The Vagabond’s Way

“Rolf Potts, the author who inspired wanderlust in many, has mastered the art of ‘engaged travel,’ which makes you see home with fresh eyes.” — The New York Times

“A book that’s snackable, weighty, and fun all at once....The premier travel writer of a generation offering travel inspiration in short bursts and fun anecdotes? Sign. Us. Up.” — Uproxx

“Drawing on both his own journeys and centuries of travel literature, Potts crystallizes insights that can enhance every trip you take.” — Passport Magazine

“Rolf Potts has long been a road warrior and a deep thinker about travel. In The Vagabond’s Way, he distills decades of hard-won insight into bite-sized morsels, and the result is a wise, generous, and deceptively profound book.” —Andrew McCarthy, New York Times bestselling author of The Longest Way Home

“In an age of bucket lists, Instagram posts, and one-up travel, Rolf Potts is a breath of fresh air. This book reminds us that the essence of travel isn’t necessarily linear—it’s the moments of beauty and insight that happen spontaneously along the way, rather than the plans and the destination.” —Peter Hessler, New York Times bestselling author of River Town

“Thought-provoking, encouraging, and inspiring, these one-page reflections on the power and pleasures of travel will make even a homebody yearn to hit the road.” —Gretchen Rubin, New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project

“In this wise, wonder-struck book, travel-writing legend Rolf Potts distills a lifetime of wandering and reading into a series of irresistible songs for the open road.” —Kate Harris, author of Lands of Lost Borders

“The Vagabond’s Way will inspire you, challenge you, and remind you why we travel in the first place: to see the world, and ourselves, just a bit differently. Don’t read this book in one sitting. Dip into it, as I did, savoring each page as you would having a cup of coffee with a kind and wise friend.” —Eric Weiner, New York Times bestselling author of The Geography of Bliss

“With his wisdom from decades of travel, Rolf Potts’s The Vagabond’s Way will inspire you to travel more deeply and think differently about the world.” —Matthew Kepnes, author of Ten Years a Nomad

“Spot on and eminently readable, this is the book I wish I’d had when I started my travel career many decades ago.” —Tim Cahill, founding editor of Outside

Introduction

How to Use this Book

In studying classic works of literature from across the centuries, one finds that the most affecting travel tales depict journeys as a metaphor for life itself. These stories don't presume to tell us where to go or what to do, but they do show how journeys can enlarge one's way of being in the world. These tales don't prescribe rules for living; they simply inspire us, by their very example, to live in a more engaged and dynamic way. Indeed, the purest approach to getting the most out of a journey has never revolved around itemized lists of travel strategies: The vagabond's way has always involved a simple and open attitude, a mindset that is inseparable with the way we pay attention to life itself.

This older, more philosophical way of understanding our journeys is too often overlooked in our time, when the act of travel is marketed as a lifestyle accessory. In presenting far-flung landscapes as "destinations," the travel industry encourages us to think of places as consumer products – a faintly interchangeable mix of landscapes against which we can shop, dine, and take photos. By this standard, Nepal and Greece offer a "mountains-and-monasteries" product, whereas Rome and Mexico City serve up "museums-and-cathedrals" travel options, and Sri Lanka and the Dominican Republic tout competing "sand-and-sea" selections. The more we're encouraged to see the world through a commercial lens, the less likely we are to seek out the humbler qualities – patience, receptivity, introspection – that compel us to experience the world in a life-enriching way.

At its best, travel is embraced not as a flashy backdrop for our lifestyle ambitions, but as an act that touches every aspect of our being. Travel is not a swaggering declaration of self, undertaken to impress other people; it is a quiet inquiry, requiring awareness, resilience, and openness to change. Travel is not a hard science that can be cracked open with some algorithmic formula; it is a nuanced art, expressed through joyous, ragged-edged, mindful practice. Travel is not some consumer product you buy into: it is something that you gift to yourself.

Over the course of 366 one-page meditations (one for each day of a leap-year), The Vagabond's Way mimics the progression of a journey – from travel inspiration and planning, to getting started on the road, expanding one's comfort zone, learning from the quiet complexities of the journey, and circling back home. As with a journey, these meditations are best approached slowly, one day at a time, reflecting on each day's nuances before moving on to the next. Though this book can technically be read from cover to cover in a few days, it is designed to be taken in incremental doses, in the same manner that one might visit the gym or dance studio – steadily benefiting from the daily ritual over the course of a year.

The Vagabond's Way is about the mindset that can enlarge each day on the road, however long the journey might be. Though some of the historical and literary allusions in these pages refer to travels that spanned multiple continents over the course of many years, its insights apply as readily to short-term, close-to-home journeys. And, while the word vagabond is traditionally defined as "a person who wanders from place to place without a fixed home," this book affirms that travel is as much a way of being as it is an act of movement.

Some travel themes reappear in these pages, in slightly different form, numerous times over the course of the year. Often, these recurring themes reinforce the kinds of issues the travel industry would have us ignore – issues like traveling light, going slow, letting go of rigid plans, staying open to surprise, embracing boredom, celebrating disorientation, shutting off our technology, spending less money, wandering away from tourist zones, looking beyond cultural stereotypes, and developing travel habits that benefit local economies. These thematic repetitions are deliberate, and serve as a kind of gentle refrain that encourages the reader to consider and reconsider these travel virtues.

At its best, this book will not just explore ideas about mindful travel; it will make you want to travel (and, in doing so, to enrich your life in ways you don't yet understand).

If, midway through reading this book, you fling it aside because it doesn't quite fit into the luggage for a journey you've concluded you can no longer postpone, it has done its job.