Rolf Potts — The Vagabond’s Way, Tactics for Immersive Travel, Pilgrimages and Psychogeography, Empathy Machines, Full-Throated Love, The Slow Sense of Smell,

“Get a stack of postcards. And every time you want to send a text message, send them a two-week postcard instead.”

— Rolf Potts

Rolf Potts (@rolfpotts) is the author of the international bestseller Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel. His newest book is The Vagabond’s Way: 366 Meditations on Wanderlust, Discovery, and the Art of Travel. He has reported from more than 60 countries for National Geographic Traveler, The New Yorker, Outside, The New York Times Magazine, and Travel Channel. Many of his essays have been selected as “Notable Mentions” in The Best American Essays, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, and The Best American Travel Writing. He also hosts his own podcast, Deviate with Rolf Potts.

He is based in north-central Kansas, where he keeps a small farmhouse on 30 acres with his wife, Kansas-born actress Kristen Bush. My 2014 interview with Rolf can be found at tim.blog/rolf.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.

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Want to hear the first time Rolf Potts was on the podcast? Listen back on our conversation in which we discussed fulfilling travel fantasies using the time-wealth principle, resources to fight the fears associated with world travel, conducting business on the road, the effect of vacations on creative output, appreciation versus achievement, writing process, success management, and much more.

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

• The Vagabond’s Way: 366 Meditations on Wanderlust, Discovery, and the Art of Travel by Rolf Potts | Amazon
• Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts | Amazon
• Deviate with Rolf Potts
• Rolf Potts on Travel Tactics, Creating Time Wealth, and Lateral Thinking | The Tim Ferriss Show #41 & #42
• The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay | Amazon
• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss | Amazon
• The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell | Amazon
• Stay with Locals and Meet Travelers | Couchsurfing
• An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel | Vagabonding.net
• Hitchhiking for Pastries: The Art of Structuring a Journey with an Obsession | Deviate with Rolf Potts #188
• Cal Fussman – The Master Storyteller Returns | The Tim Ferriss Show #183
• Best of What I’ve Learned | Esquire
• Vanishing Asia by Kevin Kelly | Kickstarter
• Vanishing Asia: Three Volume Set: West, Central, and East by Kevin Kelly | Amazon
• Best Motown Love Songs: 20 Essential Songs For Soulmates | uDiscover
• Song of the Open Road by Walt Whitman | Poetry Foundation
• Pandemic Love, Cheating Death, & Cassette Tapes: A Personal History of Nostalgia | Deviate with Rolf Potts #142
• Depression After a Concussion | Cognitive FX
• Full-Throated | Merriam-Webster
• Vertebrate Fossils in Kansas | GeoKansas
• Geographic Arbitrage: How I Save $20,000+ A Year Living Abroad | Nomadic Fire
• Beyond the Red Ochre of the Himba People | Friendly Borders
• Souvenir (Object Lessons) by Rolf Potts | Amazon
• The 54 Best Korean Dramas for You to Binge-Watch in 2022 | Marie Claire
• South Korean Culture: Etiquette | Cultural Atlas
• Confucianism | National Geographic Society
• Communitas | Wikipedia
• San Jose | American Kickboxing Academy
• Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage Trails | Kumano Travel
• Camino de Santiago | Santiago Ways
• Simply Mobile Data, Anywhere | GigSky
• Cache Cab: Taxi Drivers’ Brains Grow to Navigate London’s Streets | Scientific American
• Notes on the Flâneur | Rolf Potts
• Psychogeography: A Way to Delve into the Soul of a City | The Conversation
• Social Media Toolkit | Buffer
• The Unique Social Media Management Tool | Meet Edgar
• SEA Games: Cambodia Makes History in Volleyball with Men’s Semis Stint | Inquirer Sports
• All the Differences Between American and Japanese 7-Eleven | Food Wars
• 7-Eleven Konbini Virtual Tour in Japan | Sugoii Japan
• The Scent of Time: A Philosophical Essay on the Art of Lingering by Byung-Chul Han | Amazon
• Louvre Museum
• Little, Big by John Crowley | Amazon
• History of Memento Mori | Daily Stoic
• Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman | Amazon
• Before Sunrise | Prime Video
• Boyhood | Prime Video
• Three Literary Uses of Roman à Clef | MasterClass
• Visit Faroe Islands
• Faroe-Islander Saga | Amazon
• The Old Man and His Sons by Heðin Brú | Amazon
• Tools of Titans: Derek Sivers Distilled | The Tim Ferriss Show #202
• The Ivy Crown by William Carlos Williams | Poeticous
• Experiences with Cuban Piropo Culture | Beyond the Bubble
• Memories from the Root Temple: Washing Dishes by Thích Nhất Hạnh | Plum Village
• Lost by David Wagoner | Poetry Magazine
• At Home in the World: Stories and Essential Teachings from a Monk’s Life by Thích Nhất Hạnh | Amazon
• Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr | Amazon
• The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman | Amazon
• The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads by Tim Wu | Amazon
• São Paulo: The City With No Outdoor Advertisements | Amusing Planet

SHOW NOTES

• [08:16] Ideal travel partners, living or dead.
• [11:37] Breaking the ice among screen-glued strangers abroad.
• [15:41] Finding safe homestays while traveling (and why you should).
• [19:46] The Cal Fussman method of creating community on public transport.
• [21:50] Finding the focus to make your travels purposeful.
• [25:55] What Rolf learned by traveling with his senior parents.
• [27:44] How Rolf found the girl next door on the other side of the world.
• [32:53] Advice for anyone finding full-throated, open-hearted love elusive.
• [36:50] What Rolf means by “full-throated.”
• [37:20] Nothing makes you appreciate home like traveling the world.
• [40:32] The most meaningful task for the traveler.
• [45:45] Pilgrimage pointers.
• [48:57] Getting lost is good for you. So is taking a break from mobile tech.
• [52:43] Uncertainty as a gift of travel — and how to cultivate it by slowing down.
• [1:00:21] Books, movies, and experiences that help slow the perception of time.
• [1:04:27] “Novels are empathy machines.”
• [1:11:06] How travel can give us context for the choices we make at home.
• [1:20:10] Contemplating life’s next chapters.
• [1:26:36] What compelled Rolf to write The Vagabond’s Way: 366 Meditations on Wanderlust, Discovery, and the Art of Travel?
• [1:29:47] Billboards as the original attention economy device and parting thoughts.

MORE ROLF POTTS QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“We all have curiosity in our toolkit as travelers.”
— Rolf Potts

“We just have to slap down our apps and their algorithmically programmed way of holding our attention, and give our attention to each other as humans, give our attention to the places where we are, the smells, the other five senses. Not just the sounds you hear on your phone, or the sites you see through your apps, but what you smell. Let smell guide you through a new place.”
— Rolf Potts

“Having [an] obsession, be it pastries or surfing, is really a great pretext to have adventures that you could never imagine before you left home.”
— Rolf Potts

“Expertise is less important than open-heartedness and curiosity.”
— Rolf Potts

“I hope I travel until the day I drop dead, because it really keeps you new and fresh and vulnerable to new experiences in a way that it’s hard to pull off at home.”
— Rolf Potts

“Being completely an island away from other people is not necessarily a desirable thing.”
— Rolf Potts

“Get a stack of postcards. And every time you want to send a text message, send them a two-week postcard instead.”
— Rolf Potts

“Human culture has been urbanizing since the Industrial Revolution, and maybe this new technology will allow us to have a counter-movement against that urbanization.”
— Rolf Potts

“The most meaningful task for the traveler may well be to look past what feels exotic and learn to savor subtle differences in the things we already have in common.”
— Rolf Potts

“It’s actually good against neurodegenerative diseases to be lost and to figure out your way. They say London cab drivers, before GPS, had the most developed hippocampuses in the world.”
— Rolf Potts

“Find ways to play games with your sense of place.”
— Rolf Potts

“In an information-drenched society that tempts us to choose unhappiness over uncertainty, it is helpful to remember that one of the key gifts of travel has always been uncertainty itself.”
— Rolf Potts

“Walk until your day becomes interesting.”
— Rolf Potts

“Novels are empathy machines.”
— Rolf Potts

“If you are in second half of life, and you’re still grinding to compete with the guy next door, well, maybe that has less happiness embedded in it than just appreciating the life that you’ve built for yourself.”
— Rolf Potts

“I don’t want to knock technology too much, but attention is such a gift, and the moment is what we have.”
— Rolf Potts

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