Travel
Specialty Travel
![Rolf Potts - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_rolf_potts.jpg)
The Vagabond's Way: 366 Meditations on Wanderlust, Discovery, and the Art of Travel
"Thought-provoking, encouraging, and inspiring" (Gretchen Rubin) reflections on the power of travel to transform our daily lives-from the iconoclastic travel writer, scholar, and author of Vagabonding
For readers who dream of travel, yearn to get back out on the road, or want to enrich a journey they're currently on, The Vagabond's Way explores and celebrates the life-altering essence of travel. Each day of the year features a one-page meditation on an aspect of the journey, anchored by words of wisdom from a variety of thinkers-from Stoic philosopher Seneca and poet Maya Angelou to Trappist monk Thomas Merton and Grover from Sesame Street.
Iconoclastic travel writer and scholar Rolf Potts embraces the ragged-edged, harder-to-quantify aspects of travel that inevitably change travelers' lives for the better in unexpected ways. The book's various sections mirror the phases of a trip, including
• dreaming and planning the journey: "All life-affecting journeys-and the unexpected wonders they promise-become real the moment you decide they will happen."
• embracing the rhythms of the journey: "The most poignant experiences on the road occur in those quiet moments when we recognize beauty in the ordinary."
• finding richer travel experiences: "Developing an instinct to venture beyond the obvious on the road allows you to see places as mysteries to be investigated."
• expanding your comfort zone: "No moment of instant gratification can compare to savoring an experience that has been earned by enduring the adversity that comes with it."
The Vagabond's Way encourages you to sustain the mindset of a journey, even when you aren't able to travel, and affirms that travel is as much a way of being as it is an act of movement.
For readers who dream of travel, yearn to get back out on the road, or want to enrich a journey they're currently on, The Vagabond's Way explores and celebrates the life-altering essence of travel. Each day of the year features a one-page meditation on an aspect of the journey, anchored by words of wisdom from a variety of thinkers-from Stoic philosopher Seneca and poet Maya Angelou to Trappist monk Thomas Merton and Grover from Sesame Street.
Iconoclastic travel writer and scholar Rolf Potts embraces the ragged-edged, harder-to-quantify aspects of travel that inevitably change travelers' lives for the better in unexpected ways. The book's various sections mirror the phases of a trip, including
• dreaming and planning the journey: "All life-affecting journeys-and the unexpected wonders they promise-become real the moment you decide they will happen."
• embracing the rhythms of the journey: "The most poignant experiences on the road occur in those quiet moments when we recognize beauty in the ordinary."
• finding richer travel experiences: "Developing an instinct to venture beyond the obvious on the road allows you to see places as mysteries to be investigated."
• expanding your comfort zone: "No moment of instant gratification can compare to savoring an experience that has been earned by enduring the adversity that comes with it."
The Vagabond's Way encourages you to sustain the mindset of a journey, even when you aren't able to travel, and affirms that travel is as much a way of being as it is an act of movement.
Editorial Reviews
"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 profound book. It is a gift for anyone engaged in the journey."-Andrew McCarthy, New York Times bestselling author of Brat and 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 and host of the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast
"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. An inspiring vade mecum for new travelers and experienced vagabonds both."-Kate Harris, author of Lands of Lost Borders
"The Vagabond's Way won't help you find the best deals on flights or hotels or take viral Instagram photos. It 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 and The Socrates Express<...
"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 and host of the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast
"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. An inspiring vade mecum for new travelers and experienced vagabonds both."-Kate Harris, author of Lands of Lost Borders
"The Vagabond's Way won't help you find the best deals on flights or hotels or take viral Instagram photos. It 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 and The Socrates Express<...
Short Excerpt Teaser
January 1
AN INARTICULATE ACHE TO TRAVEL IS WORTH PAYING ATTENTION TO
Homesickness is a feeling many know and suffer from; I, on the other hand, feel a pain less well known, and its name is "Outsickness." When the snow melts, the stork arises, and the first steamships race off, then I feel the painful travel unrest.
-Hans Christian Andersen, in an 1856 letter
Though the English word wanderlust-defined as "a strong desire to travel"-was borrowed from German in the early twentieth century, it actually has a slightly different connotation in its original tongue. The word lust implies "desire" in both languages, but while the German word wandern is often assumed to have a direct relation to the English word wander, its literal translation means "to hike." A more descriptive German expression of the desire to travel is, in fact, fernweh, which combines fern, meaning "distant," with weh, meaning "ache."
Fernweh is perhaps best apprehended as "farsickness," a kind of antonym to homesickness, or heimweh. In this way, fernweh can be understood as a quieter and more personal urge than wanderlust-?a persistent longing to escape the confinement of the familiar and give oneself over to unseen places and experiences. Fernweh is the ache to widen one's horizons, to be at home in the unfamiliar-to begin anew, and reinvent oneself in the context of the as-yet-unknown.
While there is a certain vagueness to being homesick for the road-of longing to experience what you can't quite describe, since it has yet to happen-a logical way to honor your feelings of fernweh is to quietly start planning a journey. In seeking to embrace unseen lands, you'll allow yourself to embrace unseen parts of yourself.
January 2
AN INTANGIBLE SENSE OF WONDER IS A GREAT REASON TO TRAVEL
The best travel experiences are simple. They can't be planned. It's just a feeling of something genuine-knowing you're lucky to be in exactly that place at exactly that instant.
-Shannon Leone Fowler, "Kindness of Strangers" (2020)
In the fifteenth century, an Arabic manuscript entitled The Book of Hidden Pearls was said to contain directions to a hidden oasis known as Zerzura. Rumored to be located in the desert region west of the Nile, Zerzura was said to feature peaceful inhabitants, abundant gardens, and pristine white buildings.
Though no copies of The Book of Hidden Pearls existed by the time European Egyptologists began to dig for antiquities in Northern Africa, the location of Zerzura became a fixation for many early-twentieth-century travelers in the region. In 1929, Hungarian explorer Laszlo Almasy (who later became the fictionalized protagonist of Michael Ondaatje's 1992 novel The English Patient) spent more than a year searching for Zerzura with a convoy of Ford Model A trucks, but found nothing beyond a few uninhabited rain oases.
In his 1935 book Libyan Sands, British explorer Ralph Bagnold (who had accompanied Almasy on the 1929 expedition) asserted that Zerzura was less significant as a mythical desert oasis than as a metaphor for the intangible sense of wonder that comes with an encounter with the unfamiliar. "I like to think of Zerzura . . . [as] an indefinite thing, taking different shapes in the minds of different individuals according to their interests and wishes," he wrote, ". . . an excuse for the childish craving so many grown-ups harbor secretly to break away from civilization."
As with Zerzura, sometimes our motivations for travel-the goals we have in mind for a given-are less important than the wondrous meanderings that await us on the road.
January 3
FIND WAYS TO MAKE YOUR TIME ON EARTH MIRACULOUS
Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence-neither speed up nor slow down, add to nor diminish-it is an imponderably valuable gift.
-Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now (1993)
Japanese conceptual artist On Karawa's "Today" series, which began in 1966 and lasted for decades, consisted of several thousand hand-painted canvases that simply depicted the calendar date on which the painting was made. His "I Got Up" series consisted of postcards recording his daily wake-up time (as well as the date and his location) from 1968 to 1979. Another series consisted of telegrams sent to various friends over the course of several years, each bearing the lone phrase "I Am Still Alive."
Though Karawa isn't the only artist to have used a personal lens to explore the notion of time and its passing, the droll simplicity ...
AN INARTICULATE ACHE TO TRAVEL IS WORTH PAYING ATTENTION TO
Homesickness is a feeling many know and suffer from; I, on the other hand, feel a pain less well known, and its name is "Outsickness." When the snow melts, the stork arises, and the first steamships race off, then I feel the painful travel unrest.
-Hans Christian Andersen, in an 1856 letter
Though the English word wanderlust-defined as "a strong desire to travel"-was borrowed from German in the early twentieth century, it actually has a slightly different connotation in its original tongue. The word lust implies "desire" in both languages, but while the German word wandern is often assumed to have a direct relation to the English word wander, its literal translation means "to hike." A more descriptive German expression of the desire to travel is, in fact, fernweh, which combines fern, meaning "distant," with weh, meaning "ache."
Fernweh is perhaps best apprehended as "farsickness," a kind of antonym to homesickness, or heimweh. In this way, fernweh can be understood as a quieter and more personal urge than wanderlust-?a persistent longing to escape the confinement of the familiar and give oneself over to unseen places and experiences. Fernweh is the ache to widen one's horizons, to be at home in the unfamiliar-to begin anew, and reinvent oneself in the context of the as-yet-unknown.
While there is a certain vagueness to being homesick for the road-of longing to experience what you can't quite describe, since it has yet to happen-a logical way to honor your feelings of fernweh is to quietly start planning a journey. In seeking to embrace unseen lands, you'll allow yourself to embrace unseen parts of yourself.
January 2
AN INTANGIBLE SENSE OF WONDER IS A GREAT REASON TO TRAVEL
The best travel experiences are simple. They can't be planned. It's just a feeling of something genuine-knowing you're lucky to be in exactly that place at exactly that instant.
-Shannon Leone Fowler, "Kindness of Strangers" (2020)
In the fifteenth century, an Arabic manuscript entitled The Book of Hidden Pearls was said to contain directions to a hidden oasis known as Zerzura. Rumored to be located in the desert region west of the Nile, Zerzura was said to feature peaceful inhabitants, abundant gardens, and pristine white buildings.
Though no copies of The Book of Hidden Pearls existed by the time European Egyptologists began to dig for antiquities in Northern Africa, the location of Zerzura became a fixation for many early-twentieth-century travelers in the region. In 1929, Hungarian explorer Laszlo Almasy (who later became the fictionalized protagonist of Michael Ondaatje's 1992 novel The English Patient) spent more than a year searching for Zerzura with a convoy of Ford Model A trucks, but found nothing beyond a few uninhabited rain oases.
In his 1935 book Libyan Sands, British explorer Ralph Bagnold (who had accompanied Almasy on the 1929 expedition) asserted that Zerzura was less significant as a mythical desert oasis than as a metaphor for the intangible sense of wonder that comes with an encounter with the unfamiliar. "I like to think of Zerzura . . . [as] an indefinite thing, taking different shapes in the minds of different individuals according to their interests and wishes," he wrote, ". . . an excuse for the childish craving so many grown-ups harbor secretly to break away from civilization."
As with Zerzura, sometimes our motivations for travel-the goals we have in mind for a given-are less important than the wondrous meanderings that await us on the road.
January 3
FIND WAYS TO MAKE YOUR TIME ON EARTH MIRACULOUS
Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence-neither speed up nor slow down, add to nor diminish-it is an imponderably valuable gift.
-Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now (1993)
Japanese conceptual artist On Karawa's "Today" series, which began in 1966 and lasted for decades, consisted of several thousand hand-painted canvases that simply depicted the calendar date on which the painting was made. His "I Got Up" series consisted of postcards recording his daily wake-up time (as well as the date and his location) from 1968 to 1979. Another series consisted of telegrams sent to various friends over the course of several years, each bearing the lone phrase "I Am Still Alive."
Though Karawa isn't the only artist to have used a personal lens to explore the notion of time and its passing, the droll simplicity ...
