I consider myself above all to be an American Adventurer; I have been traveling in unorthodox methods for the last eight years beginning as a vagabond living in my car, a wilderness survival instructor in the Mojave, a privately contracted sailor in the Caribbean, funding an exciting independent film in remote Northern Pakistan, teaching English in Central Europe, and planting trees as part of a forestry project in remote Australia. I have committed myself to developing an organic method of traveling purposefully towards a vague destination and have turned it into a way of life.
I wrote
Traveling Purposefully Towards a Vague Destination
Some people are already familiar with the true story of Christopher McCandless, a boy from Alexandria, Virginia who had a seemingly bright future and yet was unfulfilled living in modernity, he chose instead to escape and sought adventure in an unconventional way.
By abandoning everything from his former life and creating a new persona—the culturally famous Alexander Supertramp.
Unfortunately for Alexander, his story ends tragically after two years when his emaciated corpse was discovered in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness by hunters.
But his story lives on as an international bestseller that has been translated into 30 languages and continues to attract audiences with his amazing and tragic tale.
And although ‘Alexander Supertramp’ is still debated today about whether his actions were the result of severe mental illness or a burning desire for transcendentalism, I think that after reading this book readers can agree that it was likely a balance of both.
As for me, his tale was inspirational in a way I had never experienced before because I had always dreamed about what a life experience it would be to disregard modernity and live off the land, traveling by foot or hitchhiking.
It even propelled me to find my own ‘into the wild’ experience and influenced me in ways I cannot credit enough and within mere days after discovering his tale, with only a few hundred dollars, I left home in a similar way and decided that I was going to from this point on—live in my car and find short term work wherever I could and spent years vagabonding across the United States.
For those readers seeking excitement and possibly a push—I cannot recommend Christopher McCandless’ story enough. It changed my life forever.
Krakauer’s page-turning bestseller explores a famed missing person mystery while unraveling the larger riddles it holds: the profound pull of the American wilderness on our imagination; the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind; the complex, charged bond between fathers and sons.
"Terrifying... Eloquent... A heart-rending drama of human yearning." —New York Times
In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all…
Some people will argue that of all the movies adapted from books, the book will always win, but in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I believe the film adaptation is more alluring than the original short story, but it would not be fair to discredit that this film was influenced by Fitzgerald’s original satire of a child born aging in reverse.
While the movie veers away from the short story in time period, setting and character development, the short story draws more into the philosophical questions I believe we ourselves as a society are subconsciously thinking—even today, nearly a century after it’s writing as to how we contradict the specific wisdom that comes with age while also relinquishing it due to natural mental decline and end up treating our elderly like children.
Unlike the film, the story takes place just after the American Civil War and draws a more satirical and humorous approach to the inevitable aging process which terrifies many of us but helps us see it in a different light.
Both the film and original story inspired me to grip life in a different way, by embracing the humor and tragedy within and transferring its message into my own life if it were a diary of a man who is approaching a time in his life where he may forget everything, and focused mainly about the regrets that may come in the future and encouraged me to take risks in a different way because let’s face it—we will all end up in diapers.
For fans of the film, you must read the story that inspired it, as well as those that read this story for the first time, I highly recommend viewing the film afterwards.
As long ago as 1860 it was the proper thing to be born at home. At present, so I am told, the high gods of medicine have decreed that the first cries of the young shall be uttered upon the anesthetic air of a hospital, preferably a fashionable one. So young Mr. and Mrs. Roger Button were fifty years ahead of style when they decided, one day in the summer of 1860, that their first baby should be born in a hospital. Whether this anachronism had any bearing upon the astonishing history I am about to set down will never…
The voice of the Beatnik era lives on through the experiences of On the Road by a young Jack Kerouac who glamorized a culture of a lost and aimless youth to take to the road in search of adventure despite limited financial means and explored the mindset of those that were too young to serve in World War II or remained home in post-war America.
While his story is positively inspiring and thought provoking, I feel that many people have missed a major moral of his story On the Road, and I encourage readers who pick this story up for the first time to heed the words between the lines and understand that this book is inspiring in how it created a new philosophy of life among young people in search of adventure (as well as the hippie movement in the States.) but find a new way to view Kerouac by reading this story as a blueprint of simply ‘what not to do.’
The legendary novel of freedom and the search for authenticity that defined a generation, now in a striking new Pengiun Classics Deluxe Edition
Inspired by Jack Kerouac's adventures with Neal Cassady, On the Road tells the story of two friends whose cross-country road trips are a quest for meaning and true experience. Written with a mixture of sad-eyed naivete and wild ambition and imbued with Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz, On the Road is the quintessential American vision of freedom and hope, a book that changed American literature and changed…
Paul Kemp, a freelance journalist, finds himself in-between a failing newspaper, unethical development schemes, love, lust, and furious Puerto Ricans while exercising the world’s hardest working liver.
Hunter S Thompson delivers a first-person narrative into the American—Caribbean love affair with San Juan, Puerto Rico in the late fifties. Thompson’s words transcend a modern picture by both detailing the lovely landscapes the Caribbean represents and a deeply personal and humorous collection of experiences and events that let the reader analyze each character, including Kemp, for all their flaws as human beings. Thompson’s style of writing has always made me feel a part of this time capsule.
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THE BOOK THAT INSPIRED THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING JOHNNY DEPP
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'Remarkable - a genuine, 100% proof discovery of great literary importance' - Mail on Sunday
'Hilarious, utterly real and tragic ... A lithe, well-crafted gem of a novel which leaves the reader disturbed and grinning in a way that makes people sitting nearby change seats' - Scotland on Sunday
'Crackling, twisted, searing, paced to a deft prose rhythm ... a shot of Gonzo with a rum chaser' - San Francisco Chronicle
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The sultry classic of a journalist's sordid life in Puerto Rico
Paul Kemp has moved…
Herman Hesse’s Indian tale follows the ancient journey of Siddhartha, a fictional character on a spiritual path to find meaning in a world full of suffering and greed by renouncing his family and all worldly possessions to become a wandering holy man (Samana).
Along his journey he discovers and meets the actual Buddha (Gautama Buddha), and although he was deeply impressed with the Buddha’s honorable teachings, Siddhartha, disappointed, chose instead to follow his own path believing that one cannot find enlightenment by only following the words of a teacher but instead by experiencing and embracing all aspects of life personally to understand the true nature of enlightenment.
The story itself is captivating because the answers Siddhartha seeks are questions we’ve all asked ourselves, and the answers he discovers help explore the contradictions between the sacred texts of organized religion and the frustrated individual’s approach to find meaning within themselves despite the criticism of other conventional worshippers.
I must refrain from saying much more about this wonderful story because I don’t want to spoil anything, but I’ll conclude that it’s enticing personally for me not just as a novel but more importantly as a guideline to how one must live their life to find true meaning and solace in this strange journey of life and how one may even manifest success while doing so.
Here the spirituality of the East and the West have met in a novel that enfigures deep human wisdom with a rich and colorful imagination.
Written in a prose of almost biblical simplicity and beauty, it is the story of a soul's long quest in search of he ultimate answer to the enigma of man's role on this earth. As a youth, the young Indian Siddhartha meets the Buddha but cannot be content with a disciple's role: he must work out his own destiny and solve his own doubt-a tortuous road that carries him through the sensuality of a love…
Jesse is a young American sailor who experiences a tragic and life-changing spiritual event during a perilous return home. Following a chance encounter with a mysterious Russian journalist, his quest for inner peace takes a sharp turn as he descends into crippling alcoholism and increasingly reckless behaviors that inevitably lead him on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. From bartending in the gulf of Thailand, to interactions with tribal aborigines in the ancient jungles of Malaysia, to soul-fulfilling romances on the unique islands of Bali and Indonesia, and ultimately, an epic motorcycle expedition and dangerous journey through largely unknown locales seething with tense political strife in the high Himalayas of Northern India, Nepal, and across the Indian subcontinent to the unforgiving dry landscapes of the infamous Thar Desert during a historical heatwave.
Constance is a wild, stubborn young girl growing up poor in a small industrial town in the late 1800's. Beneath her thread-worn exterior beats the heart of a dreamer and a wordsmith. But at age twelve, she’s orphaned. Running away to join the circus—like kids do in adventure books—seems like such a brilliant idea…or is it?
"Flight to Brassbright appeals to my inner child's desire for adventure and independence as well as my (mostly) grown-up desire for really well-written stories that capture my imagination and hold my attention." - Tricia, Amazon Reviewer
"...well plotted with a likable protagonist...upbeat with…
Constance is a wild, stubborn young girl growing up poor in a small industrial town in the late 1800's. Beneath her thread-worn exterior beats the heart of a dreamer and a wordsmith. But at age twelve, she’s orphaned. Running away to join the circus—like kids do in adventure books—seems like such a brilliant idea… or is it?
