Matt Gross interviewed at RolfPotts.com

Words “The Frugal Traveler” and “Matt Gross” have become synonyms. He is an adventurous traveler and great writer, currently blogging at the NY Times as he travels on a budget around Europe. You can read all his posts here. Rolf interviewed Matt at Rolf Potts.com, here are some highlights:

• “…my first real big solo trip was when I moved to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in 1996, right after graduating from college. Didn’t really know anyone there or what I was doing, but it was the best experience of my life, and taught me that, yes, I can actually do adventurous things like that.”

• “My first job in journalism was writing film reviews and copyediting for the Viet Nam News, the state-owned, English-language daily paper in Vietnam. One of the best jobs I ever had: come in at 2pm, edit for a few hours, eat some fresh yogurt from the company fridge, and at the end of the day raise a glass of snake wine with my boss.”

• “It’s easy to have a great time while traveling, but when you know you’re going to write a story, you want it to run along a certain theme, to have experiences that mesh into a unified, easy-to-write whole. At the same time, you want to allow for spontaneity the essence of travel.”

• “There’s no way I could do this job if I weren’t married to a woman with a good, stable job. I’d be homeless. Seriously.”

• “Go into travel before you go into travel writing. You should know how to cross a land border, book plane tickets in a language you don’t speak and befriend the old lady who squints evilly from the second-story window at everyone who passes by. In other words, if you’re just after paid vacations, then you’re going to have a tough time. But if you’re willing to put aside your ego, embrace the unknown and endure crushing poverty, then you might have a shot.”

You can read the full interview here.

Also, incase you missed this, Matt wrote a great piece “surveying his global network of mistresses” — a very truthful, entertaining, and humorous travel article that appeared on Nerve.com. Worth a read, check it out here.