Rolf Potts, author of the book Vagabonding, describes vagabonding travel as:
“The act of leaving behind the orderly world to travel independently for an extended period of time” and “A deliberate way of living that makes freedom to travel possible.”
Put simply, vagabonding is the act of organizing your life to prioritize experiences and travel.
When you arrange your life priorities, an unlimited amount of independent travel becomes possible! Although money feels like the biggest obstacle when starting a life of travel, it often isn’t what is holding us back.
Why Start Vagabonding Travel?
Since selling my house and many of my possessions (that weren’t books or sentimental), I have been vagabonding since January 2006.
Now I travel the world and work from where I want. I get to do what many wealthy people wish they could do or hope to do after retirement. I’ve been blessed to live on some of the most beautiful islands in the world.
Instead of prioritizing the accumulation of wealth, I chose to collect experiences, relationships, and self-growth.
Vagabonding doesn’t mean dropping out of society! You can still be successful in your business endeavors. Earning an income and living a life of travel aren’t mutually exclusive.
In fact, the more you experience the world and grow yourself, the better your chances for success.
Regardless, priorities should first focus on health, happiness, and gaining life experience. Humans are attracted to healthy, happy people—your opportunities for success and good relationships grow when you develop yourself!
Plus, you get to enjoy the journey instead of only grinding through to a reward in the future.
Living life deliberately and mindfully in the present feels way better.
I chronicle daily life on the road via my not-so-serious adventure blog: www.vagabondinglife.com
What Is the Difference Between Vagabonding and Vacation?
A vacation is an attempt to squeeze a year’s worth of enjoyment, relaxation, and adventure into a two-week package.
Americans attempt this all the time; it’s the default for anyone with a conventional job. What often results is an expensive distraction and then an unsatisfied return to reality.
After your vacation finishes, you may find yourself worse off than before you left, trying to catch up with work, mail, chores, and all the other unnecessary ways that we complicate life.
Sadly, a sizable percentage of working Americans opt to not take all their vacation days for fear of “falling behind” on everything!
I can relate. During my eight years at IBM, taking more than a few days off resulted in a full inbox and projects careening out of control. The stress of returning home to the mess caused me to dread vacations.
Someone who is vagabonding never really returns completely from their trip. They may be home for some time while working or visiting family, but they typically plan to travel again soon. Working is seen as a necessary effort for accumulating life experiences.
Vagabonding is the deliberate arranging of priorities that allows one to travel and work whenever they wish and for as long as they wish.
Much of society resists the idea of extensive travel beyond a young age. Us vagabonding travelers typically make terrible consumers. We make a conscious choice to accumulate self-growth and new life experiences instead of “toys.”
Many of the things conventional consumers spend money for promise to restore time, health, and happiness—the very things traded for money in the first place!
Why Not Wait for Retirement to Travel?
Thoreau put it best when he said we spend:
“…the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.”
In other words, live your best life now. There is no guarantee that you will have the finances or health by retirement age to do the things that you want to do.
You can’t predict the world economy, future pandemics, or whatever will transpire decades from now.
On the other hand, the present is yours. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t prepare for the future, only that we should try to avoid getting stuck in the cycle of working to buy things to distract ourselves from working in the first place!
Working and becoming financially successful don’t mean you have to be a consumer. You traded your time (life) for that money. It can be used for enriching experiences instead.
What If I Don’t Have the Money to Travel?
You would be amazed at how little money you need to travel through a majority of the world.
Do you even know for sure how much money slips through your fingers monthly? Make a spreadsheet. Find all the ways the money leaves your account—the results can be surprising. All those little subscriptions add up.
When you choose to go live life instead of watching others do it, you won’t need a giant television. If your car already runs fine, do you really need a new one?
The same applies to your smartphone. For the average cost of a new smartphone, you could literally live and play on an island in Southeast Asia for a month or longer. Sure, you have to have a phone, but does it need to be upgraded this year?
Financing vagabonding is simply a matter of adjusting priorities so that gaining life experience comes first. Many of the travelers I have met were poor university students who managed to stay on the road for years!
Budget destinations in places such as Asia, Africa, and South America are full of adventure and culture but cost a fraction of what you probably spend to live daily at home.
For the cost of one average dinner and movie night in a major city in the United States, you could eat, sleep, and play for a week in Southeast Asia!
How to Get Started Vagabonding?
Making the decision to bow out of the Rat Race is the first and most important step. Stop spending money on material things (that includes travel gadgets!). Instead, consider grabbing a copy of Rolf Potts’s Vagabonding book for some inspiration.
You can also see stories from the road on my Vagabonding Life blog.
Next, emerge yourself in the culture. Surround yourself by people (either in person or digitally) who have done what you want to do. Do your best to get away from consumer pressure.