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Who’s the Digital Vagabond?

vagabonding_in-america.gifI’m not sure if vagabonds are born or made. But I know they can be inspired.

My inspiration came after reading Ed Buyrn’s 1973 hippy dippy classic “Vagabonding in the USA – a guide book about energy”. As a 21 year old enrolled in a conservative Catholic college in the Midwest during the mid eighties era of Ronald Reagan, AIDs and Nukes – Ed’s message of live and let travel became my gospel. His book became my bible and vagabonding became my new religion.

A reading from the Book of Buryn –

“Travel is about your inner self and how you exchange energy between that inner self and the world . . . It may sound strange but becoming a vagabond is a religious action.

Ordinary tourists try to control their fate to protect their tender delusions from the shocks of reality. By pre-planning every aspect of their trip – whether vacation trip or life trip, they think they can circumvent the will of God and Fate. Vagabonds know better, and let things take their natural course.

A vagabond is a liberated traveler. Contrariwise, a tourist is a pseudo-traveler, a sucker in economic servitude to travel agents, governments, businessmen, and industry. They are like human locust – a pest in small numbers, but potentially a swarming scourge that sweeps everything before it.”

[Show picture list]
Ed in the desert
Ed and family
Ed and his mobile family
Letting it all hang out
young_pat_with_camper.jpg
A Young Pat and his VW Camper

After fixing up a 1974 VW camper bus and scratching together a few hundred bucks, I said goodbye to stiff curriculum, career obsession and fear and hit the open road going west with the vague idea of finding the Pacific Ocean.

I found the ocean, myself and a whole lot more before I came back almost one year later. It was a year of sweet solitude, serendipitous encounters and inspiration.

Roughly twenty years after my first great road trip I’m still a devout believer in the religion and magic of vagabonding. But for me vagabonding has gone digital with wireless phones and Internet, digital cameras and laptops. The old travel scrapbook has become the multimedia weblog.

My old VW camper bus passed away after suffering a fatal but glorious death when it plunged off a cliff and into the Yellowstone river in Yellowstone Park in Wyoming years ago.

Pat's retired and battered camper.
[Show picture list]
Interior of Destiny
Destiny - Pat's new mobile home.
The old “Chuck Wagon” after many hard miles. It’s my “Destiny”

Today the bare bones VW camper bus has been replaced with a fully equipped 24 foot motor home called “Destiny“. These day’s I’m traveling heavier and literally dragging the kitchen sink with – as well as the shower, microwave, freezer, heater, Air Conditioner, TV, laptops, cameras etc. To see the highlights from my three year on the open road visit the “Great American Road Trip“.

On my road trip I had the serendipitous good fortune to meet my travel mentor, Ed Buryn at his home in Northern California in the Sierra Nevadas. We’ve become good friends and have collaborated in creating the annual “Roads Scholarship” to inspire and encourage the birth of other vagabonds. Today, in the era of digital communications, the dream of living, working and traveling freely is more achievable than ever.

Another verse from the book of Buryn –

“Travel is not just moving over the earth from one place to another in some kind of conveyance. It’s not about where you’re going or how you’re getting there. It’s not about getting away from it at all. In fact, more opposite . . . a way of getting to it all.

Travel is a metaphor for life. By that I mean travel is a dramatization of life, a way of experiencing it more intensely and self-consciously. Traveling is not so much an action as an enlightened state of consciousness, opening you to fresh experience, to fresh looks at the world and yourself in it.”


Advise to Young Aspiring Vagabonds and Vagabondstresses

“What lies behind us and ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.” – Annonymous

Be your own hero in your personal epic journey. Don’t live by “default” in the place you came to by accident of birth. Set sail and explore the world and all its possibilities and find your place in it. Where you came from will always be where you left it if you do choose to return. Discover who you truly are and what your greatest loves, talents and passions are and offer them generously to the world! Let love be the guiding impulse that draws you through and past the fear of the unknown and into the place of your heart’s true home.

This website contains hundreds of articles written by me while exploring the inner and outer landscapes of me and North America. This journaling deepened my process of bringing meaning to the changing landscape around and within me. Feel free to read and comment on the articles if doing so inspires your own greatest journey. But for God’s sake, get busy creating your own adventures and stories, rather than living second hand through someone else.

If you want a life that is fully and creatively lived, rather than a life by default, then prepare to travel into the unknown and past your fears. Turn off the TV/Web and write and star in your own epic movie, populated with amazing characters, heroic deeds and epic challenges met. Maybe your life journey takes you around the world or you never leave the room and yet travel through the inner universe of your mind. But live your life fully and completely.

Blessings to you on the road of life – Patrick, the Digital Vagabond

 

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        • Who's the Real Santa?
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        • Cowboy Chic
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        • Middle Age Mountain
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        • Dead Leone
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        • Flashback Woodstock
        • NYC Madness
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        • Busted Flat in Virginia
        • Hot Girl Hot Cars
        • Ashville – Hipster Oasis
        • Cracker Barrel Love
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        • Forest Gump Land
        • Dolce Vita in Florida
        • Florida - A Love Hate Story
        • Camping with Spiritualists
      • â–ºJune (3)
        • Lunch at the Breakers
        • Florida Keys
        • My Port of Call
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        • Pearls of Wisdom
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        • Life on the Plantation
        • New Orleans Devastation
        • My Kind of Hell
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        • The Road Trip Begins
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    • â–ºAlabama (2)
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    • â–ºArizona (7)
      • Arizona Desert
      • Caught in a Vortex?
      • Life in a Bubble
      • Marooned in the Desert
      • Paradise in the desert
      • Peyote Way
      • Sedona, New Age Vortex
    • â–ºCalifornia (44)
      • 2012 Our Ending or Beginning?
      • A Mad Hatter Party
      • Accidental Trip to Mexico
      • Amma the Hugging Saint
      • An American Castle
      • Balboa Park, San Diego
      • Bohemian Ball
      • Born Again
      • Burning Fashion
      • Burning Man
      • Burning Man 2009
      • California Cool
      • Coastal Giants
      • Cruising the Pacific
      • Earth Dance
      • Eccentric Motor Home
      • Funky San Fran
      • Halloween 2008
      • Harmony Festival
      • Hitchhiking on the Wind
      • Human Soup
      • Land of the Free
      • LoveFest
      • LovEvolution
      • Mendocino Days
      • Miracle of Love
      • Monterey for a Day
      • New Age Make Over
      • Paradise Found
      • Pot City, USA
      • Punam from London
      • Quaint City, USA
      • RainDance 2010
      • Roads Scholar Laughter
      • SF Decompression
      • The American Riviera
      • The Magic Bus
      • The Polish Princess
      • The Real Palm Springs
      • Train Men
      • Tripping with the Trees
      • Venice Beach Freak Show
      • Witch Camp
      • Woodstock Flashback
    • â–ºColorado (4)
      • Dave Lives in a Van.com
      • Gem in the Rockies
      • Jet Set Aspen
      • Rocky Mountain High
    • â–ºCosta Rica (5)
      • Costa Rica Drop Out
      • Man of Mystery
      • Marooned in the Desert
      • Recession Special
      • Rules for Living
    • â–ºEngland (1)
      • Punam from London
    • â–ºFlorida (16)
      • Spring Break on the Gulf
      • Camping with Spiritualists
      • Dolce Vita in Florida
      • Florida - A Love Hate Story
      • Florida Keys
      • Glamorous South Beach
      • God's Waiting Room
      • Kayaking Springs
      • Leaving Florida
      • Live Crucifixion
      • Lunch at the Breakers
      • Man of Mystery
      • My Port of Call
      • Old Florida
      • Redneck Riviera
      • Worm Gruntin'
    • â–ºGeorgia (2)
      • Forest Gump Land
      • Sweet Savannah
    • â–ºHawaii (1)
      • Hawaian Heaven
    • â–ºIllinois (2)
      • All American City
      • The Polish Princess
    • â–ºLouisiana (3)
      • Life on the Plantation
      • My Kind of Hell
      • New Orleans Devastation
    • â–ºMexico (1)
      • Accidental Trip to Mexico
    • â–ºMinnesota (2)
      • Going Home
      • Minnesota Originals
    • â–ºMississippi (1)
      • Mississippi Churning
    • â–ºNebraska (1)
      • Food Factory, USA
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      • Born Again
      • Burning Man
      • Burning Man 2009
      • Burning the American Dream
    • â–ºNew Mexico (5)
      • A-Bomb City
      • Cliff Dwelling Condos
      • Club on Wheels
      • Land of Enchantment
      • Santa Fe Style
    • â–ºNew York (2)
      • Flashback Woodstock
      • NYC Madness
    • â–ºNorth Carolina (1)
      • Ashville – Hipster Oasis
    • â–ºOregon (8)
      • Beautiful Oregon
      • Crater Lake
      • Cruising the Pacific
      • Nerd Attack
      • Salty Sea Town
      • Tropical Winterland
      • Walk in the Woods
      • Who's the Real Santa?
    • â–ºRants and Raves (3)
      • 2009 Roads Scholars
      • The Evolution Trip
      • Words of Advice
    • â–ºSan Diego (1)
      • Train Men
    • â–ºSouth Carolina (2)
      • Charming Charleston
      • Cracker Barrel Love
    • â–ºSouth Dakota (6)
      • 1880 Town
      • Art Alley
      • Biker Rally
      • Dead Leone
      • Stoned Presidents
      • Wide Open West
    • â–ºTexas (5)
      • Bat Girl of Austin
      • Junkyard Wisdom
      • My Destiny
      • The Road to Peyote
      • The Road Trip Begins
    • â–ºVirginia (2)
      • Busted Flat in Virginia
      • Hot Girl Hot Cars
    • â–ºWashington (1)
      • San Jaun Islands
    • â–ºWyoming (2)
      • Cowboy Chic
      • Middle Age Mountain