Being location independent has its challenges. One challenge is maintaining a valid ID/driver’s license when you have no fixed address. This turned out to be a large undertaking that’s somewhat dictated our plans as we’ve arrived back in the US.
Thankfully, early on we stumbled upon this article which pretty much laid out the perfect solution for this problem. South Dakota!
It seems so clear cut when you see it all written in one place. It turned out to be a LITTLE more involved. The first step was mail forwarding. You MUST have a South Dakota Personal Mailbox (or other state mailing address) to get a license.
- Personal Mailbox
Already being a subscriber with ipostal1.com, I thought this would be fairly straightforward. I tried to set this up from Florida. I was able to purchase the South Dakota mailbox, but USPS form 1583 allowing the service to open mail was a little tricker. This form requires a notary to prove your identity, and a secondary form of identification is supposed to have your address on it. If I’d had a valid driver’s license, this would’ve been fine, but mine was expired. We arranged to visit an iPostal1 location in person on arrival with our passport, medical ID and birth certificate, were able to get form 1583 submitted and the necessary proof of our Personal Mailbox (PMB).
2. Hotel Room
Next, Eva and I each reserved a hotel room for 1 night, went into the hotel to check in and get our address. Discussing this with the front desk receptionist, we explained that we didn’t really need the room, only the receipt and didn’t even need a room key. Talking with her, she said this was a very common occurrence, especially during hunting season.
3. Drivers License
The DPS (Department of Public Safety) which issues driver’s licenses was surprisingly well organized, but very busy. They require an appointment via their web site, which was booked to about half a week out. At our appointed time, we were asked to present all relevant documents before being given a place in the queue.
Our relevant documents were: 1. Passport 2. Social Security Card 3. Residency Affidavit (form they give you at the counter) 5. Previous driver’s license 5. Proof of Address, in this case our Personal Mailbox (PMB). I’d forgotten to get a physical copy of the PMB receipt, but took a screenshot from the iPostal1 app/website which they allowed me to email to them and which they accepted.
Because my license was expired for > 1 year, they also asked me to take the computerized license exam, which consisted of 25 questions and required 20 correct answers.
All of this with $56 in fees and we were very pleased to have our brand new South Dakota driver’s licenses in hand.
Purchasing a car & getting license plates
Another big task while we’re in town: we need to buy a car and get plates before we leave. We found a good price on a Prius, but looking at Carfax, we found that it had previously been totalled and these guys rebuilt it. I was advised to not even consider buying it, so we didn’t.
The day before getting our licenses, we purchased a 2010 Toyota Prius with 98k miles from Schulte Subaru. Eva stumbled upon it almost immediately after the dealership accepted it on trade and they posted it online. We saw it the same day. They wouldn’t allow payment of >$5k on a credit card, so our sales rep allowed us to take the Prius to a sister bank of our Credit Union to get a cashier’s check. This was much more cumbersome/stressful than this simple statement indicates, but it all worked out. For $8k we had a car. The expectation is that it’ll take 2 weeks for the paperwork to be processed and returned to us so we can then go register the vehicle, pay tax (7% of purchase price) and obtain our license plates (available immediately on payment).
It’s with a real sense of accomplishment that so far, although we haven’t done the last “registration” bit, I can attest that everything went very smoothly. We have a new mailing address, new driver’s licenses good for 5 years, a car and insurance (Geiko, $176/6 months). There’s no state income tax in SD. And I highly recommend visiting Sioux Falls if you’re in the area. It’s a beautiful town.