tiny grass

Vagabonding by Rolf Potts is about long-term, unconventional world travel.  Conventional would be the notion that long-term travel is possible only by the very wealthy galavanting from exclusive resort to private island in luxury.  In reality, long-term travel is very possible for people of more normal means, but to do it in a fulfilling fashion requires a mindset of openness and focus on what’s important.  This is also what is essential to a successful life as an expat, and Potts distills it so well that every expat (and expat-to-be) should read this book.

Vagabonding - n. a privately meaningful manner of travel that emphasizes creativity, adventure, simplicity, awareness, discovery, independence, realism, self-reliance, and the growth of the spirit.

This definition, from the book’s opening page, succinctly lists all the qualities that a successful expat needs.  Quite a few expats move out of their chosen destination within 2 years.  There aren’t any hard numbers, but it is likely in the range of 20-40%.  I imagine that a common thread amongst them would be a lack of flexibility and maintaining the same mindset and expectations they had in their home country.

Clocking in at 206 pages, the book is an easy, worthwhile, inspiring read.  Interspersed in the chapters are quotes from vagabonders, and each chapter ends with a profile of a path-blazing vagabond.  These pioneers include John Muir (founder of the Sierra Club), Thoreau and Walt Whitman.  It’s cool to read about them, but of more value are the quotes and comments by the less-reknowned, everyday vagabonds like ourselves.

Also included at the end of each chapter is a list helpful resources (books & websites).  A more up-to-date list of resources, vagabonding profiles, forum and Potts’ blog can be found at the companion website, www.vagabonding.net.

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Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you only have the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.
–Bill Bryson

My current reading is Vagabonding by Rolf Potts. It’s a fantastic book about long-term world travel, more about shedding your possessions and really experiencing the world than just how to do it cheaply. It’s been ages since I wanted to sightsee, and years ago I spent a month in England with the predefined purposing of getting a taste of my friends’ lives. I told them I wasn’t interested in sightseeing (I’d seen everything in London years before), and they took it in stride. The only thing I couldn’t do was go to work with them - otherwise I went with them to their theatre rehearsals, long walks in the countryside and repeated evenings in the same local pub.

My most treasured memories of that trip was staying in Scunthorpe, a town about an hour and a half from the Scottish border. It’s not a place where tourists go. There’s nothing to see, in terms of traditional sightseeing. But it was a wonderful time because of my friend, Tom Foley (we’ve lost touch and I hope he Googles his name sometime) and his family. They were Irish, and the most warm and welcoming family I’ve ever experienced outside my own. Tom worked part-time and I’d tag along with his Mum to the store or read.

One day she took me visit her mother, who was Algerian and resolutely anti-feminist. She insisted that men and women were different, that men could do things women could not and there was no convincing her otherwise. She was a child during World War II and her story of going to a German school and life at the time was fascinating. We also spent almost every evening at the same pub, The Honest Lawyer, where I became a bit of a regular had plenty of discussions on politics and music with everyone. I have one regret about the experience: I was offered a bartending job there and I did not even take a moment to consider it. I wanted a high-paying corporate job that would lead to an eventual transfer to Europe. Silly me.

I’ve always been curious about the world - my favorite subject in school was Social Studies, when it was about people and cultures, before it turned into a series of boring memorizations and tests called History. I’m not terribly curious about the US - there’s too much familiarity around the corners. But I am absolutely curious about being in a strange land where I don’t speak the language. And in Vagabonding, I found the quote by Bill Bryson (from Neither Here nor There) that summed it up perfectly.

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