Exactly 10,603 days days ago this week I packed a few belongings into a second-hand 1984 Volkswagen Vanagon (into which I’d built a homemade fold-out bed), and embarked on a journey across North America that wound up lasting eight months.
Nowadays this endeavor is known as #vanlife, but in that pre-hashtag era it was (for me, at least) a faintly urgent attempt to get travel out of my system before I settled down and became a proper American workaholic.
In The Vagabond’s Way I talk about this Ur-vagabonding experience, and how one’s first long-term journey always remains in conversation with the farther-flung travels you seek out later in life.
Indeed, in many ways I feel like I’m still on that journey (even though it’s been 25 years since I last saw that van).
Note: “Dispatches” are short vignettes, profiles, and mini-essays written and posted from the road, often in tandem with my Instagram account. I don’t host a “comments” section, but I’m happy to hear your thoughts via my Contact page.
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