Some people are born with a travel bug, and dream of hitting the road as soon as they’re beyond their parents’ grasp. They feel restless in any state except a moving one. Other people stumble upon vagabonding almost accidentally, not quite sure how they got there but unable to let go of the idea once it’s found a home in their heads. Sarah of “Off the Couch and On the Road” is one of the people in the latter category.

Sarah had a great job in Australia doing what she’d gone to school for when she unexpectedly found her cubicle walls closing in on her. Rather than just grow depressed or assume this was how life was supposed to be, Sarah decided she needed a holiday. But soon the idea of a short holiday just wasn’t good enough, and before she knew it, she’d become a vagabonder. Her friends didn’t understand, but that didn’t stop her:

“But it’s like living your whole life in the bathroom without ever seeing the rest of the house,” I said. “Wouldn’t you want to see the rest of the house?”

“No,” the friend said, shaking her head vehemently. “I like my bathroom. It’s such a nice bathroom – can’t you just leave the door open and peek out every now and then?”

“Uh, no because there’s a hallway in the way and you can’t really see… um, oh whatever.”

Sarah left in March, and is currently in Germany - after having already visited SE Asia, Nepal (where she hiked up to Everest Base Camp) and a few other European countries. She’s still got Africa, North America and South America to go, and is planning to do a Machu Picchu trek while she’s at it. She’s got a great attitude about travel, especially for someone who seems to have ended up a vagabonder unintentionally, and the blog is fun to read. Sarah’s journey is slated to continue through March of next year - or perhaps longer if she finds work in Canada - so there are plenty of adventures to come.

Fifteen-year-old Malkolm Boothroyd loves birds. He loves them so much that, at the age of 12, he had his own radio series about northern birds on CBC-Yukon. Before he turned 13, he was the subject of a film entitled Malkolm the Birder Boy- Search for the Bluethroat, a quest to spot his favorite species. Now, at the age of 15, he has convinced his parents to accompany him on the ultimate birding adventure: Bird Year.

In the world of bird enthusiasts, a “Big Year” is a celebration of birds, a quest to observe (and positively identify) as many bird species as possible during that year.

Malkolm’s family will be putting a new twist on the “Big Year” with their Bird Year project. During this year, Malkolm, accompanied by his parents, Wendy Boothroyd and Ken Madsen, will travel 10,000 miles by non-fossil-fuel dependent transportation (including bicycling, walking, and sailing), from their home in the Yukon, down the Alaska Highway, along the western coast of the United States, and east to Florida. The trio’s schedule has them finishing their trip in June of 2008, with a sailing trip to the Dry Tortugas.

In order to take a year off from school to complete this journey, Malkolm had to diligently complete three years’ worth of studies in two.

The family will be recording their adventures along the way, as well as their efforts in bird protection, in their Bird Year Blog.

Though 10,000 miles of fossil-fuel travel is a lot for a person in a year, some of the migratory birds they are seeking to protect travel much further. The Arctic Tern flies 24,000 miles annually, traveling to the Antarctic and back to the Arctic.

Malkolm and family encourage blog readers to participate in their Bird Day Challenge to help readers increase their personal birding awareness while helping raise money to protect avian species.

Stephanie Pearson recently traveled through the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan with Buddhist guru Robert Thurman (Uma’s dad), and has returned with a fascinating bit of reportage at Outside Online, called “Cosmic Whiplash“:

After watching the cultural and environmental decay that took place in nearby Nepal, which has historically catered to the $5-per-day backpacker crowd, Bhutan chose a different path–restricting visitors to only those who can pay mightily for the pleasures of paradise. At this point, those pleasures come in four basic flavors: a vehicle-based cultural tour; a high-country trek on one of 13 government-approved routes; an on- or off-road cycling tour; or a whitewater adventure with one of the handful of outfitters who have begun to explore the country’s endless network of rivers. Whatever visitors choose, they must be accompanied full-time by a certified guide. In Bhutan, there’s no such thing as DIY.

The strictures haven’t hurt the nation’s cachet. In 2005, a record 13,643 tourists flocked in, thanks in part to the recent openings of two five-star resorts in the nirvana-like Paro Valley—the Uma Paro, a beautifully renovated $500-per-night, 29-room lodge; and the austere and elegant $900-per-night, 24-suite Amankora. This was a 47 percent increase from the year before and an ungodly number of chilips for a Switzerland-size country of about 800,000 that, until the sixties, barred almost all outsiders and had few cars or paved roads, no nationwide school system, very little health care, no national currency, and a barter economy.

But a lot can happen in four decades, especially if the country is ruled by an enlightened being. His Majesty Jigme Singye Wangchuck has presided over Bhutan since 1972, when, at age 16, he became the youngest monarch in the world. In his 34-year reign, King Wangchuck has pulled Bhutan out of the Middle Ages, expanding a 2,700-mile road system and providing universal health care and free education. Subsistence farming is still the mainstay for about 90 percent of the population, but the nation is enjoying more prosperity and modernity than ever before. In 1999, the king legalized Internet use and television viewing (Bhutan was the last place on the planet to permit the latter), allowing satellite dishes to sprout on rooftops in the remotest villages.

Bhutan is a country about which I’m intensely curious. Devoutly Buddhist, measuring the wealth of the country in Gross National Happiness, and through its tight control of the tourist industry (and high tarrifs: $200 per day) allowing for a unique and still relatively unspoiled experience. In addition to the recent import of modernity, the government is also soon changing from a monarchy to a parliamentary democracy. It’s an interesting time in Bhutan, and Pearson captures the state of things with wry observancy. The entire piece is fairly long, but well-worth the read.

With my email address published alongside some articles I’ve written about life in Germany, every now and then I get an email from someone who wants to know how I managed to expatriate there. Mostly people write out of frustration. Teaching English, as it does elsewhere, seems to offer the best employment opportunities. But competition’s tight, jobs are slim. And European Union labor laws keep you from doing just about any other kind of work (legally, at least). So what’s a body to do? they ask.

I empathize, y’all. I landed on my feet in Germany by sheer luck, and I couldn’t have pulled it off without major help from some resident family. I’m happy to help when I can. But I think my advice surprises people: Germany’s great - don’t move there. (Yet.)

A few days back I got this letter, from Brian in Kentucky:

I am a 27 year-old guy living in Kentucky and have never even been out of the
United States. My dream is to live abroad for a year or so in Germany. I do not have a degree and this makes it daunting if not impossible altogether to find work in Germany by myself. I am getting frustrated as every (job) avenue I have ventured ends in a dead end. I have sent out hundreds of emails to various hotels, pubs, etc., with no success. I would be willing to do any type of work, like sweeping floors, washing dishes, whatever. I am beginning to think that only the rich get to see the world while the have-nots see the world through others’ blogs and movies/t.v. While I never expect to be rich, it would be nice to to see the world through my own two eyes and accumulate my own memories rather than reading about others’ memories online.

I’m posting Brians’s note because he has a lot of the same ideas and concerns people who haven’t yet traveled much tend to have about moving abroad. It sounds wonderful and life-changing. It can be, I tell them. But it’s not the only way to experience the world. It may not even be what you’re really looking for.

I advise people worried about the barriers to moving abroad to do some traveling first. Living outside your home country is harder than you think, and traveling better prepares you for the challenges of it. Plus, the kind of low-wage jobs abroad long-term travelers look for are much easier to find in-country than online. Then they ask: Sounds great - who can afford it?

Vagabonding has good answers for that. But answers are one thing, and stories another. So I’m passing this on to you. Has anyone else out there struggled to afford travel? How’d you pull it off?

Four years after it was first published, Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel continues to sell steadily and attract the attention of travelers and travel-dreamers worldwide. Here are some recent snippets of feedback from reader emails, organized by theme and utility:

For leaving behind the world of work:

“I just finished your book, and I must say what an inspiring read it was. I’m glad that you address the specifics of leaving behind the typical work life for vagabonding. I’ve been wrestling with the actual logistics of long-term travel for many months. …I loved the whole concept of the anti-sabbatical. I shared this with a friend and just as I imagined, she responded with a puzzled and concerned look. Most everyone around me will probably look at such concepts as an excuse for being lazy. After all, doesn’t everyone associate “travel” with vacation and therefore, leisure? How do you even begin helping them understand that our lives were not meant to be devoted purely to work?”

For practical travel information:

“I just wanted to say thank you for writing Vagabonding. It was introduced to me by a really good friend and I have passed it on to others who have also enjoyed reading it. It has been a great source of reference and guide.”

For slowing down and not micromanaging our travels

“I absolutely loved Vagabonding. Just from reading your book, you’ve really helped me relax already! My whole life, I’ve always been go-go-go. …As I plan my trip, I keep thinking about how much I want to pack in — but reading your book has made me slow down and not try to plan every minute (something that’s very difficult for me to do).”

For helping to focus old travel dreams:

“For a number of years now, I have been waiting for my chance to strike out on my own on what I have always called my ‘hoboing trip’; no one I know seems ever to understand my impassioned desire for a journey in freedom, so when I read your book, it was like discovering a whole new world full of like-minded people. My ‘hoboing’ is simply a personalized version of what you and others have termed vagabonding.”

For inspiration to live life creatively

“I actually recommended the book to some friends of mine who aren’t as interested in travel per se, as it contained a lot of great life insight. I was especially interested in the part about living your home life with the same exploratory zeal you would normally save for your travel life. Good stuff.”

For encouragement:

“I’d like to say that your book Vagabonding has completely opened my eyes, and I’m very excited for the future ahead. Your ideals consist of everything I’ve been thinking and concluding about in my head for years, and I always wondered if I was alone in the world. It doesn’t help when every single person I’ve ever talked to about traveling always shuts my ideas down, and now that I know about vagabonding and that many people do it then now there’s nothing stopping me.”

“Our world harbors an uncharted territory, no longer white spaces on the map but black spaces, erected by political terrorism, defended not by insurmountable chains of mountains and impenetrable jungle, but by dogma, blood-lust and modern weapon technology, all of which are again closing the doors our curiosity had opened. But there are other countries inaccessible only a moment ago, which are opening up once more. The Earth is born again and crying out to be discovered, but the greatest illusion of our time lies in the name it has afforded itself; the age of information.”
–Carsten Jensen, I Have Seen the World Begin (1996)

It’s hardly a secret. In January of 2007, Seat61.com received 364,000 visitors, the highest visitor month in its history.

Seat61.com is the premier site dedicated to travel by train and ship, containing comprehensive information on just about any route a traveler could desire, from Slovenia to Senegal, Botswana to Bangladesh, and of course all of Europe. Information varies by country, but is very comprehensive and typically includes: routes, timetables, prices, photos, travel tips, currency conversion rates, time zone information, and general travel tips. No wonder the site is a hit.

Seat61.com was created in 2001 by Mark Smith, a career railwayman from England, who has a slight obsession with non-aviation travel. The site is named after Smith’s favorite seat in Eurostar 1st class (but only in cars 11, 7, or 8). Seat 61 is so choice because it is “one of a pair of individual seats with table that actually lines up with the window.”

According to Smith (who runs the site as a hobby) the two aims of the site are: to serve as a clearinghouse of information for people who already know they want to travel by train or ship and cannot find the pertinent information, and to inspire those who normally take commercial airlines to experience the world in a slower, more environmentally-friendly way, interacting with locals on trains and appreciating the scenery from the ground level.

The environmentally-friendly slow travel ethic has been widely appreciated; Wanderlust Magazine named the site the “2007 Top Travel Website”.

Smith also received the honor of being named the “Person who has made the greatest contribution to responsible tourism” in the First Choice 2006 Responsible Tourism Awards for his site’s dedication to promoting environmentally-friendly methods of transportation.

And, yet another contribution to the world of overland travel, Smith’s top travel tip for those about to embark on a journey by rail or sea: “Never travel without a good book and a corkscrew..!”

Video Night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer

After reading Rolf’s interview with Pico Iyer, and then Iyer’s essay “Why We Travel,” I was intrigued enough to seek out the man’s travel writing. About a month ago, as if by providence, I happened upon a secondhand bookshop at Plaza Singapura that carried all of Iyer’s books, both his travel writing and his novels, and so I picked out his first travel book, Video Night in Kathmandu, since 1) it’s good to start at the beginning, and 2) the book concerns his travels through Asia, where I now live.

I was swept away by Iyer’s prose. His precise attention to detail, his incredible powers of observation and insight, and his copious amounts of note-taking immersed in me in his travels as if I were right there beside him. The book was originally published in 1988 (mine is the 2001 reissued paperback from Vintage), and things have changed some in the twenty years since (which Iyer owns up to in the afterword, written in December 2000); just one example from personal experience: the tourist-ridden Bali of 1985 was replaced by a desperate ghost town when I visited in 2003, after the bombing at Kuta Beach and the SARS outbreaks had crushed the tourism economy (although I am told that the country has recovered somewhat since then). In one way, the book can be seen as a historical snapshot, a still-image of mid-1980s Asia. However, Iyer’s insights into the people in the countries he visited (Bali, Tibet, Nepal, China, The Philippines, Burma, Hong Kong, India, Thailand, and Japan) become universal truths, no matter how the forward march of progress alters the Asian landscape.

Much of his focus is on the impact tourism has had on these countries, or their interaction with the West. However, he also comes to realize that each nation still remains uniquely itself, that the commercial invasion of McDonald’s or the novels of New York Times bestselling authors cannot fundamentally alter the people themselves.

Bali, for example, drew its strength, its magic and its eerie purity from the ancestral currents that pulsed through its soil, currents that Westerners could sense, perhaps, but never touch; just so, the moving yet unwavering faith of Tibet would withstand the ravages of tourists, I hoped, as surely as it had withstood the vicious assaults of the Chinese. Burma had calmly closed its door to the world, and China had opened it up just enough, so it planned, to take what it wanted, and nothing more. Prodigal, hydra-headed India cheerfully welcomed every new influence from the West, absorbing them all into a crazy-quilt mix that was Indian and nothing but Indian; Japan had taken in the West only, so it seemed, to take it over. As for Nepal, and Thailand even more, both gauged Western tastes so cleverly and adapted Western trends so craftily that both, I felt, could satisfy foreigners’ whims without ever becoming their slaves. Even Hong Kong, the last pillar of the Western Empire, was now getting ready to return to Asian hands. (357-8)

Iyer is also surprisingly funny. His efforts in Guangzhou to acquire a train ticket to Beijing through the China Travel Service take on a Kafkaesque air, as he is shuffled from place to place, victim of the New China bureaucracy. His entry into the Rangoon Airport in Burma evokes the absurdity of Bulgakov, when a country that actively discourages tourism makes one declare not only valuables such as jewelry or alcohol, but also one’s watch, spectacles, cuff links, wedding ring, contact lenses, credit card, shoelaces, and/or travel alarm clock.

I wish that Iyer had said more about Singapore, my new hometown, other than dismissing it as “McCity, a perfect Platonic model of the Commonweal, as safe and efficient and convenient as McDonald’s, and just about as featureless. [... It] resembled nothing so much as a California resort town run by Mormons.” In my two months here, I have not seen this to be the case, but again, twenty years is a long time in Singapore, a country burning its candle extremely bright these days.

I normally read at a phenomenal pace (sometimes a book or two per week), but it took me a full month to finish Video Night in Kathmandu, partly because Iyer’s lush descriptions and fascinating insights forced me to slow down and savor the written experiences, and partly because I didn’t want the book to end. Thankfully, I know where I can acquire his other travel books when I get the jones for his writing again.

“I wished I had lived in the days of real journeys, when it was still possible to see the full splendor of a spectacle that had not yet been blighted, polluted and spoiled. When was the best time to see India? At what time would the study of Brazilian savages have afforded the purest satisfaction, and revealed them in their least adulterated state? I have only two possibilities: either I can be like some traveler of the olden days, who was faced with a stupendous spectacle, almost all of which eluded him, or worse still, filled him with scorn and disgust; or I can be a modern traveler, chasing after vestiges of a vanished reality. I lose on both counts, and more seriously than may at first appear, for, while I complain of being able to glimpse no more than the shadow of the past, I may be insensitive to reality as it is taking shape at this very moment, since I have not reached the stage of development at which I would be capable of perceiving it. A few hundred years hence, in this same place, another traveler, as despairing as myself, will mourn the disappearance of what I might have seen, but failed to see. I am subject to a double infirmity: all that I perceive offends me, and I constantly reproach myself for not seeing as much as I should.”
–Claude Levi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques (1955)

Wes from Wisconsin recently wrote me with this query:

In your book, you say that your first vagabonding expo was over North America. I have been looking on the Internet, and am having a hard time finding good info about backpacking America. No problem finding hostels and things like that, but I’ve had trouble finding cheap transportation. I do not want to hitchhike, and the Greyhound bus thing seems kind of pricey. I want to do this before I go back to college next fall, a month or six weeks or so. What do you recommend?

This is what I told him:

You might consider getting a cheap vehicle to use for the duration of the journey. When I traveled the USA for eight months, I went in with a friend on a VW Vanagon (which we later sold). We saved lots of money by refurbishing it to sleep inside. Just make sure you get a vehicle that’s dependable.

Granted, your trip is going to be shorter than mine was. Still, having your own vehicle gives you a lot of leeway, and by the time you sell it back to someone, it will be cheaper than renting cars or taking the Greyhound bus (which can be shockingly expensive over time).

You can probably tackle the trip through ride-shares you can find on Craigslist (and similar online places) or on hostel message boards, but I’d look into the bought-vehicle option first.