When I began traveling in the late 80’s upon a 1987 Kawasaki touring motorcycle around the US, I never created or was bewildered with a title for what I was doing. However, over the years my family and friends have described me as crazy, unhinged, or weird to travel by motorcycle without no particular destination. Little do they know, of the people I have been impressed with who ride their bicycles and simply walked/hike across and around North, Central, South America and the world.
During the early years of my travels, I was happiest simply getting away from work to de-stress. Usually, for me, it was the third or fourth day out when completely relaxed when reality crept into my thoughts of knowing I had to return to work.
I’m convinced travel is apart of humanities DNA, to satisfy our curiosity, to explore and discover something we were not aware of and it is the journey, with its encounters of the various people their modes of travel that bonds the travel community together.
Fast forward thirty plus years to today, as a retiree as I have recently completed two six-month stints of nomadically traveling around the US from Florida to California, exploring historical sites, touring the National Parks, hiking, camping and discovering the Bureau of Land Management, also known as BLM.
There has been one aspect of my travels that I find unique and it is the titles people or society at large has applied to define what I’m doing.
I have been described as a digital nomad, grey nomad, travel blogger/writer, vagabond a person filled with wanderlust, a solo traveler, and that I’m on a permanent mancation, which I really like.
Some of my travels were inspired by authors, John Steinbeck’s, “Travels with Charley in search of America,” and Jack Kerouac’s, “On the Road,” but I have conjured up my own title based on my type of travel and it is. “Expedition Overlanding Nomadically seeking Adventures.
Travel is defined by the traveler based on their mode of travel, destinations, and activities the traveler focuses on exploring to discover.
MJL