Vagabonding: an unusual interview on the Art of Long-Term World Travel
In my view, if long-term travel and backpacking had a Bible that it would be. No book has ever come so close to putting the philosophy of long-term trip like this to express. I still have my original copy and occasionally thumb through Chapter.
Since launching this website, Rolf and I have become friends (it's cool to be friends with someone whose words changed your life) and this month marks the tenth anniversary of his book. Rolf again the release of the book in an audio format (it is also the first book in the Tim Ferriss Book Club) and the book to celebrate ten turn I wanted Rolf to bring back to the page about the fine art of stray speak (I interviewed him for the first time in 09)
Nomadic Matt :. OK, first question: How do you feel that your baby is ten years old? What are the feelings that you feel
Rolf Potts: It's great to the touch. Especially if, as far as I can tell, more people read them for ten years as it did when it first came out. I had high hopes when the book debuted, but the response continues to exceed my expectations.
How do you feel to create a book that people see as the bible for long-term trip?
It is humiliating. I remember all the months I spent alone in a room in the south of Thailand, put the book together, sentence by sentence. In this situation it is difficult to know what come of your work, even if it you are creating something special feels like. The first reaction to the book was encouraging, especially considering that it came out the US military around the time was the invasion of Iraq and most news agencies were afraid Travel. Only a few years after the debut of the book when vagabonders started me of pirated sales in the backpacker ghetto of Vietnam to say that I knew that it had caught at the base.
When I interviewed first in 09, my site was not even a year old, and I was not sure what I wanted to do. If you started to write this book, you have an idea, it take in the direction it would have?
I think it's hard to ever really knowing where you're going if you do a project like this. When I was first approached about writing the book had no great ambitions to become a travel guru. The travel reports I had for Salon letter were reportorial and narrative, and seldom much advice on the type of trip. But Salon readers held email and ask me how I was able to keep on traveling, so long, and the proposals that I published on my site more in nature to be philosophical. At the time occur, it does not write to me budgeting strategies or packing tips, I thought readers might find this out on your own.
have been the most important motivating factors in my long-term travel career existential ones - factors that were rooted mentality in the care that made possible stray - so that's what I detail on my website, and that's what the attention of the editor caught by Random House. Once I started writing Vagabonding took the book to a wide practical component, but its philosophical core is what most. Resonate with readers
How has the success of the book characterize your wishes for a writer to be? And it's hard to create to meet the expectations of such a great first book?
because from the beginning I was more vested in write-reportorial narrative journey, stray closed up to be a nice complement to the rest of my career. In the introductory chapter of the book, I meet fun at the idea of creating a "Vagabonding publishing empire" before he explain that I planned to write the book so that it did not need sequels or spin-offs. So it's been nice not to have against me to compete. My second book Marco Polo not go Hat , won many awards, but it was not nearly as many copies as sold Vagabonding - which makes sense, because it is a more specialized, narrative book, given less broad advice. Vagabonding is for anyone who has ever dreamed of travel, while the Marco Polo book has been adopted by a specialized readership, one that is already writing travel and travel interests.
So, while my public speaking gigs tend to focus on stray yet, I recorded my creative life in new directions. Instead in-the-box expectations to try to do justice, I have seen on video and graphic narrative have made projects I have done long form report for Sports Illustrated , I have taught at Penn write and Yale and the Paris American Academy. I can never write a book that proves as popular as Vagabonding , but I would estimate that allowed me to follow my heart and do what interests me, instead of trying my first book re Create or outdo.
happened Many of your experiences in the book, when you were young. If you think back to the book and read, have all of your thoughts and feelings changed?
I think these early travel experiences are the best to draw from when how to write a book Vagabonding , since those who experience readers identify with. As I am sure you know, there is a point at which internalized many of the motivations and routines travel Noncurrent and intuitive. But you do not want too much to rely on a voice that deduces normal driving as something; You want to convey, as can be exciting and intimidating and extraordinary journey, and that's why you so much to draw on these early experiences. Some of these experiences happened almost 20 years ago now, but they still resonate with me. When I hear working arrangements of Vagabonding a few weeks ago audiobook I was always in the same feelings of wanderlust I caught felt when I just starting as a traveler. So are the thoughts and feelings that have I give in the book not changed; I have just become a little older, since I wrote them.
How do you feel about how travel and backpacking has developed?
It feels like the prospect of travel and backpacking with each year is less intimidating. There is just so much more information out there, so many ways to go online and see how people do it in real time, as many devices and applications that facilitate the everyday details travel. Against this background, there is less excuse than ever for not traveling. In a way, long-term travel has become so easy that I somehow miss the old difficulties and hardships, made the trip, as surprising and rewarding - but I like that vagabonders to think of today as the how to get much from the experience of prior generation.
This is often just a matter of embracing the present moment, what it is and not worrying about the alleged fame of some past times. A few years ago I gave a lecture at a university in Italy, and the students told me how jealous they were that I would have been to Southeast Asia in 1999, when "real trip" There was still possible. I had to laugh, because often complained in 1999 backpackers about how they wanted they had been to Thailand, in, say, 1979 No doubt, the backpacker 1979 looked back with fantasies of an even earlier time. But of course everything we really have is the present moment, and stray can as always amazing when you allow it to be, regardless of how things have changed.
I feel too many travelers / potential travelers long for this "real" experience, which is partly mythical imagination, on innate desire people 'to discover based. We all want our inner Indiana Jones unleash. As you said, the core of a philosophical nature of the book has not changed. Do you have a part of the basic thinking why your book has done well, is that it articulates this desire as effective
I spend a lot of time in the book fantasies and daydreams downplaying and readers encourage reality to embrace - since reality itself is what the complex and demanding and extremely amazing experiences provide that is worth the trip. I also discussed how the beaten path exit is much easier than it seems speak. One reason for backpackers have always worried, "spoiled" that obtain the goals is that they instinctively seek other backpackers. To avoid disappointment at a specific meeting place surrounded, they take over the whole world has been discovered. As I stated in number stray , you do not need to be Indiana Jones, something new and amazing to discover; You have to usually go only 20 minutes in any direction, or take a bus to a city that is not listed in your guide. So yes, I try to learn from recognizing the desire which to find a balance to articulate "real" and how easy and catchy it is to find "real" experiences on the road.
In our first interview, I asked you, what advice she would have for a new traveler. They said, "slow down and enjoy yourself." Four years later, is that still your number one piece of advice
Absolutely - and for all the reasons we have just talked about. Thanks to technology, it's easier than ever to know what you are missing and miss so where you are in 100 other places. Moreover, the temptation is greater than ever, every step of your journey to micromanagement, to trust to the point where one more chained to the abstraction of a route at the end as your instincts and responding to what in front of you. Force yourself to slow down and your way is improvised by each new day on the road the best way out of the habits of breaking at home and an amazing level of travel embracing promises.
The new audio version of Rolf classics can be found on Audible. To celebrate the re-release, he created some videos for the book, and I want that under to share about why "someday" never comes:
This excerpt is from the first section of his book, and it sums up perfectly why I made the decision to travel the world. Do not waste your dreams until tomorrow, can
Rolf Buch was very influential in my development as a traveler. If you have not read it yet, I strongly encourage you to do so. Vagabonding will leave you confident that your decision was the right trip.
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