Interview: Rolf Potts

Nana: How has vagabonding simplified your life and your thoughts? Complicated?

Rolf: Vagabonding has simplified life in that it hasn't allowed me to accumulate much "stuff," beyond some clothes and books. Through material simplicity comes mental and spiritual simplicity. When your life isn't cluttered by material things, one can concentrate on the more vital and important things in life.

Nana: What is often the psychological barrier preventing people from quitting their jobs and traveling long-term?

Rolf Potts struggles in the currents of the Maiten River, not far from the Argentina border in Chilean Patagonia.

Rolf: Perhaps a feeling of insecurity and uncertainty. In workaday life, not too many people drop all to travel around the world for long periods of time. So it can feel like a lonely decision. Fortunately, online travel communities and message boards are making this choice more social and less intimidating. Still, it can be a tough decision, since it takes you out of your comfortable habits and forces you to make a lot of new choices. Fortunately, the rewards of taking new risks and leaving old habits are wonderful. People who make the decision to go vagabonding soon see life in a whole new way.

Nana: In Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel, you speak of senior travelers as well as traveling with children. Do you see yourself vagabonding into your senior years? Or possibly with children one day? Or do you think vagabonding and having a family are mutually exclusive lifestyles?

Rolf: I definitely see myself vagabonding into old age, with children and family, and without. Vagabonding and family aren't mutually exclusive, though it's much more challenging to travel with a family in tow. But people vagabond with their families all the time. I get emails from them on a regular basis, and they're loving their experiences.

Nana: How much time do you spend on the road now each year?

Rolf: Probably about ten months a year. Although I travel differently now than I used to. For instance, my travels around Asia took me to dozens of countries in the course of a couple years, never staying in one place very long. Now I'm still moving around, but spending more time in certain places, like Paris or New Orleans or San Diego or Greece. I like the pace when you can settle in a place for a month or three and see the place as an expat. But I like backpacker-style travel, too—and when I'm in Latin America this winter I plan on moving around more often.

Nana: You suggest looking further than media information, that is the usual guidebooks or news related to the destinations. You recommend ample resources in your book, but would you please give us a few favorite examples of where vagabonds can find the “inside” information?

Rolf: One great source of inside information is through travel message board, like you can find at Bootsnall.com or Lonely Planet online. There you're getting feedback from people who are in a situation like you, or sometime who are already out on the road. Travel blogs are increasingly becoming a good source of grassroots information as well.

Nana: How should one pace oneself on the road?

Rolf: Pace should be done according to personal style. Some people like to stay in one place for months, while others like to keep moving. My only specific advice is not to get too ambitious with your travels—like, say, trying to pack five continents into a year. It's better to take one continent at a slow pace than to try and cram all those countries into a single trip. So I've found that slower is better when vagabonding. Just so long as you don't waste away for too long in one place when there are so many great places out there! You can always go back to the places that captured your heart.

Nana: Would you suggest stopping and working for a short time, as you did in Korea, before moving on?

Rolf: Most definitely. Working in a country gives you a perspective on that country that you could never have as a mere traveler. Korea, for instance, wasn't always as fun as my adventures in SE Asia or the Middle East, but even the hard lessons and bad experiences I had there helped me to understand the culture (and other cultures in general) better.

Nana: How easy is it to obtain temporary work as a foreign traveler and what sort of work can one commonly find?

Rolf Potts, Libyan Desert, Egypt

Rolf: It is fairly easy, though this work isn't varied. If you're a native speaker of English, for instance, it's not hard to find an English teaching job in almost any part of the world. Similarly, once you have accumulated some travel experience, you can get jobs in the travel field itself, such as working in hostels, becoming a divemaster, or leading tours and expeditions. In more industrialized countries it's also possible to get jobs in physical labor, such as construction, or fruit picking.

Nana: How do you deal with jealous backpackers/travelers after they find out that you’re a travel writer? What has been the most memorable/complimentary/hostile exchange?

Rolf: It's usually not an issue for a couple reasons. First, I often don't identify myself to others as a travel writer, because it makes people treat me in a different way than normal (usually just through people's exaggerated notion of what I should know about traveling in certain places). Second, I find that dozens of people on the road identify themselves as travel writers, whether they are doing it professionally or not. That is, in a room of a dozen people, maybe six people will call themselves travel writers, even if they only write for a blog or a mailing list. And I think that's fine. Hence, I usually don't get a lot of hostility. Perhaps sometimes from younger travelers, who think it's unfair that I get to be a travel writer because, say, they are spending less money than me, or having wilder adventures. I just shrug and tell them that it's the writing itself that makes you a travel writer, and not necessarily the travel or adventures you have.

A couple of memorable positive exchanges have come from travelers who've read my writing before they ever met me, which is always fun for both of us.

Nana: I often hear “I am myself when I travel” or vice versa. What have you observed changing in travelers once they are outside of their assigned roles or duties? Once they have left the roles they play at home? Whereas, in short-term and hotel travel, one could quite often feel as if they were in a different part of town?

Rolf: Travel is a chance for people to test out new aspects of their personalities, or to do things they would never do at home (be it bungee-jumping or a short romantic fling with a stranger). Travel also pulls you out from standing stereotypes, and your friends' and families' perceptions of who you are. You get to start over, and be free of your past. Many people find this invigorating and magical.

Nana: People often travel to get away from situations at home, e.g. after a divorce or death in a family, a temporary pause in their lives. How are those escapist travelers different from those who vagabond?

Rolf: Vagabonding and escapism always dovetail a little bit, but I encourage people to travel as a way of living real life rather than escaping it. In the case of a death or a divorce, vagabonding might make for good therapy, and a chance to get away from that trauma. For milder types of escape—say, getting away from a crappy job or unsatisfying family life, I encourage people to get away from the negative aspect of their travel impetus and just enjoy the road for what it is. Better to seek fresh new epiphanies on their own terms each day than be constantly comparing things to your life back home.

Nana: How have friends’ and family’s perception of you changed at home? How have you changed?

Rolf: I've been traveling for so long that friends and family have gotten used to me being a peripatetic presence in their lives. Though, as I say in my book, people back home rarely take much of an interest in your travels, and you have to get used to that. I know I have. I've gotten into the habit of talking about things other than my travels, because people at home don't always want to hear about my travels. I think that's fine.

As for how I've changed, well, that's hard to say. I think everyone changes as they get older, and they find new perspectives with each passing day. I just happen to be getting older on the road instead of at home. I've become more patient and deliberate with my life decisions, but it's hard to tell how much of this has come from travel and how much from simple maturation. I think it mixes together.

Nana: What is your schedule like over the next six months?

Rolf: Before too long I'll go to Greece for a month on a magazine assignment. Then I'll hit New Orleans and Montreal to see friends. Then, after a short spell on my ranch in Kansas, I'll head to Southern California to finish a screenplay project I've been working on. Then it's off to Mexico to learn Spanish for a few months. After that, I'd like to use my new language skills in places like Cuba and Argentina, but I have no definite plans for that yet.

Visit Rolf’s daily blog at: www.vagablogging.net, and his regularly updated website full of valuable travel resources at: www.rolfpotts.com. A companion website for his book, Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel, can be found at www.vagabonding.net. Those interested in taking his summer creative writing workshop in Paris can find more details at www.rolfpotts.com/paris/.