Rolf Potts

“Time is your truest form of wealth.”

Rolf Potts is a veteran shoestring traveller, journalist and author of Vagabonding (now in its 10th reprint). He believes that anyone armed with an independent spirit can achieve the dream of extended overseas travel without spending lots of money.

His adventures have taken him across six continents, and include piloting a fishing boat 900 miles down the Laotian Mekong, hitchhiking across Eastern Europe, traversing Israel on foot, bicycling across Burma, driving a Land Rover across South America, and travelling around the world for six weeks with no luggage or bags of any kind.

He has reported from more than sixty countries for the likes of National Geographic Traveler, The New Yorker, Slate.com, Outside, the New York Times Magazine, The Believer, The Guardian (U.K.), Sports Illustrated, National Public Radio, and the Travel Channel.

Though he rarely stays in one place for long, Rolf has, over the years, felt somewhat at home in places like Bangkok, Cairo, Pusan, New Orleans, New York, and Paris, where he runs a series of creative writing classes each summer. He is based in north-central Kansas, where he keeps a small farmhouse on 30 acres with his wife, Kansas-born actress Kristen Bush.