diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index dac0370..1dbe8e8 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -186,6 +186,9 @@ Setting `VV=1` in your `.travis.yml` configuration for a specific job
 will run the job with high verbosity, printing every command as it is being
 executed and switching the dependency builds to higher verbosity.
 
+For local debugging, you may set `CACHEDIR` to change the location for the
+dependency builds. [default is `$HOME/.cache`]
+
 ## References: EPICS Modules Using ci-scripts
 
 EPICS Base: [pvData](https://github.com/epics-base/pvDataCPP),
diff --git a/travis-test.sh b/travis-test.sh
index d7205b1..1ddb5c9 100755
--- a/travis-test.sh
+++ b/travis-test.sh
@@ -39,7 +39,8 @@ SETUP_DIRS=${SETUP_PATH//:/ }
 
 SCRIPTDIR=$(dirname $(readlinkf $0))/travis
 CURDIR="$PWD"
-CACHEDIR="$HOME/.cache"
+CACHEDIR=${CACHEDIR:-${HOME}/.cache}
+[ -e ${CACHEDIR} ] || mkdir -p ${CACHEDIR}
 
 echo "Testing contents of utils.sh"
 
diff --git a/travis/build.sh b/travis/build.sh
index c6817f5..addf7f1 100755
--- a/travis/build.sh
+++ b/travis/build.sh
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ set -e
 # Set VV in .travis.yml to make scripts verbose
 [ "$VV" ] && set -x
 
-CACHEDIR="$HOME/.cache"
+CACHEDIR=${CACHEDIR:-${HOME}/.cache}
 
 eval $(grep "EPICS_BASE=" ${CACHEDIR}/RELEASE.local)
 export EPICS_BASE
diff --git a/travis/prepare.sh b/travis/prepare.sh
index 3cb13c2..16f1775 100755
--- a/travis/prepare.sh
+++ b/travis/prepare.sh
@@ -21,7 +21,8 @@ readlinkf() { perl -MCwd -e 'print Cwd::abs_path shift' "$1"; }
 
 SCRIPTDIR=$(dirname $(readlinkf $0))
 CURDIR="$PWD"
-CACHEDIR="$HOME/.cache"
+CACHEDIR=${CACHEDIR:-${HOME}/.cache}
+[ -e ${CACHEDIR} ] || mkdir -p ${CACHEDIR}
 
 # source functions
 . $SCRIPTDIR/utils.sh
diff --git a/travis/utils.sh b/travis/utils.sh
index 46e8466..018bab9 100644
--- a/travis/utils.sh
+++ b/travis/utils.sh
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 # Utility functions for Travis scripts in ci-scripts
 #
 # This file is sourced by the executable scripts
+# CACHEDIR must be defined and existing before calling these functions
 
 # Portable version of 'sed -i'  (that MacOS doesn't provide)