Rolf Potts
{{Short description|American writer}}
{{Infobox writer
|name=Rolf Potts
|image= Rolf Potts at Book Passage in 2008.jpg
|caption= Rolf Potts talks about his book Marco Polo Didn't Go There
|birth_date={{birth date and age|1970|10|13}}
|birth_place=Wichita, Kansas, U.S.
|education = Wichita North High School
George Fox University
Bennington College {{small|(MFA)}}
|occupation=Writer, journalist
| genre = Travel writing
| spouse = Kristen Bush
}}
Rolf Potts (born October 13, 1970) is an American travel writer, essayist, podcaster, and author. He has written five books, including Vagabonding (Random House, 2003), Marco Polo Didn't Go There (Travelers Tales, 2008), Souvenir (Bloomsbury, 2018), and The Vagabond's Way (Ballantine, 2022). The lifestyle philosophies he outlined in Vagabonding are considered to have been a key influence on the digital nomad movement.{{cite web
| url=https://www.jamestaylor.me/vagabonding/
| title=Vagabonding author Rolf Potts and the digital nomad lifestyle
| publisher=Creative Life
| last = Andrea
| first = Sachs
| date = 11 December 2020
| url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/best-travel-podcasts-pandemic-listening/2020/12/10/44912020-364e-11eb-8d38-6aea1adb3839_story.html
| title=With travel podcasts, explore the world through your ear buds
| publisher=Washington Post
}}
Career
=Online journalism=
The son of schoolteachers from Wichita, Kansas,{{cite web | url= http://www.pw.org/content/world_over_profile_rolf_potts_0
| last = Bures
| first = Frank
| date = November–December 2008
| title= The World Over: A Profile of Rolf Potts
| publisher=Poets & Writers
}} Potts' earliest vagabonding journeys included hopping freight trains across the Pacific Northwest,{{cite web
| url= http://www.transitionsabroad.com/listings/travel/independent/rolf_potts_interview.shtml
| title=Rolf Potts on Long-Term Travel
| publisher=Transitions Abroad
| url= https://rolfpotts.com/podcast/jumping-freight-trains/
| title=Jumping freight trains in the Pacific NW
| publisher=Deviate Podcast}} and taking an eight-month "van life before #VanLife" Volkswagen Vanagon journey around North America in the early 1990s.{{cite web
| url= https://rolfpotts.com/podcast/van-life-before-vanlife/
| title=Van Life before #VanLife
| publisher=Deviate Podcast}} He later taught English in Busan, South Korea before embarking on a pioneering multi-year digital nomad journey, writing from-the-road travel dispatches for such dialup-era online outlets as salonmagazine.com (which later became Salon.com).
In 1999, while traveling in Thailand, Potts attempted to infiltrate the film-set of a Leonardo DiCaprio movie called The Beach.{{cite news
| last = Potts
| first = Rolf
| date = 30 January 1999
| url=http://www.salon.com/1999/01/30/feature1_9/
| title=Storming "The Beach"
| work=Salon.com
}} His essay about the experience, "Storming 'The Beach'," was chosen by Bill Bryson for inclusion in The American Travel Writing 2000. Poets & Writers later noted that, "the story, far from being an account of a simple-minded stunt, was actually a fantastic narrative mixed with meditations on the 'shadowlike ironies of travel culture,' Walker Percy's 'traveler's angst,' and 'the greater struggle for individuality in the information age.'" In 2022, more than two decades after "Storming 'The Beach'" went viral, Uproxx noted that it "ushered in a new era of young, web-first...travel writing that influenced a generation."{{cite web | url= https://uproxx.com/life/best-adventure-gifts-guide-2022/
| last = Bramucci
| first = Steve
| date = 7 December 2022
| title= The Vagabond’s Way — 366 Meditations On Wanderlust, Discovery, and the Art of Travel
| publisher=Uproxx
}}
Potts' travel writing has appeared in venues such as Outside, National Geographic Traveler, Slate, and The Atlantic.{{cite web | url=https://rolfpotts.com/about/bio/ | title=Bio | publisher=Official site}} In 2010, he wrote and field-produced an online video series about a six-week journey that took him around the world with no luggage or bags of any kind.{{cite web | url=https://www.rtwblog.com/about-the-challenge/ | title=About | publisher=No Baggage Challenge}}{{cite web | url= https://abcnews.go.com/Travel/rolf-potts-circles-globe-luggage-carry-bag/story
| last = Mayerowitz
| first = Scott
| date = 19 August 2010
| title= Man Circles the Globe Without Luggage
| publisher=ABC News
}} In addition to writing about travel, Potts has also written about U.S. military reading lists for The New Yorker,{{cite magazine
| last = Potts
| first = Rolf
| url=http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2011/05/02/110502ta_talk_potts
| date = 2 May 2011
| title=Canon Fodder
| magazine=The New Yorker
}} Islamist Sayyid Qutb's travel memoirs for The Believer,{{cite web
| last = Potts
| first = Rolf
| url= https://believermag.com/the-tourist-who-influenced-the-terrorists/
| date = October 2006
| title=The Tourist Who Influenced the Terrorists
| publisher=The Believer
}} mockbuster B-movies for the New York Times Magazine,{{cite magazine
| last = Potts
| first = Rolf
| url= https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/magazine/07wwln-essay-t.html
| date = 7 October 2007
| title=The New B Movie
| magazine=The New York Times Magazine
}} Allen Ginsberg's poem "Wichita Vortex Sutra" for The Nation,{{cite magazine
| last = Potts
| first = Rolf
| url= https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/last-antiwar-poem/
| date = 14 November 2006
| title=The Last Anti-War Poem
| magazine=The Nation
}} and the murder of small-college football player Brandon Brown for Sports Illustrated.{{cite magazine
| last = Potts
| first = Rolf
| url=https://www.si.com/more-sports/2012/12/04/kansas-brandon-brown-murder
| date = 4 December 2012
| title=Murder of football player in Kansas shakes town, raises questions
| magazine=Sports Illustrated
}}
=Books=
Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel, Potts' first book, mixes practical advice with philosophical insights about the value of travel. Upon its release in 2003, the Boston Globe called it "a valuable contribution to our thinking, not only about travel, but about life and work."{{cite news
| last = Morgan
| first = Stephen
| date = 2 February 2003
| title=Advice for the vagabond in all of us
| newspaper=Boston Globe
}} USA Today dubbed the author "Jack Kerouac for the Internet Age"{{cite news
| url= https://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2003-09-22-potts_x.htm
| date = 10 January 2003
| title= For Rolf Potts, every day is a winding road
| newspaper=USA Today
}} (Potts has downplayed the comparison{{cite web
| last = Potts
| first = Rolf
| url= http://www.worldhum.com/features/travel-books/we_dont_really_know_jack_20070905/
| date = 5 September 2007
| title=We Don't (Really) Know Jack
| publisher=World Hum
}}). The book has been through more than 30 printings, and has been widely translated worldwide.
Potts' second travel book, Marco Polo Didn't Go There: Stories and Revelations From One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer, debuted in 2008. The book won a Lowell Thomas Award in the United States, and in 2009 became the first American-authored book to win Italy's Bruce Chatwin Prize for international travel writing.{{cite web
|url = http://travelerstales.com/002653.shtml
|title = Marco Polo Didn't Go There Wins 2 Awards
|publisher = Travelers Tales
|url-status = dead
|archive-url = https://archive.today/20130204152829/http://travelerstales.com/002653.shtml
|archive-date = 2013-02-04
}} In 2016 Potts released a short book about the psychogeography of the Geto Boys' eponymous, Rick Rubin-produced third album for the 33⅓ series of music criticism, and in 2018 he wrote Souvenir for Bloomsbury's Object Lessons series of books about "the hidden lives of ordinary things." The Boston Globe called Souvenir "a treasure trove of … fascinating deep dives into the history of travel keepsakes."{{cite news
| last = Daniel
| first = Diane
| url = https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/travel/2018/06/12/spoons-magnets-rocks-new-book-looks-history-souvenirs/2mSwaM5b4zKSGMQlTpR6BJ/story.html
| date = 12 June 2018
| title=Spoons, magnets, rocks: New Book looks at the history of souvenirs
| newspaper=Boston Globe
}}
=TV, film, and popular culture=
Potts was featured in several episodes of the 2007 National Geographic Adventure documentary Odyssey: Driving Around the World,{{cite web
| url= https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2765650/
| title= Rolf Potts
| website=Internet Movie Database
}} and appeared as a commentator in the 2013 documentary film Gringo Trails, which explored the impact of tourism on travel destinations and host communities worldwide.{{cite news
| last = Cynthia
| first = Fuchs
| url = https://www.popmatters.com/185496-gringo-trails-invading-backpackers-2495618967.html
| date=5 September 2014
| title= 'Gringo Trails' Explores the Complicated Business of Tourism
| publisher= PopMatters
}}
In "Burn Rate," a 2022 episode in the sixth season of Showtime's Billions, Rian (Eva Victor) brandishes a copy of Vagabonding while "visualizing" a long-term journey in her office ("Rolf shows us how," she tells a coworker).{{cite web
| url= https://subslikescript.com/series/Billions-4270492/season-6/episode-4-Burn_Rate
| title= Billions, Season 6, Episode 4 - Burn Rate (full transcript)
| website=Subtitles-like Scripts
}} In "Axe Global," the penultimate season 7 episode of Billions, Rian leaves a copy of Vagabonding in the office of her boss Taylor (Asia Kate Dillon) before leaving on an open-ended journey to Morocco and North Africa.{{cite web
| url= https://www.vulture.com/article/billions-recap-season-7-episode-11-axe-global.html
| date=20 September 2023
| title= Billions Recap: Minted
| publisher= Vulture
}}
=Guest lecturing=
Potts was the 2011-2012 ArtsEdge Writer-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania's Kelly Writers House.{{cite web
|url=https://www.english.upenn.edu/people/rolf-potts
|title=Department of English: Rolf Potts
|publisher=University of Pennsylvania
}} He more recently taught nonfiction writing at Yale University,{{cite web
| url=https://english.yale.edu/people/rolf-potts
| title=Rolf Potts, Lecturer in English
| publisher=Yale University Department of English
}} and he directs annual summer writing workshops in Paris.{{cite web
| url= https://pariswritingworkshops.com/
| title=Instructors
| publisher=Paris Writing Workshops
}}
Personal life
References
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}
External links
{{Commons category}}
- [http://www.rolfpotts.com/ Rolf Potts], official website
- [https://rolfpotts.com/deviate/ Deviate: Because the Best Things in Life are Off-Topic], Rolf Potts' podcast
- [https://www.artofmanliness.com/living/leisure/podcast-839-the-vagabond-travel-ethos/ The Vagabond Travel Ethos], The Art of Manliness Podcast (2022)
- [http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/11/04/rolf-potts/ Rolf Potts on Travel Tactics, Creating Time Wealth, and Lateral Thinking], Tim Ferriss Podcast (2014)
- [http://longform.org/posts/longform-podcast-33-rolf-potts Longform Podcast #33: Rolf Potts], (2013)
- [https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/05/a-conversation-with-rolf-potts-travel-writer/238441/ A Conversation With Rolf Potts, Travel Writer], The Atlantic (2011)
- [http://www.pw.org/content/world_over_profile_rolf_potts_0 The World Over: A Profile of Rolf Potts], Poets & Writers (2008)
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPXHZUEmD8Y Rolf Potts: One-hour lecture] Talks at Google (2007)
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Potts, Rolf}}
Category:American travel writers
Category:American male non-fiction writers
Category:Writers from Wichita, Kansas
Category:People from Saline County, Kansas
Category:Friends University people
Category:George Fox University alumni