The Book in 3 Sentences

1. Anyone can live a life of long-term travel.
2. The best form of travel is a deliberate immersion into another culture for an extended period of time.
3. You can get the most out of long-term travel by adopting a mindset of simplicity, spontaneity, openness to new experiences and self-discovery.

Impressions

Vagabonding is a comprehensive guide to the art of long-term world travel. The book covers a wide range of topics and provides lots of tips and strategies to make a life of travel possible. It’s a nice concise read and I felt like it took a very holistic approach to travel, answering a lot of my questions as they came up. Would recommend highly to anyone who wants to make world travel a greater part of their lives.

Top 3 Quotes

Vagabonding is an attitude—a friendly interest in people, places, and things that makes a person an explorer in the truest, most vivid sense of the word. Vagabonding is not a lifestyle, nor is it a trend. It’s just an uncommon way of looking at life—a value adjustment from which action naturally follows. And, as much as anything, vagabonding is about time—our only real commodity—and how we choose to use it.

People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.

My greatest skill has been to want little. — Henry David Thoreau

Summary, Quotes & Notes

Vagabonding is an attitude — a friendly interest in people, places, and things that makes a person an explorer in the truest, most vivid sense of the word. Vagabonding is not a lifestyle, nor is it a trend. It’s just an uncommon way of looking at life — a value adjustment from which action naturally follows. And, as much as anything, vagabonding is about time — our only real commodity — and how we choose to use it.

Vagabonding starts now. Even if the practical reality of travel is still months or years away, vagabonding begins the moment you stop making excuses, start saving money, and begin planning your adventures.

Earn your freedom.

Work is when you confront the problems you might otherwise be tempted to run away from.

Conditions will never be perfect for travel. Take a leap.

Keep it simple.

The slow nuanced experience of a single country is always better than the hurried, superficial experience of forty countries.

Vagabonding requires sacrifices.

Money is needed to survive, but time is what you need to live. So save what little money you possess to meet basic survival requirements, but spend your time lavishly.

Learn, and keep learning.

The simple willingness to improvise is more vital, in the long run, than research.

Don’t set limits.

Meet your neighbours.

Get into adventures.

Having an adventure is sometimes just a matter of going out and allowing things to happen in a strange and amazing new environment.

Open yourself up to unpredictability.

You should view each new travel frustration — sickness, fear, loneliness, boredom, conflict — as a facet in the vagabonding adventure.

Keep it real.

Be creative with your travels and let your spirit grow.

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