When Christin Odell graduates from acupuncture school this spring, she plans to move from California to Colorado. Wherever she goes, she'll bring her house with her.

Odell lives in a yurt, a portable, round, tent-like structure first used thousands of years ago by the nomads of Mongolia.

"I'm kind of a nomad myself," says the 27-year-old student at the Five Branches School of Oriental Medicine in Santa Cruz, California. "I've lived in about 10 places in the last 10 years. I figured if I was ever going to buy a house, I had to find one that I could take with me."

Among the world's oldest indigenous structures, yurts are experiencing newfound popularity in the United States, where they're popping up as houses, offices, ski huts, art studios and even government buildings.

Yurt devotees range from aging hippies living off the grid to urban professionals needing space for a home office or guest room. Some are drawn to yurts by their interest in environmentally sustainable building practices. Others simply enjoy the pleasing aesthetics of a round room.

"I was blown away by the look of it, that round shape," says Debra Amerson, 40, an interior designer and digital artist who built a yurt as an art studio and office next to her home in Forest Knolls, California.

After seeing a yurt on the property at the Esalen Institute, she decided to construct her own.

The project took about seven months, including time for clearing the land of debris and building a deck to house the yurt.

She used as many green building materials as possible in building and furnishing the yurt, which contains recycled items like an old card table she found in a junkyard and turned into a hearth for her wood stove.

"I'm concerned about the health of the planet and the health of the trees," says Amerson, who selects plants and art for businesses like Whole Foods, the organic food store chain.

Given their portable nature, it's difficult to say how many yurts exist in the United States, but some estimates put the number in the thousands.

They generally range in size from 14 to 30 feet in diameter. The most popular variety consists of a lattice frame covered in stretched vinyl. They are typically constructed on a wooden deck made of polished plywood or bamboo.

Many yurt users add extra features, like insulation, additional doors and windows, ceiling fans and water collection systems. Some yurts are equipped for the snow. Others are designed for tropical climates.

"It's not a permanent structure, but it's more than just a tent," says Alan Bair, president of Pacific Yurts, the largest manufacturer of lattice-wall yurts. "It has the advantage of being easy to install and relatively low in cost while it's also durable and useful in different climates."

The original yurts were simple affairs. Known by Mongolians as "gers" they consisted mainly of a wood frame covered in wool felt.

Yet the design was carefully thought out. Rooted in the context of Shamanistic notions about the connectedness of all things, the floor plan was based on the four directions – north, south, east and west – much like the Native American medicine wheel.

"Every aspect of the ger had spiritual significance, from the placement of the door and furnishings to the central fire and the direction in which one walked inside," says Becky Kemery, who is writing a book on yurts and has lived in three of them.

By the time the first yurts appeared in the United States in the early 1960s, the design remained simple. Over the years, features were added such as insulation developed by NASA. Still, even with these changes, they remain less expensive and use far fewer building materials than a traditional structure.

The simplicity of yurt living attracted Odell, who sought inexpensive housing in Santa Cruz, where rents are among the highest in the nation.

Odell found she could live more cheaply in a yurt, which range in price from $5,000 to $10,000 depending upon their size and added features, than in an apartment.

After conducting research on the Internet, she purchased a 24-foot model from a company called Advanced Canvas. With the help of friends who let her build the structure on their property in nearby Scotts Valley, she built a deck over a couple of weekends. It took less than a day to raise the yurt.

To power her lights, stereo and iMac, Odell installed solar panels. Other amenities include a refrigerator, which runs on propane, a wood stove and a composting toilet. Water from a nearby tap on the property is piped in to a sink purchased at Home Depot and a refurbished bathtub that she bought at a junkyard.

The whole setup cost under $20,000, which she paid for with student loans.

"I plan to live in this yurt for a while," Odell says. "I'm going to treat my student loan payment as a house payment."