Change default location of vimrc

You must start vim with the command vim -u ./path/to/your/vimrcfile

vim -u NONE is a good way to start Vim without any plugin or customisation.

See :help starting.txt for more information.

Another solution might be to create a symlink to you preferred location. I have my .vimrc in $HOME/.vim/.vimrc and symlink to it. This way I can have it in a git repo and backup it.