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

By Rolf Potts

Published in 2002

There are books that will forever alter the way you think about life.

These books are different for everyone, but everyone is allotted a small handful of them. They come to you when you least expect them and most need to read them. Keep a watchful eye. These are little gifts that the heavens selected specifically for you.

How the Book Found Me

In my final year of college, I was offered a dream job in New York City. It was the type of job that would make people raise an approving eyebrow as they shook my hand for two seconds longer than one should shake a hand.

It was also a job that would consume my soul. Funny how often those two go hand-in-hand.

What I really wanted to do was pursue my curiosities like they were a full-time job. The problem was, that didn’t pay nearly as well. In fact, it didn’t pay at all. Furthermore, I carefully groomed my resume for two and half years specifically to get hired by this company.

The pressure was on. I didn’t go to my family for advice because my family is Middle Eastern. That’s another way of saying my family has a fetish for big boy job titles and handsome salaries.

Instead, I turned to a loyal comrade: the pub. I vowed not to leave the corner table of this fine establishment until my mind was decided.

It was the type of pub that neither smelled good nor bad and would be indistinguishable from 100 other pubs. My forearms stuck and unstuck to the table as I shifted my gaze at the across the wood panel wall decorated with Wayne Gretzky faces.

Round three was delivered by some blank-faced, smiling girl when suddenly, a big hand landed on my shoulder and spun me around.

"Oy! Well, you look miserable!"

The guy’s name was Bullzy. That wasn’t his real name of course. That's just what everyone called him.

I racked my mind for anything remotely clever to say about his looks, but Bullzy stands at a full 6' 4", runs marathons, and has skin that looks like it's only been kissed by the highest quality UV rays somewhere on a Greek island.

Nice to see you too.

"What are you doing here?"

I told him.

His eyes seemed to be challenging Gretzky's while he thought of something to say.

"You know, there's a book called Vagabonding. You should check it out."

I asked if he had read it. He hadn't.

As I was asking how he heard of it, a couple of girls called his name (not his real name of course, no one used his real name) and he shrugged, smiled, and started to walk away.

"Good luck, old sport!" he yelled over his shoulder. "The open road would look good on you."

I didn't see Bullzy for a long time after that. When I finally did, I told him that his drunken recommendation of a book he had never read had changed my life.

What I Found Interesting

Vagabonding by Rolf Potts doesn't earn its keep on my shelf for its wild tales of far-off, exotic lands. I've read plenty of those books. This is not one of them.

Vagabonding is less about being interesting and more about being interested.

It teaches that long-term travel doesn't have to be some juvenile excuse for not knowing what you want to do in life. As long as you have a good compass and heading, life on the open road could be a wondrous learning opportunity.

This book provides those tools: The fundamental philosophy of long-term travel (and how to come back a better version of yourself).

Potts emphasizes that humility and vulnerability are essential to the success of this pursuit. As a traveler, you are like an oversized child who has yet to figure out how the toilet works, or the public transportation, or the way to correctly greet someone. You have to become comfortable asking for help. In other words, you have to become comfortable being uncomfortable.

Vagabonding encourages slow travel as opposed to the trivial pursuit of checking off countries as if they were on your to-do list. Less consumption and more appreciation. Seeing rather than looking.

It's a book that forces many status quos into the spotlight. Are money and titles the only metrics for our success? What about the quality of your memories? What about time as currency?

It’s the type of book that offers the clarity as jumping into a icey glacial lake somewhere in the Rockies. You leap out with a wide smile of chattering teeth, nuts the size of marbles, and think, "Hm. So this is what life was about all along?". Then of course, you forget the simple truths and turn your eyes away from the heavens and back towards overthinking an email to someone you've never met.

I ordered a copy of Vagabonding the same night before leaving that indistinguishable pub. Once it arrived, I remember laying on my bed, which took up half the floor space in my college room, and skipping the day’s classes to finish reading it.

Although I've gifted numerous copies, Vagabonding was (and still is) the only book I refuse to lend out. (So much for detaching from materialism!)

With a new voyage on the horizon, I reread it last week for the fourth time and came away with new insights.

If you made it this far into the review, do yourself a favor and buy the book.* Buy it for your newly retired parent. Buy it for your friend that hates their job. You don't have to be a traveler to enjoy it. You just have to be someone who wants to live life with intention.

*This is an affiliate link which means if you buy the book, I get a kick back at no extra charge to you. This is how I finance my quest for learning.

What I Don’t Understand (Yet)

(Scroll up and view the book’s cover)

Alright Rolf, let’s be frank, where exactly did you think you were going sporting that tortoise shell of a jetpack?

It’s a miracle you didn’t sink straight to the bottom of that sand dune. You could park a car in that thing. An entire Bedouin tribe could live out of that for at least a month (and comfortably!).

Was this really the best picture you had? Were there other options? If so, I’d love to see what photos got beaten by this.

I’m imagining one of them with you floating down the Amazon River. You’re in a rickety canoe with a wild, yet confident expression. You’re sporting brand new cargo pants and one of those floppy hats that Costco sells to gardening dads. For some reason, you haven’t quite figured out how to lather in all the sunscreen you’ve generously marinated your ears and nose in. The six indistinguishable tourists behind you seem to be in the same predicament.

I’m just glad my mom taught me to never judge a book by its cover.

Favorite Quotes

“Instead–out of our insane duty to fear, fashion, and monthly payments on things we don’t really need–we quarantine our travels to short, frenzied bursts. In this way, as we throw our wealth at an abstract notion called “lifestyle,” travel becomes just another accessory–a smooth-edged, encapsulated experience that we purchase the same way we buy clothing and furniture.”

“The more we associate experience with cash value, the more we think that money is what we need to live. And the more we associate money with life, the more we convince ourselves that we’re too poor to buy our freedom.” 

“Vagabonding is, was, and always will be a private undertaking–and its goal is to improve your life not in relation to your neighbor but in relation to yourself.”

“Indeed, the surest way to miss out on the genuine experience of a foreign place–the psychic equivalent of trapping yourself back at home–is to obsessively check your email and social media feeds as you travel from place to place.”

Note: Potts published this book in the early 2000s. Times have changed. There are more temptations to struggle against. Find the balance between sharing the moment and simply savoring challenged me in my early vagabond chapters. Here’s what I’ve found works:

1. Don’t post anything current. My feed lags weeks or sometimes months behind my current travel. This way I’m never getting caught up telling the story before it unfolds.

2. Keep the best stories for yourself.

“In reality, long-term travel has nothing to do with demographics – age, ideology, income – and everything to do with personal outlook. Long-term travel isn’t about being a college student; it’s about being student of daily life. Long-term travel isn’t an act of rebellion against society; it’s an act of common sense within society. Long-term travel doesn’t require a massive “bundle of cash”; it requires only that we walk through the world in a more deliberate way.”

“Don’t let the vices you conquered on the road–fear, selfishness, vanity, prejudice, envy–creep back into your daily life. Explore your hometown as if it were a foreign land, and take an interest in your neighbors as if they were exotic tribesmen.”

Final Thoughts

If I could only give my future kids three books, they would be:

1. The Bible

2. Meditations

3. Vagabonding

Thank you, Rolf Potts. In my closest pool of friends, you’ve helped at least three of us to revaluate life priorities and take action.

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This post contains affiliate links which means I get a kickback if you buy the book through the link. It comes at no extra cost to you. This is how I finance my quest for learning.