Listen to the Podcast! (And don’t forget to leave us a review!) AoM podcast and article on microadventures.AoM Podcast #653: The Dirtbag’s Guide to Life.Rolf‘s previous book: Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel.We end our conversation with how the attentive, adventurous attitude which underlies the vagabond’s way can also be applied to exploring your own backyard. We also delve into how to deal with the culture shock that can come both from visiting a new place, and returning home from a long trip. We discuss how to use the idea of pilgrimage beyond its religious connotations as a pretext for choosing which places to visit. We then turn to the idea that seeking to take a more authentic approach to travel shouldn’t mean trying too hard to differentiate yourself from “typical” tourists, and how to approach stereotypical tourist stuff with a nuanced view. He first discusses how taking an overly romantic view of travel can actually diminish your enjoyment of traveling.

Today on the show, Rolf explains the vagabonding ethos, which involves slowing down, being open to surprises, and really paying attention to your experiences. Twenty years later, he’s back with a new book - The Vagabond’s Way - with reflections on the more philosophical side of that kind of travel which you can take on any type of trip.

After exploring the world for years, he wrote a book called Vagabonding, which laid out the practicalities of how to execute long-term travel. My guest, Rolf Potts, thinks there’s a better way to approach travel. Travel can often be approached as just another consumer good travelers quickly dive in and out of a place, check off the things they want to see, harvest the requisite pictures to prove they were there, and wear their trip as a status symbol.

Rolf potts books