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Rolf Potts Biography

Rolf Potts (born October 13, 1970) is an American travel writer, essayist, and author. He has written two books, Vagabonding (Random House, 2003) and Marco Polo Didn't Go There (Travelers Tales, 2008), and his travel writing has appeared in National Geographic Traveler, Outside, Salon.com, Slate.com, The Guardian, and World Hum. His non-travel essays and criticism have appeared in The New Yorker, The Believer, the New York Times Magazine, and the digital versions of The Nation and The Atlantic.

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Rolf Potts Quotes

Long-term travel isn’t about being a college student; it’s about being a student of daily life. Long-term travel isn’t an act of rebellion against society; it’s an act of common sense within society. Long-term travel doesn’t require a massive “bundle of cash”; it requires only that we walk through the world in a more deliberate way.

College, Common Sense, Daily, Long, Massive, Society

Begin to look at maps with the narcotic tingle of possibility.

Look, Looks, Maps, Possibility, Tingle

Indeed, the most vivid travel experiences usually find you by accident, and the qualities that will make you fall in love with a place are rarely the features that took you there.

Falling In Love, Love, Quality, Rarely, Usually, Vivid

If in doubt, just walk until your day becomes interesting.

Becomes, Doubt, Interesting, Walk, Walks

The value of your travels does not hinge on how many stamps you have in your passport when you get home -- and the slow nuanced experience of a single country is always better than the hurried, superficial experience of forty countries.

Country, Forty, Hinge, Home, Superficial, Travel

In reality long-term travel has nothing to do with demographics, age, ideology, income, and everything to do with personal outlook.

Demographics, Everything, Long, Personal, Reality, Travel

Time is the truest form of wealth. And the beauty is, we are all born equally rich in time.

Equally, Form, Rich, Time, Wealth

Money, of course, is still 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 in order to create the life values that make the fire worth the candle. Dig?

Basic, Candle, Fire, Order, Survival, Time

Thus, the question of how and when to start vagabonding is not really a question at all. 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 to look at maps with the narcotic tingle of possibility. From here, the reality of vagabonding comes into sharper focus as you adjust your worldview and begin to embrace the exhilarating uncertainty that true travel promises.

Embrace, Focus, Moment, Reality, Vagabonding, Years

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

Away, Confront, Might, Problem, Running, Work

there is still an overwhelming social compulsion-an insanity of consensus, if you will-to get rich from life rather than live richly, to “do well” in the world instead of living well.

Insanity, Overwhelming, Rich, World

The mind can be a crazy monkey that is always dying to escape from the moment.

Crazy, Dying, Mind, Moment

The more we associate experience with cash value, the more we think that money is what we need to live. And the more we associate money with life, the more we convince ourselves that we're too poor to buy our freedom.

Cash, Experience, Money, Needs, Poor, Thinking

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.

Attitude, Friendly, People, Person, Vivid

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

Long, Run, Running, Simple, Vital

Seeing' as you travel is somewhat of a spiritual exercise: a process not of seeking interesting surroundings, but of being continually interested in whatever surrounds you.

Exercise, Interesting, Seeing, Spiritual, Travel

I think your travels get better when you stop showcasing your journey to others and begin to live it, quietly and joyfully.

Get Better, Journey, Quietly, Think, Thinking, Travels

Contrary to popular stereotypes, seeking simplicity doesn't require that you become a monk, a subsistence forager, or a wild-eyed revolutionary. Nor does it mean that you must unconditionally avoid the role of consumer. Rather, simplicity merely requires a bit of personal sacrifice: an adjustment of your habits and routines within consumer society itself.

Adjustment, Habits, Mean, Role, Sacrifice, Simplicity

Vagabonding is about refusing to exile travel to some other, seemingly more appropriate, time of your life. Vagabonding is about taking control of your circumstances instead of passively waiting for them to decide your fate.

Appropriate, Circumstances, Fate, Waiting

Of all the adventures and challenges that wait on the vagabonding road, the most difficult can be the act of coming home.

Adventure, Challenges, Home, Road, Vagabonding, Waiting

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