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Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts
This book is so short (203 pages, but a lot of it is references) that it scarcely qualifies as a book, but I’m behind in my quest for 20 so I’ll count it.
This is a book about both the hows and whys of long-term, low-budget international travel. “Vagabonding” is the term that Potts uses for this kind of travel, which he separates from “vacationing”. To Potts, vacationing is about escape—vagabonding is more about curiosity and discovery.
Potts spends much of the book exploding the myth that long-term international travel is the exclusive domain of the wealthy—before becoming a writer, Potts himself traveled Asia for over a year and a half financed entirely by doing landscaping work and teaching English in Korea for 2 years. According to Potts, not only is it possible for normal people to travel the world, but by keeping the budget and baggage low, normal people can have deeper, more fulfilling travel experiences than the rich people staying at the Hilton.
Potts offers many good pointers on the hows of travel—language, money, safety, health, etc, but it’s when he’s talking about the philosophy and attitude of travel that this book goes from good to brilliant. He talks about how the naive quest for authenticity leads many to pay large amounts of money for synthetic culture. He talks about ridiculous “anti-tourists” who show their superiority by visiting far-away places and refusing to go anyplace that mere “tourists” go. He talks about how travel is fundamentally a personal experience, not a status symbol.
This is book is one of the most intelligent, insightful books I’ve ever read. It was also extremely well-written and easy to read, so much so that I got it from the library yesterday and finished it today. It is also inspirational—so much so that I’m wondering how I can NOT take some time off to see the world for myself.
