility or grocery bills, no car insurance or fuel costs. He never has to cook or clean up after himself. He has activities planned every day and can socialize non-stop if he wants to. He pays about $60,000 to $70,000 per year to live like this. Considering that experts recommend you make at least $80,000 a year to live in New York. he may be on to something.
8. Van Lifers Live in Vans for Decades
In the last few years, in part thanks to Covid-19, you may have heard of Van Lifers, people who have decided to leave a stationary home behind and embrace life behind the wheel. They live out of vans and travel where they need to, saving money on rent and utilities and mostly only having to worry about food and fuel in terms of expenses. Vans can be outfitted for sleeping, for cooking, and even with washrooms.
Not everyone is new to the idea, however. In Canada, Thomasina Pidgeon has been living in her van for 25 years. And it’s not necessarily a situation where she can’t have a home, she chooses not to have another style of home. She runs her own business and though she’s no millionaire; she says she’s happier living in a van than a home because she feels free.
Others who do it realized their lifestyle lent itself to life on the road. People who travel for months on end and pay for a house they barely ever use. In a van they can still do their work but travel literally around the world at the same time
7. A Colombian Couple Spent 22 Years in a Sewer Together
In some ways a home is any place you can settle and be with the people you love. That can’t always be a nice house or apartment and necessity can mean that some people have to make do with unusual or extreme accommodations. But some places end up seeming a lot more unusual or extreme than others. Unless you’re a Ninja Turtle, of course. And Miguel and Maria Restrepo did not, as best we can tell, have turtle power.
Miguel and Maria lived together in Colombia for over 20 years inside a sewer. They even had a pet dog. The space was nine feet long by six feet wide. It was also five feet high, meaning they couldn’t fully stand up.
The couple had set up a bedroom with a bed, a small kitchen, and even a TV that they could watch thanks to Miguel managing to rig some electricity.
6. Panta Petrovic May Have Lived in a Tree for 10 Years Before Switching to a Cave
Not many hermits can say they achieve any degree of fame but Panta Petrovic is a Serbian hermit who seems to keep making the news. Most recently, he was in the news for leaving the cave which he called home long enough to get a Covid-19 vaccination back in 2021. He’d been living in that cave for about 20 years at that point.
Details of Petrovic’s story do become a little sketchy, which is saying something for a story about 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. A 2016 story about the man had him living in a treehouse and not a cave. He has a small farm of animals he also cares for, including goats, kittens and a wild boar.
5. Heidemarie Schwermer Gave Up Money and Just Traveled and Lived Wherever
For most of us it’s hard to separate where and how we live from money. They tend to go hand in hand. But imagine for a moment you just decided that money was too much trouble, and you didn’t want it anymore. So you gave up. Do you think you could still survive and thrive? You could! Because Heidemarie Schwermer did, and she managed for 21 years. She would stay with friends or strangers and do odd jobs in exchange for lodging and food. She wouldn’t accept money and if she ever did get money, she would give it to others who needed it.
Schwermer was working as a psychotherapist when she decided to give up everything and live without cash. She did this in her early 50s. She gave away everything she had and sold her apartment, only keeping what fit in a suitcase.The original plan was to do it for a year. But that grew to around 16 years when a documentary about her life was made, and ended up reaching 21 years by the time she passed away of cancer in 2016, still living money-free.
4. Xiao Yun Lived for a Decade in Internet Cafes
There’s a term you may be familiar with from the gaming world called an Xbox Widow. Variations over the years have included PlayStation Widow and WarCraft Widow. The joke is that some men spend so much time gaming that their wives or girlfriends have lost them. Joking aside, some people really do sacrifice their families for gaming and in the case of Xiao Yun it really did seem to be life or death.
Xiao left home when she was 14 and never returned. Her parents assumed the worst. She’d been missing for 10 years and presumed dead when she was discovered at an internet cafe in a town about 100 miles away.
She’d been actively living in internet cafes and bathhouses for the entire decade, doing odd jobs or getting handouts from other gamers to get by.
3. A 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 of the almost unbelievable story of Ho Van Thanh and his son, Ho Van Lang. The pair were discovered in 2013, 40 years after Thanh fled with his then-infant son to the jungle at the height of the Vietnam war after his wife and other children were killed.
For 40 years the man raised his son in the jungle in a treehouse that they guarded with handmade arrows and other weapons. The father had allowed his speaking skills to fall by the wayside, meaning his son could barely communicate at all and, at age 42, knew just a few basic words.They’d been living off of plants they harvested and animals they’d hunted. They had no contact with other humans for the entire 40 years. Sadly, Ho Van Lang passed away from cancer in 2021.
2. An Italian Man Spent 30 Years Alone On An Island
Have you ever gotten so sick of the world you thought it might be a great idea to go live on your own island? Mauro Morandi did that back in 1989 when his boat washed up on Budelli Island after being damaged and he discovered that the island’s caretaker was looking to retire. He took over and became the island’s only human inhabitant for 32 years, along with some cats. The problem was the government of Italy 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. That cut off the tourism industry in the interests of protecting the island, so only Morandi remained.The government tried to evict him in 2018 but a public petition managed to get 18,000 signatures from people who thought he should stay. So they let him stay.
In 2021 the tides turned again and Morandi, who despite being alone still had social media, posted that he was finally bowing to pressure and leaving the island. At 82-years-old, he had a pension saved up from his time as a teacher that he used to buy a home in an actual town.
1. The Loneliest Man in the World
If the media dubs you the loneliest man in the world then there must be a hell of a story to go with it. And it’s true, the story of this indigenous Brazilian tribesman is a hard-hitting and sad one.
We don’t know the name of the man nor do we know what his people were called. Some places called him the Hole Indian. He was from a very remote tribe in the Amazon and all of his people were killed off in 1995. Since that time he lived alone in the jungle, monitored from afar by indigenous rights groups but completely isolated and without anyone else in the world.
People had tried to make contact with the man in the past but it had not worked out. He fired arrows at anyone who got too close. It’s believed the rest of his people were killed in a conflict with farmers who left poison out as a trap.
They believed the man was in his late 50s to early 60s and there was evidence he hid in holes he dug in the jungle or possibly used them to trap animals. Though the local foundation that monitored him would have liked to let him live in peace they also had tried to protect him from threats dozens of times as well.
In August 2022 it was reported that the loneliest man in the world had passed away. His body was found in a hammock outside of his hut. He had surrounded himself with feathers, indicating perhaps he knew he was dying and made himself ready for it.