You are not wrong about “freeloading,” though that term is probably (unnecessarily pejorative). The Developed world is so obscenely wasteful that it is not necessary to beg. You can get all the food you want, much of it very nice—often much nicer than you could afford to buy by simply going out and picking it up. Of course, you don’t get to pick and choose exactly what you want when you want it.
Clothing, with the exception of jeans, is all freely available. The same is true of appliances, bedding and consumer electronics of many kinds. The one commodity that is is very, very difficult to get at no cost is lodging. You can get books, MP3 players, CDs, printers, scanners, and often gourmet meals, but lodging is tough. The problem with housing and why it is qualitatively different that the other things I’ve cited is that while it is technically illegal to dustbin dive, in practice it is easy to do and extremely low risk. It is incredibly easy in the UK, if you get a dustbin key (easy to do).
However, the authorities take a very dim view of vagrancy, and they will usually ticket or arrest the person who has either “failure to account,” or is clearly living in a vehicle or on the street. This is less true in the UK than the US. However, get caught on the street as a vagrant AND as a foreigner in the UK (or in the US, or in any Developed country) and you are in a world of hurt—typically you will be deported with prejudice and be unable to renter the country either “indefinitely,” or for some fixed period of time.
If you can swing lodging, then the world is your oyster (for now). I travel with very little and within 2 weeks of settling on a spot in large city, I have cookware, flatware, clothing, a CD player, a large collection of classical CDs, and just about anything else I want to go looking for. There is an art to it, but the waste is so profligate that it is not hard to master, and absolutely no begging is required (except for lodging ;-))
You are not wrong about “freeloading,” though that term is probably (unnecessarily pejorative). The Developed world is so obscenely wasteful that it is not necessary to beg. You can get all the food you want, much of it very nice—often much nicer than you could afford to buy by simply going out and picking it up. Of course, you don’t get to pick and choose exactly what you want when you want it.
Clothing, with the exception of jeans, is all freely available. The same is true of appliances, bedding and consumer electronics of many kinds. The one commodity that is is very, very difficult to get at no cost is lodging. You can get books, MP3 players, CDs, printers, scanners, and often gourmet meals, but lodging is tough. The problem with housing and why it is qualitatively different that the other things I’ve cited is that while it is technically illegal to dustbin dive, in practice it is easy to do and extremely low risk. It is incredibly easy in the UK, if you get a dustbin key (easy to do).
However, the authorities take a very dim view of vagrancy, and they will usually ticket or arrest the person who has either “failure to account,” or is clearly living in a vehicle or on the street. This is less true in the UK than the US. However, get caught on the street as a vagrant AND as a foreigner in the UK (or in the US, or in any Developed country) and you are in a world of hurt—typically you will be deported with prejudice and be unable to renter the country either “indefinitely,” or for some fixed period of time.
If you can swing lodging, then the world is your oyster (for now). I travel with very little and within 2 weeks of settling on a spot in large city, I have cookware, flatware, clothing, a CD player, a large collection of classical CDs, and just about anything else I want to go looking for. There is an art to it, but the waste is so profligate that it is not hard to master, and absolutely no begging is required (except for lodging ;-))