Vagabonding by Rolf Potts

Vagabonding : An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts is a travel book published in 2002.

Vagabonding — (1) The act of leaving behind the orderly world to travel independently for an extended period of time. (2) A privately meaningful manner of travel that emphasizes creativity, adventure, awareness, simplicity, discovery, independence, realism, self-reliance, and the growth of the spirit. (3) A deliberate way of living that makes freedom to travel possible.

Travel should not be an escape from your real life but a discovery of your real life. Vagabonding is a lifestyle of living, learning, and appreciating. It is an attitude that turns everyday life into an adventure.

Author Rolf Potts has traveled for years across six continents, including piloting a fishing boat 900 miles down the Mekong River, hitchhiking across Eastern Europe, traversing Israel on foot, bicycling through Myanmar, and driving a Land Rover across South America. After learning from experience, Potts advises on practical issues (such as the best way to find time/freedom, plan, stay safe, interact with locals, and more) but also on how to get the most out of your experiences so you can enjoy long-term travel, not as an escape but as an adventure.

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Enjoy!

Getting Started
On the Road
The Long Run
Coming Home
- Live The Story

Getting Started

Declare Your Independence

Americans see long-term travel as a dream or exotic temptation but not something that applies here and now
Fear, fashion, and monthly payments on things we don’t really need limit our travels to short, frenzied bursts
Many think extended travel is only possible for students, counterculture dropouts, and the idle rich
- Long-term travel has nothing to do with demographics — age, ideology, income, etc.

Earn Your Freedom

“He who is outside his door has the hardest part of his journey behind him”
Dutch Proverb

Vagabonding is a lifestyle; the ongoing practice of looking and learning, facing fears and altering habits, and cultivating a new fascination with people and places
Don’t travel out of a sense of fashion, it is not a social gesture. It is a personal act
A vacation merely rewards work. Vagabonding justifies it
- Work → a chance to settle your financial / emotional debts so that travels aren’t an escape from your real life, but a discovery of your real life
- The leading casualty of the American lifestyle is our time
- Make work serve your interests
Ways to earn your freedom
- Sabbaticals
- Unpaid leave
- Quit your job
- Digital nomad / location-independent employment
- Jobs overseas
Many places are statistically no more dangerous than large US cities
- As with home, most dangers revolve around sickness, theft, and accidents
- Most people will not see you as a political entity but a guest to their country
If the news is scary, simply keep yourself informed
- “Headlines, in a way, are what mislead you because bad news is a headline, and gradual improvement is not” — Bill Gates
Safety Tips
- Avoid a loud and flashy appearance
- Travel outside of predictable tourist patterns
- Stay away from public demonstrations
- Get advice from the locals
Don’t get talked out of your travel dream. Leaving usually turns out to be much harder than the travel experience
- For all the important things in life, timing almost always sucks — quitting a job, taking a dream trip, having a kid

Keep It Simple

Personal investment is more important than material investment
- Spend your time lavishly in order to support the values that make life worth it
- With your fields of time, you’re sowing the seeds for personal growth
Happiness is not determined by income level
- Simplicity, both at home and on the road, allows you to explore life itself
Methods:
- Stopping Expansion
  - Don’t add any new possessions
- Reign In Your Routine
  - Live more humbly & put the difference in your travel fund
  - Cook at home more
  - Entertain friends at home
- Reduce Clutter
  - Jettison things / commitments that aren’t necessary to your basic well-being
Being free from debt’s burdens gives you more life options
- Debt dictates your course of life, forcing you into cycles of consumption
People might take your growing freedom as subtle criticism of their own way of life
- Life and travel is a private undertaking — don’t waste your time with those people

Learn, And Keep Learning

Discoveries from travel are the purest form of education
Strike a balance between:
- The inspiration that compelled you to travel
- Knowing that nothing short of travel itself can prepare you
Know your options, not your destiny (when planning)
- Just plan the bones (beginning-destination flight + hard-to-get lodging) and let the rest develop organically as you go along
Mindset matters most
- Attitude > Itinerary
- Willingness To Improvise > Research
- Awareness + Adaptation > Detailed Troubleshooting
- A confident, ready-to-learn attitude will make up for anything
Travel is a personal endeavour
- The easiest way to miss out on the experience is to obsessively check your email / social media
- The value of your travels doesn’t hinge on how many passport stamps you have
Travel light
- Wherever you go you will find plenty of toiletries, extra clothes, notebooks, towels, bottled water, snacks, etc.
- All expensive items should be left behind (jewelry, electronics etc)
Keep your cost projections conservative
- If you think you have enough money for six months, plan on traveling for four months

On the Road

Don’t Set Limits

Details of daily life you ignore back home will seem rich and exotic (ordering food, taking a bus, etc)
SLOW DOWN
- One of the hardest lessons to grasp (especially for first timers)
- The whole point of travel is having the time to move deliberately throughout the world
You’ll learn new things about your surroundings AND yourself
Don’t set limits:
- On what you can / can’t do
- On what is / isn’t worthy of your time
Avoid buying souvenirs right when you get there
Quality of your experiences > quantity
- Being busy can be a form of laziness — lazy thinking and indiscriminate action
- Being selective is usually more productive + fun

Meet Your Neighbors

We see as we are
- If you view the world as a predominantly hostile place → It will be
The most intriguing experiences + eye-opening encounters come from people whose lifestyles / backgrounds are completely different from your own
- These interactions teach you about your own culture-fed instincts
- Let go of your cultural assumptions on how people should treat you
See other cultures not as National Geographic snapshots but as neighbors
- As exotic as other people might seem to you, there’s a good chance you’ll seem just as exotic to them
Tips:
- Pictures create a common ground
- When speaking, loudness won’t help — Speak slow, clear, and simple
- Develop an ear for “Tarzan English”
- Compliment anyone brave enough to try their English
- Bring a gift when being hosted by locals
- Don’t acquire these experiences like souvenirs, let things happen
- Live in the moment instead of thinking what kind of story this’ll make
In other cultures:
- Direct questions such as sex, income, etc are not as off-limits
- Most are more conservative — respect manner codes even if you don’t subscribe to them

Get Into Adventures

Adventure is just a matter of going out and allowing things to happen in a strange, new environment
- No Adventure → choose experience in advance, approach it with specific expectations, never stray from the plan
The secret of adventure is not to seek it, but to travel in such a way that it finds you
- Overcome protective habits + Open yourself up to unpredictability
- Don’t get carried away and seek misadventure
  - Sickness and crime are the most preventable misadventures
Treasure your worst experiences as new chapters in your life
Adventure is stretching your boundaries — It is more of a process than an activity

The Long Run

Keep It Real

We tend to view our new surroundings through the petty prejudices of home, rather than seeing things for what they are
- Let go of pre-trip stereotypes and exchange two-dimensional expectations for living people, living places, and living life
- You aren’t going to learn anything new if you continually use your values / politics as lens through which to view the world
The predictable and unpredictable are not separate, but part of the same ongoing reality
Open mindedness = listening and considering, muting your compulsion to judge what is right and wrong, and having a tolerance / patience to try and see things for what they are
Intoxicants replace real sensations with artificially enhanced ones — nightly partying stunts your travel

Be Creative

You can’t dream the perfect travel formula while sitting at home
- Paradise when planning will eventually seem somewhat normal after a few weeks / months
Mix your travels up a bit
- Occasionally acquire/improvise your own transportation
- Work / Volunteer
- Settle down in one area and get to know it better
- Always challenge yourself to try new things and keep learning
Vagabonding is not a getaway but an exploration
- You’re not just exploring new places, but weaving a tapestry of life experience

Let Your Spirit Grow

Without the rituals, routines, and possessions that give your life meaning at home, you’re forced to look for meaning within yourself
Discovering the sacred as you travel is not an abstract quest so much as a manner of perceiving what is all around you

Coming Home

Live The Story

The most difficult adventure can be coming home
- You’ll feel like a stranger in a place that should feel familiar
- Your friends will rarely be able to relate because they don’t have the values that took you out on the road in the first place
Telling the story is not nearly as important as living the story
International news about the regions you visited will resonate in a personal way
You’ll come to realize how mass media can only offer a partial perspective on other places and cultures
As for the practical challenges of reentry into your home, think of them as new adventures
Don’t let vices you conquered on the road creep back into your daily life

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page
Saint Augustine

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