Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel

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I finished reading Vagabonding for the second time. The first time I read it was about four years ago, when I first started to experience serious wanderlust. It was inspiring and echoed the way I felt about traveling, but it wasn’t applicable yet. One Day, I mused, I will go on a long-term trip. One day, I will go “vagabonding.” It put the bug in my ear that long-term travel is possible.

Still, anybody contemplating first-time vagabonding, but is a bit afraid and a bit unsure, Potts' book will reassure and encourage. Anybody more experienced will be reminded of the wonder and exhilaration of travel. Nearly a century later, naturalist Edwin Way Teale used Muir’s example to lament the frenetic pace of modern society. “Freedom as John Muir knew it,” he wrote in his 1956 book Autumn Across America, “with its wealth of time, its unregimented days, its latitude of choice . . . such freedom seems more rare, more difficult to attain, more remote with each new generation.” Although I do admire Rolf Potts, I think that the advice written in this book is less practical information and more spiritual inspiration. Most of what he writes are things to motivate the reader, to show that a vagabonding lifestyle is desirable and possible. Along with being introduced to Rolf’s work, I met some salty characters through Bootnsall. We’re still friends today and have met in many countries. A Japanese woman dropping everything to travel the world for a year after living through Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami;Instead, I (thankfully) researched many options online and happened upon Sean Keener’s travel forums on Bootsnall.com.

As someone who lives a nomadic life, I found enriching what he has to say about long-term travel and living an alternative lifestyle. thus it is important to not go vagabonding on a faigue sense of fashion or obligation vagabonding is not social guessture nor its normal high ground, nor it is political statement demanding correctness of society". Like so many other location-independent people, the Vagabonding book is dear to my heart. I’ve happened upon yellow, tattered copies of it in hostels around the world. Seeing that unchanged cover still sparks a thrill deep inside my chest. Traveling without a strict agenda or bulleted to-do list, you’re led mostly by heart instead of brain. You do what feels right. And without a feeling like you need to be somewhere or get things done, you give people and places the love and attention they deserve.As someone with no longterm residence, I found Rolf's exploration valuable and fulfilling. Perhaps its specifically because I've experienced the things that he talks about, the subjects he explores are of interest. But I think there is something in here for the non-vagabond as well. World Travel: An Irreverent Guide’ is a collection of Bourdain’s journeys, injected with his famous frank and honest tone of voice. The book also includes essays written by his friends and family that will bring you even deeper into his stories. In studying classic works of literature from across the centuries, one finds that the most affecting travel tales depict journeys as a metaphor for life itself. These stories don't presume to tell us where to go or what to do, but they do show how journeys can enlarge one's way of being in the world. These tales don't prescribe rules for living; they simply inspire us, by their very example, to live in a more engaged and dynamic way. Indeed, the purest approach to getting the most out of a journey has never revolved around itemized lists of travel strategies: The vagabond's way has always involved a simple and open attitude, a mindset that is inseparable with the way we pay attention to life itself. I’ve been traveling the world for 9 years now, and it all started after I was inspired by reading some incredible travel books. Why I Read this Book: Travel and exploration is an essential part of the development of a successful and fulfilled life. Rolf provides an awesome and inspirational guide.