[1.3] 12 About 12: Rolf Potts
Starting a movement, travel writing, and infiltrating a Leonardo DiCaprio movie set
Hi!
This ‘12 about 12’ series is simply 12 facts about 12 people who have managed to make a life of travel. Each story is broken down into four parts:
Origin: how did they start traveling?
Grind: what did they sacrifice?
Breakthrough: when did they go big?
Scale: what are they making of it now?
At the end of each email, I compress my takeaways from the traveler into just one thing to remember.
Have an amazing week!
~ Atom
#3
Introducing travel writer, essayist, adventurer, and teacher—Rolf Potts! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Rolf Potts is best known for promoting the ethic of independent travel. His first book Vagabonding is a cornerstone of the digital nomad movement we know today. I first learned about Rolf from Tim Ferris who references Rolf’s work widely throughout The Four-Hour Workweek and The Tim Ferris Show.
Origins
Rolf began college at Friends University, spending his summers working for a wilderness camp and hopping freight trains. He later transferred to George Fox University, where he graduated with a degree in writing and literature in 1993.
After graduation, Rolf worked a one-year stint as a landscaper in Seattle followed by an 8-month Volkswagen Vanagon journey around North America.
In 1996, Rolf moved to Busan, South Korea, where he taught English at a technical college for two years.
Grind
Rolf started writing travel stories for Salon.com in 1998, while still living in Korea.
In 1999, while traveling in Thailand, Rolf attempted to infiltrate the film set of a Leonardo DiCaprio movie called The Beach. His essay about the experience, "Storming 'The Beach'," received widespread acclaim.
With a biweekly column at Salon and an awarded article under his belt, Rolf began to contribute travel dispatches to more media outlets, including National Public Radio, Conde Nast Traveler, and National Geographic Adventure among others.
Breakthrough
Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel was released in 2003.
Marco Polo Didn’t Go There: Stories and Revelations From One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer, Rolf’s second book was published in 2008. It won him his first Lowell Thomas Award and became the first American-authored book to win Italy’s Chatwin Prize for travel writing.
Scale
Rolf’s adventures intensify. In 2010, Rolfs traveled around the world, through 12 countries on five continents, without using a single piece of luggage or bag of any kind. He also piloted a fishing boat 900 miles down the Laotian Mekong, hitchhiked across Eastern Europe, traversed Israel on foot, bicycled across Burma, and drove a Land Rover across South America.
Between 2014 and 2018 he published 5 more books, while his writings for National Geographic Traveler, Slate.com, Lonely Planet, Outside and Travelers' Tales garnered him five more Lowell Thomas Awards.
Rolf launched his podcast, Deviate, in 2017 where he hosts counterintuitive travel conversations featuring "experts, public figures, and interesting people.”
His newest book, The Vagabond’s Way: 366 Meditations on Wanderlust, Discovery, and the Art of Travel, was just published this October 2022.
THE ONE THING
If in doubt, just walk until your day becomes interesting.
Travel is not something you only do when you’re far away from home. Travel is a mindset you can take anywhere.
The bliss of travel comes from having a beginner’s mind; it comes from the ability to do something exciting, learn something new, and slow down so you can appreciate more.
Sources: About Rolf Potts, Rolf Potts on the Tim Ferris Show (#41, #42, #624)