Vagabonding - Rolf Potts
An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel
I. Vagabonding
1. Declare Your Independence
[bq] For most people travel has become “just another accessory - a smooth edged, encapsulated experience that we purchase the same way we buy clouting or furniture.”
[bq] “All that is really sold is the romantic notion of a simpler life."
Associate cash value with experience. And as a result convince ourselves that we can’t afford extended travel.
[bq] “Long term travel [is] about being a student of daily life.”
II. Getting Started
2. Earn Your Freedom
Many of us wait fort the right time to travel and that way end up wasting the best years of our lives without doing anything.
[bq] “Even if the practical reality of travel is still months or years away, vagabonding begins the moment you stop making excuses.”
[bq] “Earning your freedom, of course, involves work - and work is intrinsic to vagabonding for psychic reasons as much as financial ones.”
[bq] “Work is how you settle your financial and emotional debts - so that your travels are not an escape from real life but a discovery of your real life."
Talks of “antisabbaticals", short bursts of work in between travel that allow you to make enough money to keep traveling.
[bq] “The first step of vagabonding is simply a matter of making work serve your interests, instead of the other way round. Believe it or not, this is a radical departure from how most people view work and leisure.”
[bq] “If the clock appears to move faster than it did in sixth grade, it’s only because we haven’t actualized our power as adults to set our own recess schedule.”
3. Keep It Simple
[bq] “Travel by its very nature demands simplicity.”
Avoid clutter and dress that holds you down.
Might find pushback from those around you because preparing for adventure can be perceived as a criticism of their lifestyle/values.
[NFW: Same can be said about other forms of Time Off.]
By giving up a few comforts, can find vast amounts of free time.
4. Learn, and Keep Learning
[bq] “Nothing short of travel itself can prepare you for the new worlds that await.”
[bq] “Vagabonding is not just a process of discovering the world but a way of seeing - an attitude that prepares you to find the things you weren’t looking for.”
[q] “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.”
- Saint Augustine
Standard media is in business of competing for our attention, not informing us in a well-rounded way, so have unfair/disproportionate focus on wars, disasters, etc.
Even novels set in distant lands/cultures can give much more accurate picture than news media.
[q] “A good traveler has no fixed plan, and is not intent on arriving.”
- Lao Tzu
Word of moth and actually talking to people still best way to actually get information.
[bq] Internet “can be seen as an electronic synthesis of traditional media and word-of-mouth information.”
Both most timely but also most contradictory/biased/opinionated source.
Wrote in a time of no smartphones or everyone carrying laptops, and talks about Internet cafes as a great tool, but wants to resist the urge to stay too connected,
[bq] “since nothing stifles your vagabonding flexibility quite like the compulsive urge to stay connected to the modern world. Indeed, the surest way to miss out on the genuine experience of a foreign place […] is to obsessively check your e-mail as you travel from place to place.”
Follow your passions! If you had an interest in something even vaguely related to a particular country or area, set out to that lace and see where the adventure takes you.
Don’t make too many plans about what to do in a place. After truly experiencing it for a couple of days you’ll come up with plenty of things to do that you would have never thought about before.
[bq] “Vagabonding is not like bulk shopping: The value of your travels does not hinge on how many stamps you have in your passport.”
Bring as little as possible and buy what you need on the road.
III. On the Road
5. Don’t Set Limits
[q] “Traveler, there is no path. Paths are made by walking.”
- Antonio Machado
While traveling, even the most normal things like getting groceries or riding a bus become exciting and filled with unfamiliar sights, sounds, and smells. And they also make you more aware of details of the everyday life you left at home.
[bq] “If there’s one key concept to remember amid the excitement of your first days on the road, it’s this: 'Slow down.’"
So many tourists just rush from one sight to another without really experiencing a place.
[bq] “On the road, you learn to improvise your days, take a second look at everything you see, and not obsess over your schedule.”
[bq] “Look more and analyze less; take things as they come.”
[bq] “There’s no better opportunity to break old habits, face latent fears, and test out repressed facets of your personality.”
[bq] “If you wander with open eyes and simple curiosity, you’ll discover […] the simple feeling of possibility that hums from every direction as you move from place to place.”
6. Meet Your Neighbors
Much of what we learn on the road is actually about ourselves.
Travel and foreign surroundings amplify our own tendencies. If we are open and welcoming, that’s often what we’ll experience from others on the road as well.
You’ll also realize just how much of our life is dictated by cultural norms/assumptions that are not universal at all.
Many tourists seek “authenticity” and end up at places where culture is staged rather than lived.
[bq] “Have to learn to see other cultures not as National Geographic snapshots but as neighbors.”
7. Get into Adventures
Ever since there hasn’t been any true ’terra incognito’, adventure has become harder to find/define.
[bq] “In America especially […] no experience seems worthy of public mention unless it can be measured, competed, or broadcast before a television audience.”
“Adventure travel” mainly consists of extreme sports and organized expeditions. But true adventure can be found almost anywhere.
[NFW: Wrote this book before the advent of Instagram and selfie sticks.]
[bq] Real adventure is often “just a matter of going out and allowing things to happen in a strange and amazing environment.”
It can’t be itemized or packaged. And it’s a mental more than a physical experience.
[bq] “The secret to adventure, then, is not to carefully seek it out but to travel in such a way that it finds you.”
Challenge yourself to do simple things you usually wouldn’t do, even if it’s just eating out with a stranger.
IV. The Long Run
8. Keep It Real
When traveling, often see the world through our own prejudices and biases rather than the way it actually is.
Many obsess about the difference of tourist versus traveler, so much as to fetishise travelers or trying to “be” a traveler more than to actually simply experience their travels.
[bq] “Instead of worrying about whether you’re a tourist or a traveler, the secret to ’seeing’ our surroundings on the road is simply to keep things real.”
[bq] “Vagabonding is not to be confused with a mere vacation, where the goal is escape.”
Many vacationers are never really present, always having their mind back home on past annoyances and future worries, all the while trying to cram as many “experiences” into their few days away from real life as they can.
Should be as open-minded as possible and leave our political convictions at home if we can.
[q] “The ‘danger’ of vagabonding resides in having your eyes opened - in discovering the world as it really is.”
- Ed Buryn
9. Be Creative
Often just dream of getting rich and then escaping to a tropical paradise. But rarely ask what we’d actually do once there.
[bq] Even with just a small amount of money, “in all likelihood, your enthusiasm for sitting around smeared in cocoa butter will run out before your money does.”
[bq] "What most people consider ‘paradise’ is defined in contrast to the stresses of home.”
Once we remove those stresses for a few weeks or months, just sitting at the beach all day will seem pretty boring and not much like paradise anymore.
During long term travel need to make sure to mix things up a bit from time to time or there’s a risk of one destination blending into the next.
Settling down at certain places for longer periods (weeks or months) can also be great.
Learning, or (re-)engaging in or deepening hobbies, can be a great way to use the time on the road. And we shouldn’t feel guilty because we “could do it anywhere”, and maybe missing out on sights. But the altered context, as well as different mindset, will make it a different experience.
[q] “If you really want to learn about a country, work there.”
- Charles Kuralt
Even working on the road can be a thoroughly enjoyable and insightful experience (and might be a simple necessity for sustained travel).
[bq] “However you choose to enrich your experience of a place […] always challenge yourself to try new things and keep learning.”
[q] “We travel, in essence, to become young fools again - to slow down time and get taken in, and fall in love once more.”
- Pico Iyer
10. Let Your Spirit Grow
[bq] Modern travel has a “notorious reputation for […] half-baked spiritual foolery, as many wanderers tend to confuse simple exoticism with mystical revelation.”
[bq] "Travel compels you to discover your spiritual side by simple elimination: without all the rituals, routines, and possessions that give your life meaning at home, you’re forced to look for meaning within yourself.”
[bq] “If you travel long enough you’ll find that your spiritual revelations are invariably grounded in the everyday.”
V. Coming Home
11. Live the Story
Coming home after long travel can be the most difficult adventure of all.
[bq] Might first enjoy all the comforts and familiarities of home, but then soon “begin to feel a strange sensation of homesickness… for the road."
Sometimes share our most intimate feelings with a stranger on the road we’ve barely known, but then struggle to relate to old friends who are so stuck in old patterns and can’t share our values/experiences.
[bq] “Try as you might, you simply can’t make the social rewards of travel match up to the private discoveries.”
What we take away from travel, especially solitary solo-travel, is a highly personal thing.
[bq] “Telling the story is not nearly as important as living the story.”
Bring the spirit of travel home with you and try to experience your hometown as if it was a foreign and exotic place.