Vagabonding

Vagabonding by Rolf Potts

Summary: Book with tips and tricks about long term travel.

One incredible trip, especially a long-term trip, can change your life forever. Everything in Vagabonding works, if you work on yourself. – based on principles

Not as an escape but as an adventure and a passion

Gain impressive wealth (time) through simplicity

(index: earn your freedom, keep it simple, learn and keep learning, don’t set limits, meet your neighbours, get into adventure, keep it real, be creative, let your spirit grow)

How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie – common sense – good advice

Research your own experiences for the truth Absorb what is useful Add what is specifically your own The creating individual is more than any style or system

Travel is for many busy overachievers a way to seek a simpler life (but won’t find it) No combination of one-week or ten-day vacations will truly take you away from the life you lead at home. The more we associate experience with cash value, the more we think that money is what we need to live. Long-term travel is about being a student of life It requires only that we walk through the world in a more deliberate way Use the prosperity and possibility of the information age to increase your personal options Look for adventure in normal life, and normal life within adventure

Vagabonding is an unusual way of looking at life Vagabonding is about time and how we choose to use it

Many people use the future as a way to justify the present They use the best part of their life to earn for later, then spend it when it matters the least Vagabonding is about gaining the courage to loosen your grip on the so-called certainties of this world.

It’s a process by which you first test the waters that will pull you to wonderful new places It’s not for the comfort hounds, sophomoric misanthropes or poolside faint-hearts, whose thin convictions won’t stand up to the problems that come along.

Earning your freedom, of course, involves work, and work is intrinsic to vagabonding for psychic reasons as much as financial ones. – chance to find yourself As a vagabond, you begin to face your fears now and then instead of continuously sidestepping them in the name of convenience

Walking to work was an exercise in possibility

Even if your antisabbatical job isn’t your life’s calling, approach your work with a spirit of faith, mindfulness, and thrift.

Create your own free time. Use constructive quitting (negotiate free time)

List the job skills travel has brought you: independence, flexibility, negotiation, planning, boldness, self-sufficiency, improvisation.

Quitting means not giving up, but moving on; changing direction not because something doesn’t agree with you, but because you don’t agree with something.

www.riskology.co www.guru.com

Travelling around the world is statistically no more dangerous than travelling across your hometown.

Conditions are never perfect (so just do it)

Keep it Simple.

Material investments are less important than personal investments – but this believe (flip) is why many people never go travel simplicity – a conscious decision how to use what income you have adjust your habits and routines within consumer society itself

time is what you need to live

simplifying your life may require a somewhat difficult withdrawal period. – stopping expansion – reining in your routine – reducing clutter – live more humbly – rent our your house – people may respond with enthusiasm or subtle criticism

Simplicity – both at home and on the road – affords you the time to seek renewed meaning in an oft-neglected commodity that can’t be bought at any price: life itself

My greatest skill has been to want nothing – Henry David Thoreau – wealth is not found in what you own but in how you spend your time – money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul

Do your pretrip homework, but don’t overdo it – otherwise you won’t truly appreciate the unexpected marvels of travel – know your options no plan survives first contact with the ‘world’ The world is a book, the one’s who don’t travel only see one page You don’t ever need a really good reason to go anywhere; rather, go to a place for whatever happens when you get there. – research a general itinerary – but only so you can estimate your budget and learn what’s out there. Choose your company wisely – perfect harmony on the road is a pipe dream – feel free to take some time (even weeks) apart Bring small gift items for your future hosts and friends Things to bring – small, strong padlock – clothes – toiletry – sunglasses – day pack – inexpensive camera – NO expensive items If you think you have enough money to travel for six months, plan for four – the rest is bonus – keep a few hundred dollars as emergency (non drinking) fund Keep backup copies of passport information – and what to do scenario with friends/family www.caretaker.org www.housecarers.com Voluntary Simplicity – Duane Elgin The Simple Living Guide – Janet Luhrs Less is More – Goldian Vandenbroeck The World’s Cheapest Destinations – Tim Leffel World Party – Rough Guides Don’t set limits Move deliberately through the world Look more and analyse less – like your 5 years old Break old habits, face latent fears, and test out repressed facets of your personality Allow yourself to grow through your mishaps Don’t set limits on what you can or can’t do – openness to anything that comes your way – feeling of possibility walk until your day becomes interesting keep a journal from the outset of your travels allot a certain time per week for email etc brave the open air markets and be healthier for the experience never check into a room without seeing it take a hotel business card let a merchant make the first, and second, offer Be selective in other words, doing less in a smart way – is usually more productive and fun path Meet your neighbours We see as we are Vagabonding revolves around the people you meet on the road If you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? (Jesus) – try and understand other people – finetune your sense of humor – humility People travel to faraway places to watch the kind of people they ignore at home – neighbours in your home town Tourism can be a bridge to an appreciation of cultural relativity and international understanding It’s important to practice thrift, but not be obsessive about your budget – watch what locals do Hospitality offers are best accepted when in non-touristic places Having an adventure is sometimes a matter of going out and allowing things to happen in a strange and amazing new environment – psychic challenge – keep well hydrated and eat bland foods – avoid bringing expensive or irreplaceable things Keep things real – be there, in the moment – embracing reality is daunting – sincere attitude of open-mindedness (so no politics/ideology) – purest way to see a culture is simply to accept and experience it as it is now Marijuana replaces real sensations with artificially enhanced ones – it creates passive experiences – the drug vision remains a sort of dream that cannot be brought over into daily life – strive to be ‘drugs’ yourself, unmediated reality The “danger” of vagabonding resides in having your eyes opened – in discovering the world as it really is The journey is far more important than any destination – don’t want to be in all places at the same time – know your possibilities, and limitations – you will see the other places in time – patient kind of aimlessness ongoing process of finding new things – also leave behind aspects of yourself People say that what we are all seeking is meaning in life. I don’t think this is really what we’re looking for. I think what we’re trying to find is an experience of being alive. Vagabonding is a radical way of knowing exactly who, what, and where you are The Snow Leopard – Peter Matthiessen Life itself is a kind of journey Tao Te Ching Curiosity about the world is the starting point for spiritual discovery Coming home Difficult to relate what you experience to old friends and acquaintances Allow for unstructured time in your day-to-day home schedule Explore your home town as if it were a foreign land Keep things real, and keep on learning Be creative, and get into adventures Keep living your life in such a way that allows your dreams room to breathe