Do you really need to own a car, pickup truck, or SUV?
Not owning one frees you from hundreds (even thousands) of dollars of yearly expenses to cover gas, maintenance, and insurance. Or worse, huge monthly payments on the vehicle itself. If you live in the city, you need to chuck in a few extra hundred dollars for parking fees.
Make your home in a location you can walk and bike everywhere–to work, to the grocery store, to the post office, to the park. You’ll literally be connected closer to the earth every day and feel a greater sense of community, even if you’re only greeting others you encounter with a hello or observing wildlife and tall trees. Gradually, this new intimate rhythm will center you and open you up to…well, all of life.
It might seem impossible to live car-free. The mere suggestion makes your toes curl, in a bad way. But remember, we all once believed the same thing about living vegan.
Being car-free doesn’t mean sacrifice (aka self-imposed suffering). It means passionate devotion to living true with the natural world. You don’t have to give up your cool summer roadtrip, unless you want to. Just rent a car. Some rental cars, such as sleek VW Beetles in Hawaii, now run on biofuel.
Acquisition and ownership are only cultural ideas that we’ve converted into habits. Owning something is really about social status or convenience. We are what we own (car, house, 50-inch TV). Or are we?
