Product Description

Vagabonding is about taking time off from your normal life—from six weeks to four months to two years—to discover and experience the world on your own terms. Veteran shoestring traveler Rolf Potts shows how anyone armed with an independent spirit can achieve the dream of extended overseas travel. Potts gives the necessary information on:

• financing your travel time
• determining your destination
• adjusting to life on the road
• working and volunteering overseas
• handling travel adversity
• re-assimilating back into ordinary life

Not just a plan of action, vagabonding is an outlook on life that emphasizes creativity, discovery, and the growth of the spirit.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3022 in Books
• Published on: 2002-12-24
• Released on: 2002-12-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780812992182
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Booklist
Veteran vagabond Potts regales readers with his mantra: anyone with an adventurous spirit can achieve the feat of taking extended time off from work to experience the world. In 11 short chapters that follow the same structure, Potts tells how to negotiate time off from work, prepare for travel, and get the most out of your time on the road. Each chapter contains a profile of a famous proponent of vagabonding (e.g., Thoreau, Annie Dillard), quotes from everyday people with extensive travel experience, and a tip sheet of print and online sources for practical travel advice on topics such as airline tickets and accommodations as well as safety concerns. Alternately warning readers about using drugs in foreign countries and entertaining them with anecdotes from exotic ports of call, Potts gives a thorough recounting of his outlook on traveling. This book seems squarely aimed at twenty- and thirtysomethings; anyone with decidedly nonvagabond accoutrements (e.g., children or career ambition) might be more skeptical of Potts' philosophy. For those with a bad case of wanderlust. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From the Inside Flap
Vagabonding is about taking time off from your normal life?from six weeks to four months to two years?to discover and experience the world on your own terms. Veteran shoestring traveler Rolf Potts shows how anyone armed with an independent spirit can achieve the dream of extended overseas travel. Potts gives the necessary information on:

? financing your travel time
? determining your destination
? adjusting to life on the road
? working and volunteering overseas
? handling travel adversity
? re-assimilating back into ordinary life

Not just a plan of action, vagabonding is an outlook on life that emphasizes creativity, discovery, and the growth of the spirit.

From the Back Cover
“Potts wants us to wander, to explore, to embrace the unknown, and, finally, to take our own damn
time about it. I think this is the most sensible book of travel-related advice ever written.”
—Tim Cahill, author of Hold the Enlightenment

“Rolf Potts has produced an engaging book that does what few, if any, other travel guides do: make readers aware of how many possibilities vagabonding offers them to enhance their lives, and how accessible the experience of long-term travel really is.”
—Jeffrey Tayler, author of Glory in the Camel’s Eye, Facing the Congo, and Siberian Dawn

“Vagabonding brings to inspiring life both the hows and the whys of life on the road.”
—Don George, global travel editor, Lonely Planet Publications

“Digging into Rolf Potts, one encounters real issues about travel, issues that most other travel writers overlook, while still having a good time.”
—Joe Cummings, author of Lonely Planet Thailand, Lonely Planet Bangkok,
Moon Handbooks: Mexico, and Moon Handbooks: Texas

Customer Reviews

great little travel philosophy book
Rolf Potts' tome of vagabonding is an inspirational work rather than a practical guide. While the same practical information is contained in other books, this book shines in the area of travel philosophy. Travel is like a religion, where some people are incredibly fervent about it, while others just don't understand. This book makes you realize that long-term travel is not only possible, but desirable and worthwhile.

I particularly liked the section on working for travel. As a 9-to-5 worker planning a long-term trip, I needed the inspiration to keep going. I liked being told that working will actually make me appreciate travel more. After all, to afford travel, I have to be here anyway.

Throughout the book, there are great little excerpts from famous travellers, philosophers, and explorers, as well as anecdotes from ordinary travellers. Rolf has a particular liking for Walt Whitman, and I may just have to go pick up some Walt poetry now. The literary references in this book let you know that world travel and a simple life aren't new concepts.

The only problem I see with this book is that it may soon become dated with its references to specific websites.

The book is of a small and convenient size to take on the road.

Inspiring
The hardest part of world travel is acquiring the mindset that nothing else matters as much as the journey. Getting to a place where you reduce your consumption of unnecessary stuff, commit your time, and leave your daily routine behind takes a fair amount of work, and it also takes a major shift in priorities. Vagabonding serves as the kick-start that gets you to that mental place --the "I can do it, and I can do it soon" reply to the siren call of world travel.

This book is inspiring, clear, and helpful. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to roam, but thinks they don't have enough money or time. I also recommend it for those, like me, who have gone vagabonding before, know what it takes, and just need a nudge of renewal in order to get back out there again. Great book!

A book to inspire, not to direct you
As a former "vagabonder" who's now (quite unpleasantly) ensconced in the 9 to 5 world, I needed a book to inspire and redirect my thinking.

This is the first and only travel book that's done that for me.

Rolf is clearly one who understands the vagabonder mentality. That's proven by his cautions against excessive planning, reliance upon guidebooks (even Lonely Planet), and against depending upon your cataloged preconceptions of a travel destination. For the true vagabonder relies almost entirely on serendpity, not obsession. You unplug from the media, from email, from everything. And you rely on now, today.

I thought it both delightful and completely true that one should target a destination based solely upon the flimsiest of whims (e.g., learning to play ping-pong). Because once you arrive, all will be dashed and certainly enhanced simply be being there. This is both the truth and the "zen" of long-term, vagabond travel: once you get there everything will be different, and better, than you could have imagined.

Rolf buttresses his thinking with many quotes from those who have preceeded us in the "vagabonding" mentality. Thoreau, Whitman, etc. (But where is Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness"). In any case Rolf addresses in full measure the social "oddity" of vagabonding, including the fulfillment it brings. People will not understand us. So what?

That this is the genuine article is exposed when Rolf catches Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeeler asserting that some people "go to hotels that aren't listed in Lonely Planet," which is truly the vagabonder - the traveler - mentality.

There are only a few paths for the true vagabonder, and none of those include guidebooks, group tours, "vacations", or possibly even sabbaticals. Vagabonding is a way of thinking, of living, of traveling, of interacting with the world on a global basis.

And as Rolf mentions, it is very, very addictive for those who are so inclined.