Vagabonding in this week’s Bohemian

An article about Vagabonding appeared today in the North Bay Bohemian, an alternative paper that serves Marin, Sonoma and Napa counties north of San Francisco. This piece is the result of a phone interview I had with reporter Gretchen Giles when I was in Los Angeles last week — and it was interesting to me how (as with USA Today’s Vagabonding article two weeks ago) a one-hour conversation gets transformed into a brief profile. Giles covered a lot of bases, and it was interesting that she threw in one of my observations about how the U.S. political climate affects things for American vagabonders:

“‘People are smarter than we give them credit for, and they don’t tend to see you as a political apparition,’ Potts assures. ‘They may despise your government, but I haven’t known this to be a threat. It was however,’ he chuckles, ‘really easy to travel during the Clinton administration; it was socially easier to be an American–you didn’t have to listen to a 15-minute lecture [from other travelers].'”

This was a passing observation, but it’s true: Sex-scandal notwithstanding, it was socially easier to travel as an American when Clinton was in office. For some reason (perhaps even because of the sex scandal) Clinton was viewed with more personal affection by non-Americans than Bush is now. No doubt some of Bush’s unpopularity abroad has to do with the unabashed unilateralist bent of his administration — a quality that never plays well overseas.