This series of articles was originally going to be one, single entry, but it got pretty long and as I wrote, I continued to do more research, and it became the sort of piece that I might never finish. I took a break for the election and subsequent bullshit, but now I’m back at it.

This is about portable housing. If you know me, and you don’t, you know that I’ve lived in a lot of different types of homes, most of them very non-traditional. I won’t list them all here, because I feel like I might have already done that elsewhere on this site, but where I have personal experience I’ll try to include some of it. If I was writing about this subject generally, I might have different things to say about each type of home, but I’m writing about them as options for a very specific scenario — moving to a rural property in the tropics, setting up housing quickly and efficiently, and living in it for an underdetermined period of time while I build outbuildings and more permanent human housing.

That’s a very different scenario than, say, living on the road full-time, or even doing the same thing, only in Arizona or Alaska. My big idea is to go to Texas first, and experiment with as many elements of my tropical farm design as possible; in most respects, if a structure or process can survive Texas, the tropics should be easy by comparison. One big variable, however, is whether or not structures will then be moved from Texas to Panama, Mexico, or wherever, or if they’ll just be replicated there, so I’ll try to discuss that as well.

I’ll be evaluating each of these housing types with regard to the following:

•Portability: This house has to travel over land and sea, with as little hassle as possible.

•Ease of setup: Once it’s there, how long before I can live in it? Can I set this up myself or am I going to need help? Do I have to have a bunch of equipment to set it up?

•Quality of materials: All the convenience in the world doesn’t do me much good if the thing starts falling apart six months in.

•Use of space: Sure, it’s well-built and it looks great, but can I stand living in it? Can I find my stuff when I need it? Can I stretch out? How much of a pain in the ass is it getting up to pee in the middle of the night?

•Suitability to the climate: The most functional structure might as well be a cardboard box if the roof leaks and I can’t go inside it without sweating my balls off.

•Pest resistance: This is a bigger deal than you might think. In fact, to me it’s probably the second-most important thing on this list after portability. And maybe night-peeing and the sweaty balls thing.

•Style: I want a home I like to look at and that I don’t mind other people looking at.

•Sustainability: I’ll be honest, I almost forgot to include this one. I was focused on form and function, but it’s also a tough thing to quantify, so I’ll do my best, but no promises.

•Price: It could be the best home in the world for my needs, but I have to be able to afford it.

I’m going to score each of these from 1 to 5, but I’m weighting each attribute equally, so the high scorer isn’t necessarily the best option. I don’t feel like creating some complicated scoring algorithm here, so this will have to do.

So with all that in mind, in my next entry I’ll discuss what a lot of people think of when they hear ‘portable housing’ — mobile homes.