Welcome to Gypsy Wednesday! Every Wednesday, I strive to highlight all the juicy morsels related to travel and beyond.
Rolf Potts’ Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long Term Travel is not for the limp wristed traveler. When I devoured the book I was ready for a dousing of evangelical preaching.
And a sound soaking is what you get, especially for those curious about travel beyond a one week Contiki tour of Europe.
Rolf cleverly put a spin on the Latin word vagabond, which means to wander from place to place without any settled home. He pondered how to describe this kind of travel. Globe-trotting was contrived, backpacking too ambiguous, so finally he came up with ‘vagabonding’.
Potts fully admits he wasn’t the one who invented it. While researching this book, he happened upon Ed Buryn’s Vagabonding in Europe and North Africa published 1972. Obviously this concept has been present for several years. I’m thankful, lending some credence to vagabonding.
And what is it precisely? Using bare bones language, vagabonding is fulfilling the calling to travel for an extended period of time. Whether it be 4 weeks, 6 months, or even years.
What Potts is encouraging is not simply an escape from your pathetic existence, but fully choosing a life not overrun by objects, but experiences and memories. What stuck out to me is the one commodity we constantly overlook – time.
I’m 3 months into vagabonding and can testify – the value of time is invaluable. Days are paroxysms in enjoying my pursuits, not goose liver pate and fine dining, but dreaming, walking, writing, eating, communicating.
Tossing away a round-the-world-ticket or an exhausting 7 days of monuements and musuems to slow down is the vagabonding way. Earning travel through short-term work to supply your dreams is the vagabonding way. Downsizing material posessions in favor of human connections is the vagabonding way.
Mostly, what Potts emphsaizes is not escaping your real life, but discovering your real life. Thus, seeing the adventure in regular life.
The book speaks to the entrenched mentality of Americans, who views vacation as a blitz, and long-term travel as an expensive fantasy. Not so.
Potts weaves a strong picture of the philsophies behind vagabonding, then segues into a practical guide on how to execute your travel dreams. It’s not expensive or unattainable, nor far from ridiculous.
The book cites a heap of resources to tailor your vagabonding journey, everything from how to quit your job to working overeseas to planning your itinerary.
The ultimate result is your hunger now has a name, even a definition. When you assumed there was a conventional method to travel, there’s much more. When you concluded visiting a country was about tourist attractions, the most memorable won’t be The Great Wall or The Leaning Tower of Pisa, but an enlightening conversation with a Karachi cab driver or kids in rags playing soccer on a dusty street exploding with raucous laughter, enjoying being children.
The gospel of Vagabonding is behind me now, to read this book again solidifies my current path, but wouldn’t teach me anything new.
For those confused, fighting negative demons, or aching to change, but not knowing how, Vagabonding is your bible.
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I agree with your points darling.
I just wrote a piece yesterday actually about my frustrations with books like these: http://connvoyage.blogspot.com/2010/09/guest-post-elusive-balance-between-work.html
I don’t understand why long-term travelers think that that’s the only REAL way to travel????? Ahhh, it really gets under my skin.
@Andi – You make some valid points. I think this book really is for people who never saw travel as something accessible or real. Again, speaking to the 2 week set, or see travel as a pastime to do later, not now.
After reading a book like this, people might take the steps to include travel in their lives, and someone like you is a perfect example. Your career isn’t used to fuel travel, but fuel your life, and travel is a still a big piece to that. Ultimately, I do think Rolf is encouraging those seeking travel as a lifestyle.
I can see how this book wouldn’t appeal to everyone. I struggled with dual roles for so long, knowing something was missing that this book helped fill that gap.
And the cover is nice. :)
@Adam – Wayyy enamoured. :)
@Kelsey – Thanks for the book tip! I’m going to have to download that next on my Kindle app. :)
@ayngelina – I dunno lady, you’re pretty inspiring, too. :-D
@Eric – If long term travel as a lifestyle really interests you, this book is worth reading. I say, go for it!
@Evan – LOL. I had the same reaction. It simply solidifies everything.
@Keith – For sure. Really assigning a context for what we’ve been curious about for months. :)
Hmmm, I don’t know how I feel about the premise of the book… What about the people who absolutely LOVE their lives??? Traveling is the greatest thing in the world, don’t get me wrong, but I also think so is finding a job that you’re passionate about and brings you incredible personal fulfillment. I actually take offense to the idea that it’s impossible to have both and that because I have both I haven’t found my real life. I think traveling longterm without giving anything back to society is very selfish and not fulfilling. :(
I will say on a positive note, because you know I’m always positive, haha, I love the cover of the book! :)
such. a. great. book.
I read it so quickly and was instantly enamored.
I need to pick up this book some day. When I finished college 4 years ago, my favourite similar book was called “Delaying The Real World” and had a similar sentiment.
Definitely the most inspiring book I read prior to leaving.
Thanks for sharing this review. I have been debating whether or not to pick this book up for some time. I think I will now. It seems to describe how I want to travel.
Ah, yes! I read this for the first time a few years ago. It was kind of a “That’s it – I’m outta here!” feeling at the end. Great for people considering long term travel.
Truly an inspiring read. You can’t help but be changed afterward.
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