The excitement of world travel with the comfort of being at home.
The pod is a mini house made out of a converted shipping container. It's got windows and it's decorated nice on the outside, and the inside has beds, kitchen, bathroom, tv etc. To the shipper, you're just another shipping container that just needs to be placed where there's a nice view and accommodations to go in and out. For this you'd have an adjustable staircase or walkway as necessary.
Travel around the world on all the vehicles that carry shipping containers without having to leave your little home until you got to your destination. Take a train cross country to New York, get transferred to a ship sailing to Spain, get trucked across the Alps, then on a cargo plane to Bora Bora (assuming the cargo bay's safe for human travel.) Then sail back to Cali never having to pack and unpack your bags and having your little house travel with you.
Shipping containers converted to permanent homes are so common they're a category in AirBnB, but they're obviously all permanently in one place. This retains the mobility.
Put a couple of electric bikes in the storage bin to get around when you arrive at your destination.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 30 2022 Something like this without the porch, overhangs etc. https://designfor-m...ng-container-homes/Designed specifically to retain mobility. [doctorremulac3, Dec 30 2022] Overnighters Already done [pocmloc, Dec 30 2022] I like the idea, but there are legal barriers to traveling in/on a towed container. Let's just say we'd have to avoid any... Imperial entanglements.-- 21 Quest, Dec 30 2022 Are you allowed to be inside this thing during transport? Or would you just be accompanying it while being on the outside of it?-- sanman, Dec 30 2022 Yes, like a travel trailer that fits with other shipping containers on various shipping container transports.
So it would take some accommodation to make sure it was arranged so the windows were facing the view and there was access in and out of the unit when the vehicle whatever it is was stopped etc. but it could be done.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 30 2022 Most converted shipping container housing has municipal water, power and sewage hookups, so this would need its own off-grid alternatives, somewhat like an RV. And that would likely bring additional requirements that deviate from standard treatment of shipping containers; at least stacking for proper ventilation, ability to empty the holding tanks and ability to refill water and go out for other supplies. Also, cargo ships often accept containers that have fallen overboard as lost; but these would require ships to rescue anyone from an overboard container that was human occupied. Otherwise, what could possibly go wrong? But I think it’s probably better suited for train or truck transport than ship. [+]-- swimswim, Dec 30 2022 Exactly to all of that. I'd take an RV, pull everything out and stick in a container, put windows and access points in.
There would certainly be challenges but those would be kind of fun. I'm sure you'd have to sign liability releases with every shipper, but they'd probably take your money. The train or truck thing would be the easiest as you said.
Maybe pay for everything by making a travel documentary about it. "Invasion Of The Pod People"-- doctorremulac3, Dec 30 2022 I should have added in my anno: I’d definitely do this! It does sound like fun.-- swimswim, Dec 30 2022 Yea, cool bucket list dream. The excitement of world travel with the comfort of being at home. (Hmm, good tag line)-- doctorremulac3, Dec 30 2022 Or, “live the life of a train-hopping hobo, from the comforts of your own home”.-- swimswim, Dec 30 2022 Ohh, I like that!-- doctorremulac3, Dec 30 2022 Yea poc, it's pretty much a similar idea but the conversion of a standard shipping container is more of a practical application to actually get the job done. Utilize already existing modes of transportation for that particular item without having to modify the trucks, trains, ships etc.
Borderline baked? Yea, kind of, but the linked idea requires billions of dollars of new transportation infrastructure, this is using existing stuff and might actually be done.
My opinion anyway. [+] for your idea by the way.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 30 2022 //requires billions of dollars of new ...infrastructure// you say that like it's a problem.
But yes [+] for shippingcontainerisaton.-- pocmloc, Dec 30 2022 Being a travel maniac, (no comments please), this idea makes me want to dance backward, like Gene Kelly.-- blissmiss, Jan 01 2023 I love being places myself, just hate traveling there.
Actually that's not true, in my dating days used to take train trips where we'd get a room in a sleeper car, loved that. Then my wife told me she never really enjoyed those because they were noisy and small, she was just being nice.-- doctorremulac3, Jan 01 2023 Commonly on the west coast of America is that following a large storm, the contents of containers get distributed on beaches. While California may be dreaming it may not be enjoying beaches full of pale and puffed up lovers.
With that said I like the idea. There could be different classes as well. The 'Go where I want' class, and the 'end up in a place' class, where you spend 6 months in an industrial yard in Oakland, or quarantined off the coast in a boat crewed by illegals.-- mylodon, Jan 01 2023 Someone should seriously look into the feasibility of an RV that is essentially a dismountable shipping container on wheels.-- RayfordSteele, Jan 01 2023 Hans Jurgen Thuma invented an automated system that worked on shipping different sizes of containers on standardized shipping lanes into boats onto trains etc. He made a great animation showing how it would work. I think around 2002 or 3.
It has been obliterated from the internet and its archives...-- pashute, Jan 02 2023 random, halfbakery