
Node Version Manager (NVM)
So maybe it was my lack of knowledge in the Node community, but I recently found out about NVM, a version manager much like RVM, which avoids the sudo problem by installing to your home directory. It provides easy access to install multiple versions of Node, and switch versions easily. Your NPM global packages are installed along side the specific version of Node, so they don't mix when switching between versions. And of course you can set a default Node version which will be used when starting a terminal/command prompt. After using NVM for a bit, I highly recommend it over other Node install options. (I've even uninstalled Node from the default installer location.)
Check it out!