The Art of Manliness - #653： The Dirtbag's Guide to Life

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast if you call someone

00:00:11.500 a dirtbag you might be insulting them for being dishonest or you might be describing their 0.85

00:00:15.900 lifestyle the pursuit of an outdoor passion at the expense of more mainstream options and

00:00:19.880 commitments if you ever dreamed of being a rock climber living in a van or becoming a rafting

00:00:23.820 guide through hiker world traveler or some other kind of nature loving adventure seeking wanderer

00:00:28.000 my guest has written a handbook for making it happen his name is tim mathis and he's the author

00:00:31.720 of the dirtbags guide to life eternal truth for hiker trash ski bums and vagabonds tim and i begin 0.96

00:00:36.600 our conversation what it means to be a dirtbag the origin the term amongst the early rock climbers

00:00:40.580 who explored yosemite in the 1950s and 60s and why tim thinks the lifestyle embodies a countercultural

00:00:45.600 philosophy tim then offers a window into why others might adopt this approach to life by sharing his

00:00:50.220 story of how he personally became committed to dirtbagging from there we turn to the brass tacks

00:00:53.960 of embracing a life centered on outdoor adventure and exploration beginning with how much money you

00:00:57.680 actually need to make it happen and the kinds of jobs and careers that are conducive to it

00:01:01.640 including perhaps surprisingly the field of nursing tim also shares how he responds to criticism that

00:01:06.760 being a dirtbag isn't a responsible way to live we then discuss the effect dirtbagging can have on

00:01:10.920 someone's relationships and whether this lifestyle is viable if you have a spouse and kids and at the

00:01:14.960 end of our conversation we discuss how even if you're living a more freewheeling lifestyle it's

00:01:18.860 important to have a sense of meaning beyond traveling around and doing cool stuff and the three

00:01:22.480 elements that go into finding that kind of meaning which apply to dirtbags and non-dirtbags

00:01:26.520 to life after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is slash dirtbag

00:01:30.620 all right tim mathis welcome to the show yeah thanks brett it's good to be here so you are the

00:01:46.320 author of a book called the dirtbags guide to life eternal truth for hiker trash ski bums and vagabonds 0.99

00:01:53.720 so i think most people they've heard the term dirtbag but they heard it as a pejorative like

00:01:57.780 that guy's such a dirtbag but this book's about dirtbag is actually a lifestyle for those who aren't

00:02:02.620 familiar with dirtbagging what does that entail you're right the term dirtbag i think it initially

00:02:08.440 originated as sort of pejorative and it even in sort of the way it's applied in the way that i use it

00:02:13.900 it was initially applied to people in a pejorative way and they've sort of embraced it and and run with

00:02:19.900 it as so often seems to happen but yeah the basics i think if i think people who are familiar with sort

00:02:25.720 of outdoor sports in the outdoor community will have heard the term dirtbag as a reference to

00:02:30.520 like a certain type of person in the outdoor community they're the type of person who i think

00:02:36.620 traditionally if you thought about these people they're the people who basically quit their jobs

00:02:42.180 and go pursue their their sport so they're either climbers who quit their job and go live in yosemite

00:02:48.020 for the summer or they're through hikers who go hike the appalachian trail or the pacific crest trail

00:02:53.740 keep sort of low level bartending jobs or something in between hikes or they're like the the ski bombs or

00:03:00.980 they're the the sort of rafting guides those people get referred to as dirtbags a lot they're the people

00:03:06.280 who i guess pursue their love of of the outdoors and their love of a particular activity in the outdoors

00:03:12.900 to the at the expense of other aspects of their life whether that's like their jobs or their career

00:03:18.660 paths or money or whatever it might be i also think like one of the one of the things i talk about in

00:03:24.400 the book as you mentioned it's sort of a there's a lifestyle element to it but i i also think that

00:03:30.200 one of the things that i came to realize as i was writing the book is that it's also i think it's it's

00:03:36.360 fair to label it as a counterculture it's like a group of people who are rejecting a lot of the

00:03:43.120 mainstream ways of pursuing life in favor of a different path so they're kind of in the tradition

00:03:49.760 of lots of other types of countercultures like the hippies and the the punk rockers and those sorts

00:03:56.020 of things these are people who are forging their own path and and rejecting the the traditional options

00:04:01.360 that are offered to them and what's the history of dirtbagging is this a recent phenomenon or is

00:04:06.200 this something that goes back a couple decades yeah well it's pretty interesting once you start

00:04:10.580 digging into it one of the questions i was trying to answer with the book initially was where did this

00:04:16.140 concept come from and who were the first dirtbags who were the how long have people been using this

00:04:22.560 term in this sort of way and there actually is a there's a pretty you can you can kind of kind of

00:04:27.760 piece together the history of it the first people who it seems like were really referred to in this

00:04:33.440 way and and sort of embraced it were a group of climbers in yosemite in the 1950s and 60s there's

00:04:41.420 actually a a decent actually a really good film about these guys called valley uprising that really

00:04:48.440 tells the genesis story of this dirtbag community that i'm talking about so these were these were 0.62

00:04:54.320 essentially hippies in the the 50s and 60s they're like the proto hippie like jack kerouac types who

00:05:00.500 were very intentional about the fact that they were like disappointing their parents by like not

00:05:05.400 pursuing and not pursuing a real job but were going and living in like camps in in yosemite and climbing

00:05:11.840 all the time and these were these were rock climbers and these guys put up a lot of the the original

00:05:16.460 roots in yosemite they're kind of legendary in the the climbing community it's guys like royal robins

00:05:21.800 and yvon chenard who was the founder of patagonia is another guy who's associated with those early

00:05:26.920 stage dirt bags and his book let my people go surfing is another origin story about sort of how

00:05:33.500 this dirtbag culture was developed and his his story is really about a trip to patagonia and pursuing 0.71

00:05:40.420 surfing at the expense of other things and just sort of the beauty in that it's a term that we're not

00:05:46.360 really sure i'm not really sure anyway who used the term first actually yvon chenard gets credited

00:05:51.720 with it there are some some quotes from early on like in the 60s or something where he he like

00:05:57.040 mentioned that these guys in yosemite get get called dirtbags and they are a bunch of dirtbags but

00:06:02.980 but probably like he wasn't the first one to to use the term but he was one of the people that

00:06:08.540 that definitely was influential in the concept spreading so there's climbers i think like a lot

00:06:13.820 of times climbers will be kind of protective of the term like it's they own it or whatever but it's

00:06:18.220 times gone on in the last couple decades really well i mean it's been it's been 60 years now i guess

00:06:23.900 really people from all different aspects of the outdoor community have lived the same lifestyle i

00:06:29.640 guess you know my my introduction to dirtbagging has mostly been through through hiking and trail

00:06:35.980 running and through hikers are consummate dirtbags because they're people who you know to hike the

00:06:41.740 pacific crest trail or to hike the appalachian trail it takes it takes five or six months for a lot of

00:06:46.160 people so you kind of have to organize at least one year of your life around it so these are people

00:06:51.160 who quit their sort of traditional path and pursue this sort of love of the outdoors and people do

00:06:56.880 that you find across all the all the outdoor communities there's dirtbag mountain bikers rafting

00:07:01.800 guides are classic dirtbags i think they're another group of people that primarily you know they work

00:07:06.920 summers and sometimes they they chase summers around the world ski bums also are like the classic dirtbag

00:07:13.160 types right there are people who are just kind of chasing powder chasing winter around the world

00:07:17.620 they're sort of organizing their whole life around this outdoor sport so what i think has happened is

00:07:22.520 like a lot of people with similar interests pursuing it in a slightly different way have all developed

00:07:28.920 a similar approach to life for similar reasons and i think the term dirtbag has gotten applied to all

00:07:34.340 of them at different times um and in in sort of writing the book and looking at these different groups

00:07:39.340 thing that i kind of came to was the idea that this is really it's best if you think about this

00:07:44.760 as sort of a counterculture even if a lot of the people in the counterculture wouldn't have 0.53

00:07:49.380 necessarily identified that themselves well so you mentioned you you've become a dirtbag yourself 0.55

00:07:54.580 you weren't a climber you got into the the counterculture of dirtbagging through through hiking

00:07:59.340 uh when did this happen like and when did you like why did you decide was it sort of like a

00:08:03.980 saw on the road to damascus you know instant conversion or did you like slowly find yourself

00:08:09.160 becoming a dirtbag yeah that story is kind of as long or as short as you want i think there's a

00:08:14.600 couple different things i would say about it one is that i think that the outdoors and just kind of

00:08:22.120 playing outside has always been important part of my life you know i grew up in the country in southern

00:08:27.460 ohio so very much farm country not the kind of place you would associate with rock climbing or mountain

00:08:33.060 biking or hiking well i mean you know we did a little bit of hiking but you know not a lot of

00:08:37.500 this sort of like west coast rich white people type outdoor activities but was a lot of the playing in

00:08:44.560 creeks and like shooting guns with my friends and we did some hiking we did some camping we did some

00:08:50.680 fishing all those those sorts of like midwestern outdoor activities were always a big part of my

00:08:55.180 life when i was young and then an important genesis point was we went my at the time

00:09:02.700 fiancee who's now my wife did an exchange program in australia for a quarter during her undergrad and 1.00

00:09:11.260 i went over there and we basically dirtbagged around for about a month while i was there on

00:09:15.860 the east coast of australia and that was very much sort of an eye-opening experience for sort of a kid

00:09:21.440 from the small town midwest that the world's a really big place and there's a lot of cool places in it

00:09:27.120 and you could spend a whole lifetime exploring so so that planted the seed after that we um we did a

00:09:34.440 lot of different things we moved to new zealand after we graduated from college and we spent a few

00:09:38.760 years there and did a lot of hiking and i did a master's degree that was focused on science and

00:09:43.440 religion that was really focused in a way i wasn't thinking of it in these terms at the time but in a

00:09:48.640 way it was focused on this it was really the question of like how people find meaning and purpose

00:09:53.720 in nature and the the world around them so so that you know i kind of got into it academically

00:09:59.820 we got into trail running after we moved back to the states after the degree that was um that was in

00:10:06.380 2005 we we moved to the seattle area and we got really into trail and ultra running ultra running

00:10:11.820 itself is basically a lifestyle because in order to train for for races that take all day you basically

00:10:17.040 have to spend all your time that you're not at work running so so you know we got in the lifestyle

00:10:22.300 of it there and then i think the story i want to tell though is is that sort of genesis moment when

00:10:29.620 i sort of connected the dots that this was a thing i was gonna i was focusing my life on versus just a

00:10:35.720 thing that doing for fun in 2015 is sort of when when the dots connected we'd gotten into into trail

00:10:43.520 running and had been pretty seriously into it for about five years by 2015 and we'd done a lot of

00:10:50.920 really long races we've done 100 mile ultra marathons and a lot of sort of self-supported

00:10:56.040 stuff and we're just kind of looking for next steps and in the trail running community there's

00:11:01.260 a lot of overlap with the through hiking community you know there's a lot of people who love being

00:11:06.480 outside and love going long distances so it's pretty it's not surprising i guess that you also meet

00:11:12.240 people who've done that for extended periods of time on on these longer through hikes like the pacific

00:11:16.840 crest trail or the appalachian trail or the continental divide trail or what have you and so

00:11:22.400 we we met a fair number of people who'd who'd hiked the pacific crest trail i mean it sort of planted a

00:11:27.320 seed for us and in 2015 just sort of our lives lined up in a way that we were at a place financially

00:11:34.500 where we could quit our jobs we were both nurses so career stability was not really that much of a

00:11:41.640 concern like great thing about nursing for this kind of lifestyle is you kind of quit a job and 1.00

00:11:46.040 and come back to another one and so anyway in 2015 we decided that we were gonna take the leap

00:11:52.500 and quit our jobs and go hike the pacific crest trail we never done much long distance hiking like

00:11:58.160 that the longest i think we'd been out was probably three or four days before that but this was a great

00:12:03.200 next step for us after feeling like we'd done our thing with ultra running and looking for what's next

00:12:08.140 so we got our we got our schedule together and we were gonna leave for the trail in april of 2015

00:12:15.680 and everything was all prepared you know i was heading towards my last day at work and i got a

00:12:21.760 call one day while i was at work that my dad had collapsed at his job and had gone into a seizure

00:12:29.620 my dad is not someone who'd ever had seizures he was he was 62 at the time and he he never had a

00:12:35.300 seizure in his life and if you know anything about brain health if you if you haven't had seizures

00:12:40.900 early in life and you start to have them later it's a really bad sign there's essentially no good

00:12:46.000 reason that that would happen i mean it's it's likely either a stroke or a tumor or something really

00:12:50.880 serious it took him it took him hours to get him out of the seizure in the meantime i was like

00:12:56.120 planning flights back to ohio which is where he was at the time long story short in that bit we found

00:13:02.540 out that he had glioblastoma which is a really it's both the most common and the most malignant

00:13:09.240 type of brain cancer it's a cancer that there's no there's no remission for it's it's universally

00:13:15.780 fatal there's some treatments that can stretch out life but there's no cure for it so that was

00:13:21.580 obviously a major shock that came at the same time that we were planning this trip you know it was

00:13:27.460 within weeks of when we were planning to leave and so we sort of were thrown into this this crazy

00:13:33.300 what do we do now kind of mode essentially what we what happened is my dad ended up getting a surgery

00:13:40.160 that the doc said was was largely successful they were able to get most of the tumor out they felt

00:13:47.060 good about his prognosis it was in a part of his brain that wasn't required for for life-sustaining

00:13:52.840 functions you need your brain no matter um no matter which part of it you need it but there

00:13:57.480 are some parts that you can survive without and some you can't his was in the front and so

00:14:01.340 he got the surgery the docs felt good about his prognosis they felt like he was going to be around

00:14:07.000 for a couple more years i've been consulting with him and my mom we decided that we were going to

00:14:12.100 continue and go on to the pct like they were pretty insistent on it actually they'd been they'd always

00:14:16.920 been part of this my parents are very supportive right like they've always been part of this

00:14:20.700 process and so they wanted us to go they didn't want us to cancel plans for them they wanted us

00:14:25.580 to go so that's what we did so we started the trail and they actually took us to the took us to the

00:14:30.960 start and it ended up being really the last time that i saw my dad healthy this was about like i said

00:14:37.140 this was about a month after his his initial diagnosis and so just a few weeks really after his

00:14:42.080 surgery but he was up and and well enough to to drive us from las vegas to the start but anyway they

00:14:48.360 dropped us at the start of the trail and we did the normal stuff you do on on a through hike which

00:14:54.820 is realizing how hard it's going to be i'm getting into the grind getting into the the rhythm of like

00:15:01.280 sleeping outside every night figuring out how you resupply and you keep yourself fed and watered you

00:15:06.240 know we walked through the california desert and we were kind of in the process keeping track of what

00:15:13.180 was going on with my dad and things were things were progressing but not they didn't feel great

00:15:17.780 right like he was he got through his chemo all right he had some nausea and stuff it wasn't

00:15:22.960 too terribly bad but he was doing the things you would expect during like chemo and radiation he was

00:15:27.420 sleeping a lot he's feeling tired feeling kind of miserable but generally things looked like they're

00:15:34.080 supposed to look i guess you know we talked to mom and she'd always be like non-committal about how

00:15:38.500 he's doing and he would he would put on a brave face when we had talked to him as well so we just

00:15:43.060 kind of kept plugging along and keeping track of what was happening at home with them the the day

00:15:49.020 after we hit the midway point for the pct we were you know the pct runs through the mountains so very

00:15:55.840 frequently you don't have cell phone reception so the day after we hit the midway point we were walking

00:16:01.620 towards the highway where we were going to hitchhike into town for our next resupply and we started

00:16:06.840 you know we turned on our phones because we're getting back in cell phone service and just started

00:16:11.640 getting all these dings and that's actually pretty ominous in that situation right because we'd usually

00:16:16.180 get one or two messages in this case we're you know there's like 15 or 20 there and so it was it was

00:16:21.380 immediately just had sort of this this sense that things were off essentially that there was a series

00:16:27.280 of of text and voice messages telling us that the the cancer was back and the doctors had suggested

00:16:33.340 another surgery and they were they were wanting to let us know and i think in that time like when

00:16:39.380 when that that series of texts came in i just kind of knew that our trail was over like i that was sort

00:16:45.020 of the sign when when the cancer came back that we were going to get off trail so we hiked our way

00:16:50.560 into town we made a series of phone calls we talked to the doctors and i think as a family decided that

00:16:56.500 it didn't make any sense to put dad through another surgery because the surgery wasn't gonna it was gonna

00:17:02.360 make the quality of his life worse he might not make it through it and there was zero chance that

00:17:06.840 it was gonna solve the situation it was at best gonna give him another month of life or something

00:17:11.900 like that that would have been miserable and he would have had a sort of healing brain during that

00:17:16.460 period so he wouldn't have been even conscious during it so we basically made the decision that

00:17:22.200 that he was you know we were not gonna treat and um we made our way this was in we were sort of in

00:17:28.820 central california so we made our way from central california to reno and then took a bus from reno

00:17:34.040 down to las vegas where we spent the what ended up being the last couple weeks of my dad's life

00:17:38.920 with him again the doctors initially had given a pretty optimistic prognosis i think saying that he

00:17:44.420 you know could he might have six more months or something like that but what actually ended up

00:17:48.860 happening is he passed away within a couple weeks you know we were we were there during that process

00:17:53.320 obviously and that was obviously i think you know for anybody who's who's lost a parent you know it's

00:17:57.840 there's there's a weird sort of transition that happens for everyone when that happens it's there's

00:18:03.440 nothing that shocks you or hits you in the same way and that's that's kind of what what we were going

00:18:08.440 through you know alongside trying to support my dad through his suffering it's like the loss of this

00:18:13.060 my parent and in the meantime we're in the middle of this giant hike so after my dad passed away we spent

00:18:19.540 a few days with my mom and we we talked to my mom about next steps and and once again like our initial

00:18:25.080 plan was that we were gonna just stay there in vegas and talking with my mom she was pretty insistent

00:18:30.920 that we were not gonna do that and that we were gonna go back on trail we made a plan together that

00:18:35.240 she was gonna she was gonna take us back to the start of the trail and then she was gonna she was 1.00

00:18:39.940 somebody who had always kind of wanted to do this kind of thing in life but had never really done it so

00:18:45.200 she made a plan that she was gonna train and get herself in shape and meet us at the end of the 1.00

00:18:49.940 trail she was gonna hike in to the end of the pct and meet us it's about um one of the funny things

00:18:55.200 about the pct is the actual terminus of the trail the northern terminus of the trail is at the u.s

00:19:01.260 canadian border but the the exit the nearest road is still eight miles beyond there so you have to hike

00:19:07.180 another eight miles once you get to the pct before you actually finish so my mom decided that she was

00:19:12.300 gonna train and go on her first backpacking trip ever and meet us at the end of the trail and 0.98

00:19:16.780 basically that's what she did we got back on trail and because um we'd had the delay with going down

00:19:22.080 to be with my dad we really had to like book it so we we took on really got back our ultra running

00:19:27.900 shoes on and and spent two months hiking about 25 miles a day minimum to make it to the end of the

00:19:36.140 trail by the time the snow fell and so it became this major like big epic quest i guess that that

00:19:43.960 finished the way i guess we'd planned it right like we made it by the end of september my mom

00:19:48.200 borrowed some some backpacking gear from some friends she um enlisted my uncle to join her and

00:19:54.560 she hiked in sort of her first overnight backpacking trip and met us at the northern terminus

00:19:59.080 we sprinkled some of my dad's ashes there and then we uh we came out of it so this was sort of

00:20:05.420 obviously a big life experience right and i think like there's there's a couple different things i'd

00:20:10.340 say about it the first is that i've been thinking about through hiking a lot and about like the way

00:20:14.480 it sort of shapes you and traditionally i think when people went on long walks like if you were to put

00:20:19.680 all your belongings on your back and hike for five months at the end of that you're going to be in a

00:20:25.980 very different place from where you started right like that's that's really migration right like

00:20:30.340 that's not just a thing people did recreationally that's migration and i think there's something

00:20:34.460 probably there's something hardwired into humans that when you do something like that you just come

00:20:39.360 out of it expecting that you're going to be changed by it and that you're going to sort of be in a

00:20:43.300 different world than than the one where you started and that's that's something that i think it

00:20:48.540 happens pretty naturally and most people i think they're who's through hike will will tell you that

00:20:53.400 they were changed in some way or another by it but the fact that this happened in the context of my

00:20:57.720 dad dying and dying pretty young i think the way it changed me was to get give me this sense that

00:21:05.180 life is pretty short and it's not guaranteed at all i mean my dad had previously been entirely healthy

00:21:11.580 it'd probably been a decade since he'd been to the doctor before this right and so he it just really

00:21:17.440 came out of nowhere and it just hit me and and my wife as well i think in a way that just just made

00:21:23.720 us feel like we had to do the things we want to do in life we have to like think really hard about

00:21:29.200 that and and pursue it because nothing's ever guaranteed and that was really the experience that

00:21:35.520 sort of comprehensive experience is what led us i think to be more intentional about pursuing the

00:21:41.960 things that we love to do and and ultimately that's come down to travel and it's come down to

00:21:47.920 these sort of outdoor pursuits like hiking and we've taken up some kayaking and trail running and

00:21:53.240 learning to mountain bike and sail at the moment so just just sort of pursuing those things as more

00:21:58.680 central things in our life i think that that was you know there's almost a literal road to damascus

00:22:04.040 thing there right like but it was it was pretty conscious at that point like like i said previously we

00:22:09.340 hadn't i hadn't really thought in those terms it was just stuff we're doing for fun but after this

00:22:13.660 it was just sort of a very conscious this is the lifestyle i'm going to pursue well and you also i

00:22:19.300 mean it's interesting with that story um thanks for sharing that that you you you talked to other

00:22:24.080 people who are dirtbaggers and they had a lot of them had similar stories of why they became dirtbaggers

00:22:27.980 themselves they had a a big experience someone died they got a sickness they overcame they lost a job

00:22:33.420 whatever and they decided that was the thing that kind of i don't know shook them and said i gotta start

00:22:37.580 doing the things that i i really enjoy and they end up being a ski bum or a through hike or whatever

00:22:43.880 and it's amazing like the different like people from all walks of life it was you know people who

00:22:48.180 were once you know corporate ceos or people who were just they started doing that when they were in

00:22:52.640 college and kept kept going we're gonna take a quick break for your word from our sponsors

00:22:57.120 and now back to the show well let's let's talk about let's get so this is this sort of big picture

00:23:03.660 like why people become dirtbaggers you know might be a big life event that happens or they're trying

00:23:07.840 to pursue uh there's a certain lifestyle they want to live philosophy they're trying to live out

00:23:12.560 but what i love about the book is how brass tacks you get with it because i think a lot of people

00:23:18.440 they they see those folks who are you know through hiking they're just camping all the time they're

00:23:23.880 skiing all the time they think man that would be awesome but i can never do that and the first

00:23:29.820 reason people give for not being able to you know do that you know basically just make their whole

00:23:34.560 life an adventure is money specifically that they don't have enough money to live a life of adventure

00:23:40.280 but this book you just say you don't actually need that much money so how much money do you actually

00:23:44.880 need to live a dirtbag lifestyle yeah yeah you're you're absolutely right that's sam it's it's a good

00:23:51.720 question and it's it's a very common reason people like look at these these sorts of lives and say

00:23:57.380 like you know must be nice to be able to do that or must be nice to be able to afford that but

00:24:01.220 the one of the big driving points of the book one of the big driving motivations is that it shouldn't

00:24:07.620 it shouldn't you shouldn't have to have a lot of money to have a good life and to put together a good

00:24:11.540 life and one of the big things that i think i've i've learned as we've sort of pursued these types of

00:24:19.780 of things like traveling or through hiking or whatever is that you can actually you can do it on as

00:24:25.160 as small of a budget or as big of a budget as you want right the thing i've sort of talked about is

00:24:30.100 like really the goal you know sort of lifestyle talked about in the book is is about exploration

00:24:34.880 right it's figuring out like how to sort of experience the world in its fullest and connect

00:24:40.120 with the natural world around you in a in as direct a way as possible and you can do that in a lot of

00:24:45.080 different ways so you can do that in the context of working a job and going out and being a weekend

00:24:49.900 warrior or you can do it in the context of drifting around central america or whatever and

00:24:55.040 and surfing there's a million different ways you can do it so really there's a million different

00:24:59.020 budgets you can do it on it's it's very individualizable maybe the most just just to

00:25:04.400 give a little bit of concreteness to this there actually are some pretty cheap ways that you can

00:25:08.840 you can travel and adventure through hiking for us was a nice sort of nice wake-up call in that regard

00:25:15.040 because it really only costs about most people estimate it's about a thousand dollars

00:25:19.980 a month to through hike on a on a pretty normal budget that's it's not nothing but it's also

00:25:26.600 actually not that much you would spend most people in their day-to-day life are going to spend well over

00:25:32.200 a thousand dollars what happens is if you choose to live a life where you you sleep outside every

00:25:37.120 night and you eat out of grocery stores and that's really your only expense like that actually

00:25:42.800 narrows down your cost pretty significantly so through hiking is a pretty accessible way to travel and

00:25:49.140 adventure financially another thing is is a big part of our sort of adventure story is is always

00:25:55.440 been around traveling and there are a lot of places in the world where if you can if you can save up to

00:26:00.600 get a ticket you can survive on not much money at all once you get there we spent about four months

00:26:06.880 traveling around latin america after we hiked the pct and and again it was our budget down there was

00:26:12.820 really only about a thousand dollars a person a month so that looked like essentially bussing around

00:26:17.720 staying in airbnbs or hostels checking out beaches going on hikes doing low-key stuff but just doing

00:26:23.420 it in cheap countries so again that thousand dollars a month is is like a good number for somebody who

00:26:29.760 if you're you know i'm not we're budget travelers but i'm not like crazy budget travelers so i think

00:26:35.500 that's very doable a lot of it really depends on where you're going and what you're doing i talk a lot

00:26:40.140 about career and and sort of how you earn your money as well and one of the things to think about is that

00:26:45.080 going on adventures and these sort of big epic trips are not exclusive of work either i think

00:26:51.240 that that's a sort of misnomer is that people just play outside all the time and that's that's

00:26:55.780 typically not the case right like people are typically working when they're doing this and

00:26:59.500 you can the world is populated by hostile working like 22 year olds with no money at all who are 0.83

00:27:05.800 surviving basically just on on room and board from the hostel and and checking out like bolivia or

00:27:12.660 whatever while they're doing it you know ski fields are populated by ski bumps who make a

00:27:17.340 couple bucks an hour running lifts or whatever but get the perk of being able to do what they love on

00:27:21.820 the weekends or on their time off there's costs associated but there's also ways that you can

00:27:26.080 figure out how to do it even if you don't have you're not starting with much money at all well

00:27:30.740 yeah i love you you in the section about finances you lay out some like rules that i think they're

00:27:35.140 they're not only apply to like you know allowing to live you the dirt back life they're just good

00:27:38.340 financial rules like for example you know start with what you have rather than what things cost

00:27:43.140 instead of thinking about i need to buy i need to go to rei and buy all this cool stuff it's like

00:27:47.660 well what do i got already in my garage that i can use other other great tips go where you can afford

00:27:53.760 you're talking about that it's no brainer things simplify cut other things you don't care about

00:27:58.540 i mean this this not i mean what i love about it was not only applicable to you know live in a

00:28:02.560 dirtbag lifestyle but this is just good financial advice for just your life in general 0.94

00:28:06.580 honestly most of our financial savvy came from my wife and my wife was raised in a relatively i mean

00:28:14.240 both of us were raised very like sort of working class but she was she was raised in relative poverty

00:28:19.220 and she learned from like her grandma who was a bank teller her whole life and raised a family on 0.82

00:28:24.900 that income like how to get the most out of the money you've got and how not to to waste it you know

00:28:31.160 and so really honestly most of the financial advice in the book was stuff that that basically we picked

00:28:37.840 up along the way from just the experience of of having to do that you know a million things you

00:28:43.080 can take from people who figure out how to how to get through life without much money that you can

00:28:47.820 apply in in a situation that's that's focused on trying to adventure more right well it was going

00:28:53.360 back to this idea of career so some dirtbags they find careers that suit their their their adventure

00:28:59.500 choice so if you're into skiing you become a ski bum you work the ski lifts if you're a surfer you

00:29:04.520 become maybe a surf instructor then you can surf whatever but besides that what are some other ways

00:29:09.000 that you saw that people were you know making money having a career while still embracing this

00:29:15.080 life of adventure yeah totally because you i mean you have to get through your life right you know

00:29:19.260 you you have to figure out how to make money and career is basically that i think one of the

00:29:23.980 things i think is important it's been important for me anyway is to think about career

00:29:28.180 and sort of what you want to do in life as separate entities they overlap sometimes but

00:29:33.180 they're not necessarily always the same thing sometimes your career your job is just the way

00:29:37.320 you make money and if you're wanting to like figure out how to make money while also spending a lot of

00:29:44.300 time taking a lot of time off spending a lot of time exploring you you can think in a lot of

00:29:49.180 different directions like you said you can do the obvious thing and become a guide and do that for a

00:29:53.400 but sometimes you don't want to you know sometimes that kills it anyway so some people just aren't you

00:29:58.300 know not really people persons they don't necessarily want to do that so you think about like finding a

00:30:03.120 career that is going to be it's not going to raise eyebrows if you take a lot of time off or that's

00:30:09.380 contract based and it's sort of built in that you're going to have time to yourself to do other

00:30:14.140 things and there's a lot of different there's a surprising number i think of of jobs like that you know

00:30:19.420 when we're living in the seattle area there were just a ton of tech workers who were kind of in that

00:30:23.420 boat right like they take microsoft contracts and they'd work on a project for a year and a half and

00:30:27.720 then they'd they'd you know be done and they could do whatever they want before they took their next

00:30:31.640 contract i work like i said i work in nursing and health care is fantastic for that there's there's so

00:30:37.860 many jobs and so many different types of contracts you can take that it's it's pretty normal to take a

00:30:44.100 three-month contract and and then take some time off afterwards like there's a whole culture around it in

00:30:48.980 nursing and and in lots of different health care fields i've known people who are various types of

00:30:53.640 of health care techs who've done that sort of thing the first time i actually encountered this kind of

00:30:59.940 approach to life was like when i was working construction for a summer after college and i met

00:31:05.800 a bunch of union electricians who they would have you know they would have jobs intermittently so

00:31:10.880 they'd be working on a job for you know eight months or whatever and then over the winter they

00:31:15.060 wouldn't have any work and so they would fly somewhere cheap they would like fly to thailand

00:31:19.600 or they would fly to mexico or whatever and they would just hang out there for a few months waiting

00:31:23.940 for their their next job because it was like one it was it was an amazing life experience and two it was

00:31:28.780 like actually cheaper to do that than to stay at home there's a lot of different there's a lot of

00:31:33.200 different jobs that are actually pretty well set up for this kind of thing there definitely are some

00:31:37.920 that are better than others right like i mentioned that i did a master's degree and i was thinking

00:31:41.440 about academics and one of the whole reason that i quit that track is i realized it was going to

00:31:45.260 absorb my whole life and i didn't want my whole life to be devoted to my job there are some jobs

00:31:49.440 that it's harder to do this with than others if you're young you've got an advantage because you

00:31:53.880 can pick a career path that's going to be more amenable to doing the things you actually like and

00:31:58.240 the lifestyle you want well yeah and so yeah you have to think outside the box here when it comes to

00:32:02.700 your career it's like you know if you want to be a trial lawyer i mean probably going to be hard to do

00:32:08.260 become a be a dirtbag and that do that at the same time but that's okay i mean because you find

00:32:12.720 something you want to do all right okay so i think another reason and you talk about this in the book

00:32:16.440 that people feel squeamish about becoming a full-time adventurer is that it like doesn't feel

00:32:21.440 responsible like you're becoming you're becoming a bum right like you're just skiing that's all you do 0.98

00:32:27.400 what's your response to this reluctance yeah i think this is a big one right people think about

00:32:34.260 like responsibilities it's a really vague term right like you're like i've just got i've got too

00:32:39.340 many responsibilities like what does that even mean and there's there's a couple different things like

00:32:44.740 i think it's it's worth pointing out one of them is that a lot of the things that people think of as

00:32:50.800 responsibilities are actually just social expectations and they don't actually they're not

00:32:56.480 actually things that you should or have to do this gets right into that concept that like dirtbagging

00:33:03.100 these people are basically part of a counterculture because the counterculture in a way is critiquing a

00:33:08.620 lot of like traditional notions of what it means to be a responsible adult being a responsible adult

00:33:14.640 doesn't necessarily mean that you have to have you have to own a house or you have to have nice clothes

00:33:21.800 or you have to pursue a certain type of career or you have to provide all the best in terms of

00:33:28.580 financial and material things for your kids like those things aren't responsibilities in the sense that

00:33:34.080 they aren't things that you actually should or have to do and i think actually some of those social

00:33:40.040 norms that are thought of is when people think of the term responsibility are actually super destructive

00:33:47.620 not just for like individuals but they're there's they're part of what's driving

00:33:51.660 the destruction of the the natural environment that we live in and over consumption and you know

00:33:58.380 this sort of disconnect from from the people around us and the the environment around us like

00:34:03.360 some of those some of those responsibilities are actually things that i think are healthy to to kind

00:34:09.060 of attack and critique and one of the things i talk about and one of the ways i think about this is that

00:34:15.560 dirtbags are kind of like monks and nuns in the sense that they're the people who are practicing 1.00

00:34:22.000 this approach to life in the most extreme ways right and they're sort of learning things and

00:34:27.560 communicating things that other people can learn from they might you know quitting your job and

00:34:32.520 traveling for two years might be something that most people aren't going to do but the people who do do

00:34:38.140 it they learn things about life that are going to be really valuable to other people around them so

00:34:43.700 so that's one of the ways i think about like how this sort of lifestyle can be responsible is it's

00:34:49.300 it's actually communicating something important to the world and you're you're learning important

00:34:53.320 things about life that other people gain from another way another thing i talk about though is that

00:34:59.020 the stuff that you actually should be responsible for you know there are things there are things you

00:35:03.680 should do in life treat other people with respect you should you know meet your financial

00:35:08.380 obligations if you've got debts you should pay them off if you you know you should be a decent

00:35:13.220 person you should contribute to your community all those sorts of things but there's no reason at

00:35:17.760 all that you can't do those things in the context of also like pursuing your passions if exploration is

00:35:25.420 your passion like pursuing that is an entirely responsible thing to do that you can that the

00:35:31.660 world will gain from gotcha so okay i think that's a good distinction make sure you make a distinction

00:35:35.960 between actual responsibilities and just social conventions but yeah that social convention that could

00:35:40.660 still be hard to overcome right because your people are just like man this doesn't this is not what 0.80

00:35:45.420 you're supposed to do but you know who says right i think it should feel weird to you know live

00:35:52.920 live in like a way that critiques the sort of mainstream approach to life like it should feel weird

00:35:58.820 because those things are the things that are ingrained and it's a hard thing to do and it's never

00:36:03.400 it's never clear there's a lot always a lot of fuzziness what are the shoulds in life i think all of us are

00:36:07.880 trying to figure that out as we go along all right let's talk about relationships and living

00:36:12.620 the dirtbag lifestyle so these early dirtbaggers they're probably bachelors they had their buds but

00:36:17.820 they i imagine they weren't married or had girlfriends or whatever is dirtbagging conducive

00:36:23.580 to relationships yeah i mean that's that's another that's another big one and i think in the book i

00:36:29.140 definitely there's a little bit of a reality check with that one where i'm like yeah actually

00:36:33.520 if you choose to go pursue some path in life that's that's focused on that's going to take

00:36:41.100 you outside of normal social circles it's going to take you you know you're going to travel a lot

00:36:45.900 and those sorts of things it is going to impact your relationships and and there's some some

00:36:50.260 relationships that won't survive that and that's i think that that just is a reality it's a thing that

00:36:55.900 i've experienced myself as we've moved around you do just lose some connections the internet has made

00:37:01.360 maintaining connections across the distance way easier but it's still you know you're still not

00:37:06.480 seeing the same people on a day-to-day basis but i mean the flip side of that is when you do this

00:37:12.120 sort of stuff you also meet other people who are doing the same i think of it in a lot of ways like

00:37:16.780 any interest if you become an engineer you're going to meet lots of other engineers if you become an

00:37:21.300 adventurer you're going to meet lots of other adventurers so one of the things i talk about in the

00:37:25.600 the book is the concept that cool but gets cool the the general idea is if you do cool stuff and

00:37:32.140 if you pursue stuff you're passionate about you're going to meet lots of other people who are doing

00:37:35.940 the same and you're going to build new relationships with them and you guys are going to inspire each

00:37:40.920 other to do even cooler stuff talk a little bit about marriages and relationships and that sort of

00:37:46.320 thing and and those are tricky ones like family relationships i think are the trickiest because

00:37:50.600 you don't necessarily you don't always have the same interests as your family members and i've been

00:37:55.000 i've been super lucky that angel my wife and i both are really into this kind of thing and so we've

00:38:00.740 spurred each other along it's one of the reasons i think we've been able to build our life around it

00:38:05.900 in a way that a lot of people wouldn't we both kind of want to do it you know it's true there's some

00:38:11.560 people who their their partner really doesn't want to they don't want to spend all weekend every

00:38:16.560 weekend running ultra marathons or like they don't want to take six months off and go bus around europe

00:38:22.120 or whatever it's just not their thing and so those are trickier to manage and then if you had kids into

00:38:27.780 the equation it's a total crapshoot at least with your partner you know a little bit about them before

00:38:32.360 you've formed a relationship with kids who knows what they're going to be like it is true it it impacts

00:38:37.220 you and it is i think it is um it's one of those responsibility things too i think that i think that if you

00:38:43.020 have kids and it's best for them to be in a situation at home or continue with their school

00:38:49.500 or whatever you know it is irresponsible to not provide that support for them so there are there

00:38:54.120 are ways in which relationships should and do impact on on the choices you make but that doesn't

00:38:59.600 necessarily mean that you don't spend don't focus your life on on the things that you care about and

00:39:04.220 think are important and figure out how to do those in in different ways it just means that your life

00:39:09.340 looks different well and speaking about the kids you actually encountered people who were living

00:39:13.920 the dirtbag lifestyle with kids i think there's like a lady i think i think she might have been a 1.00

00:39:17.920 single mom had like six kids or something and she was like hiking a through trail with like all her 1.00

00:39:23.740 kids and like she's making it work like hey good for her yeah it's it's our friend amy who we actually

00:39:29.440 we just kind of met her actually randomly in seattle we didn't meet her through through hiking but

00:39:33.860 she hiked most of the appalachian trail with two twins and so two young sons and then two daughters

00:39:42.420 and one of her daughters has down syndrome so she's she's figured it out right like if she can figure

00:39:47.500 that out i think her sons were six or seven when they started the trail one of them finished one of

00:39:52.960 them didn't but if she can figure out like a lot of people can figure it out we have friends who

00:39:57.400 right now are are traveling around with two young sons and they they basically don't have a home base

00:40:04.220 they just kind of travel to different parts of the world for like a month or two at a time and they run

00:40:08.520 an online business and and they're raising their kids on the road another woman who i actually grew 0.99

00:40:13.480 up with in ohio i found out after i wrote the book actually has been traveling in an rv with her i think

00:40:21.340 she has three kids and her husband for for years just different parts of the country homeschooling

00:40:27.640 living on the road so there's people who figure it out you know more power to them and and i we

00:40:32.560 haven't had children and and it's definitely made decisions less complicated but people clearly do

00:40:37.680 figure it out and every family is going to have different strategies that are good for them and work

00:40:43.720 for them but but yeah totally people figure out how to live some pretty crazy lives boat people are great

00:40:48.360 for that too you know hang out hang around a marina and you're going to meet families full of people

00:40:52.120 who are like sailing around the world and doing all kinds of crazy stuff well so okay dirtbagging can

00:40:57.240 have adverse effects on your pre-dirtbag relationships like friends family before you're just going to lose

00:41:03.440 touch with them you're going to be gone all possibly be gone a lot but as you said you're going to be

00:41:07.560 introduced to a new community and like that community of dirt fellow dirtbaggers they can help you 1.00

00:41:12.520 make like the like kind of ease the financial burden right because then you start sharing stuff with each other

00:41:17.140 and they start sharing tips or they you crash at their place or whatever along when you're visiting

00:41:22.420 them so that community that that's there can actually make this easier for you i think that

00:41:27.720 that's that's one of the things once you start meeting people who are into this kind of thing you

00:41:31.900 know it's it's a very supportive community it's a web of people around the world really after the

00:41:37.080 after the trip to latin america in 2016 we've like spent most of our our time with a general base in the

00:41:44.600 pacific northwest and seattle and then tacoma but we've we've been on the road for as long as much

00:41:49.800 as we we've not and we tend to crash at people's houses that we know we we either free camp or we

00:41:56.040 crash at people's houses and so the amount of money i've saved just from having cool supportive friends

00:42:01.480 it's it's it's been in the tens of thousands of dollars just over the last few years just because

00:42:06.360 people are supportive and we try and do the same thing we can let people borrow our house or our car if

00:42:11.240 we're not using it like we're gonna do it because yeah i think it's it's part of the way that you

00:42:16.340 support each other as people are trying to live cool lives like i said when you start doing this

00:42:21.200 like some of the coolest people i've met have been through through hiking we met lots of other cool

00:42:24.920 people through sailing events we've sort of gone along for you just meet people who live cool lives

00:42:30.700 and as you start to do that you build a network of people all over the place that you can connect in

00:42:35.080 and stay with well let's circle back so one of the things that you talked about earlier in your story

00:42:39.380 becoming a dirtbag was um one of those points was your master's thesis on finding meaning in nature

00:42:46.680 and you have a section on this about how to build a meaningful life around the dirtbag lifestyle 0.66

00:42:53.600 and it sounds me like oh yeah i'm gonna go and live my passion and whatever be out in the outdoors

00:42:59.080 doing things that i love but you highlight there's sort of a dark side there can be a dark side to the

00:43:04.300 dirtbag lifestyle um for example i read this article too you highlight there's the national

00:43:08.780 geographic talked about in ski towns there's like been an uptick in suicides from you know there from

00:43:15.600 just people guys who guys who identify themselves as ski bums what's going on there like what do they

00:43:20.340 think that's going on there personally i i kind of experienced this myself so i mentioned that we

00:43:26.480 hiked the pct in 2015 and in 2016 we took an extended trip to latin america and when we weren't

00:43:33.800 there we were we're mostly traveling around the american west and after a year a year or so i just

00:43:40.900 really felt pretty empty and just this sense that we were i was like spending my life drifting around

00:43:46.160 looking at pretty things which is is great for a week or two even a month but after a while you start

00:43:51.400 to feel like like what in the world am i even doing with my life like why am i doing this and i think

00:43:55.620 that's one of the big traps with with pursuing something that's like a passion or recreational

00:44:01.020 or even something that across time you're gonna lose your ability to do like it's one of the things

00:44:06.300 with being and those types of sports as you get older you just physically lose the capacity to do

00:44:11.620 it either you get injured or you just the natural process of aging and if you've been centering your

00:44:16.140 life on that stuff that can trigger some pretty intense midlife crises if you hit a point where this

00:44:20.820 thing that you really have centered your life around you can't do anymore it's it's true

00:44:25.480 that i the national geographic article said there was data saying that there's like suicide rates are

00:44:30.380 higher in ski towns and kind of conjecture on my part but i would imagine that that's basically the

00:44:35.140 dynamic you have these old ski bombs this has been their life and now they can't do it so they they

00:44:39.600 don't figure out how to make the transition and one of the reasons i wanted to talk about that in the

00:44:44.720 book is because i actually think it is it is an essential the book itself is really focused on like

00:44:49.800 how do you manage to live a good life and do the things that you really need to do to survive

00:44:54.560 in this context in a sort of dirtbagging context and and i do think that actually having a sense of

00:45:00.560 meaning and purpose in life is is an essential because eventually you'll either give up on the

00:45:05.680 lifestyle or you'll just give up on life in general and neither one of those really is is

00:45:10.180 neither of those is a good outcome there's a really good book that i i used as a framework for my

00:45:16.340 chapter by a writer named emily s fahani smith that's called the the power of meaning and it's

00:45:22.820 it's basically about this concept it's about the question of like how do human beings develop a sense

00:45:29.360 of meaning and purpose in life and the thing i like about it is a lot of times when you think about

00:45:34.020 like meaning and purpose it all is very like ethereal it's like spiritual and like it doesn't mean

00:45:40.080 anything the book is basically based on a series of interviews she did with people who reported

00:45:46.020 having a strong sense of meaning in life and she looks at the things that they did and have that

00:45:52.320 helped to produce that and so she gives some really practical guidelines and directions and and i think

00:45:58.940 like the the things that she comes to are really useful to think about and they're true for anybody so

00:46:03.940 they're true for people if they're sort of working their nine to five and they're just as true for

00:46:08.500 someone who decides to sit out on the ocean and spend their life sailing you know between pacific

00:46:13.980 islands so the thing she talks about for the ways that people maintain a sense of meaning

00:46:18.440 are one they have a sense of community connection so they have a sense of belonging and a place in

00:46:25.040 the world building a community of people even if you're even if you're sort of drifting around

00:46:29.320 building a community of people that you feel connected to and and having a clear sense of how you fit

00:46:34.140 into it then there's also a need to feel like you have a purpose and in a very specific kind of way

00:46:40.080 right like uh you feel like you're useful to the world like i think that's a that's a thing that i

00:46:44.560 come to a lot is if you're feeling like just not sure what your direction is in life you just figure

00:46:50.680 out ways to make yourself useful it's having that sense of that you have a purpose in the world that's

00:46:56.540 like very concrete like you're doing something beneficial for the world she talks about a sense of

00:47:00.580 transcendence which is uh the sense of having a connection beyond yourself you know again

00:47:06.040 transcendence that's a very like sort of very very kind of word but really what she's talking about

00:47:10.100 is feeling a connection to the world around you whether that's your community whether that's

00:47:14.280 the natural world whether that's like some sort of religious connection people who feel like their

00:47:19.240 life is purposeful have a sense of connection to transcendence and like personally i think this one is is

00:47:24.400 very natural to a lot of people who are in the community like the sort of outdoors community a lot of

00:47:29.660 people go out into the wilderness and in the mountains or into the woods on a regular basis

00:47:34.320 because they have this sense of bigness and transcendence and they're part of something

00:47:38.560 that's much bigger than themselves so that's one that i think outdoor recreation is it's so popular

00:47:44.660 because it gives people that sense of transcendence in a way that a lot of other things don't then

00:47:48.740 finally she talks about like storytelling basically she's just saying you have to be able to think

00:47:53.700 through your story your own personal story and place it in the context of the world you have to be

00:47:59.380 able to make sense of how your life if fits into the bigger picture and that's really what telling

00:48:05.980 your own story is about is like it's being able to make sense from a story perspective of like how

00:48:11.260 you fit into the world so so all those things i guess are things that you know that's not very

00:48:16.320 specific but it's i think it's a it's good because like throughout life you're gonna have to think of

00:48:21.660 how to cultivate a sense of meaning and and the way to do it is to think about the different things

00:48:26.440 it'll actually provide that sense of meaning and and those things you can work out in a lot of

00:48:30.140 different ways in a lot of different contexts so what did you do personally when you were feeling

00:48:34.420 that sort of existential funk after you you know after the the tour the the american west like what

00:48:40.600 did you do to inject some more meaning into your your life yeah good question so um one of them i went

00:48:46.900 basically i went back to my job as a mental health nurse so that is definitely definitely one of the

00:48:54.060 things where i feel like i'm providing some value to my community um i worked for about 10 years as

00:48:58.760 a mental health nurse so so i went back to that and i started working more shifts there and then my

00:49:04.120 wife one of the things i haven't talked about is like my wife started a business called boldly went 0.99

00:49:07.840 that was really it was focused on holding events in the outdoor community where people could tell their

00:49:14.780 stories and then we created um a podcast and and sort of online content coming out of those stories

00:49:20.340 so building that business was another way that we definitely started to recultivate a sense of like

00:49:27.140 meaning and purpose and direction and have you i mean i imagine you encountered a lot of people

00:49:32.600 out on the trail who were they they were basically just trying to escape from something i escaped from

00:49:38.340 life and they weren't really trying to embrace something constructive or meaningful like how do you

00:49:43.340 how do you make sure that if you decide i'm going to become a pacific i'm going to become a through

00:49:47.640 trail hiker that you're not just running away from your problems and you're actually trying to

00:49:52.040 turn towards something constructive that's a good question i think that human beings are pretty good

00:49:58.160 about like instinctually recognizing when something's wrong in their situation and something needs to be

00:50:03.080 done but they're not always that good at figuring out what to do in response i think you're right that

00:50:07.940 there there are a lot of through hikers out there who like life has just been a mess

00:50:11.520 and so they go on the trail to try and solve it and i think that's true with a lot of um escapist

00:50:17.360 kind of things right like if you travel internationally too and you get on the backpacker circuit you're

00:50:21.760 going to meet those kind of people as well who are just basically like home sucked stuff went really

00:50:26.840 sideways so now you know now i'm in ecuador and i don't know what i'm going to do when i go back

00:50:33.040 it's it's kind of tricky and i think part of the process itself helps a lot of people figure out

00:50:37.880 what to do next the general process of travel the general process of doing something physical a lot

00:50:42.580 of times a lot of people sort out their problems on the run a lot of people sort out their problems

00:50:47.020 while they're traveling so i think it's i think it's a good prescription when there is something

00:50:50.480 wrong for a lot of people just to do it and see where it goes but yeah but i think that again it

00:50:55.720 comes back to that that question of responsibility if you're running away from doing things that you

00:51:01.340 should do or doing things that you need to do then you're going down the wrong path you have to

00:51:06.700 figure out how to how to address those things how to confront those things whether that's like

00:51:10.460 problems in relationships or if it's financial problems or whatever you have to figure out how

00:51:15.460 to address those things a lot of times what that comes down to is finding something meaningful to

00:51:21.940 replace those relationships or drug addictions or whatever with it's finding something better to

00:51:27.080 replace it with move in a healthier direction it's a good it's a good question it's it's not a not

00:51:32.540 easy question but yeah i think these types of these types of processes can be part of the

00:51:39.300 the answer well tim where can people get to learn more about the book in your work

00:51:43.600 yeah so the easiest place to find the book is on amazon you know as it's true of pretty much

00:51:49.160 everything in the world so yeah dirtbags guide to life eternal truth for hiker trash ski bums and 1.00

00:51:55.140 bag of bonds it's on amazon it'll be on a bunch of other sites as well pretty much wherever you buy

00:51:59.380 your books and then i've recently launched a blog called dirtbagsguide.com that's focused on

00:52:06.880 sort of continuing to write on some of the same themes that were in the book but you know just

00:52:11.140 trying to make sense a little bit of the 2020 context as well and i have an instagram account

00:52:17.520 that's just if you just search dirtbags guide to life that'll pop up but i'm not that great at

00:52:21.880 keeping that up and i'm kind of over social media marketing so but you can go to instagram too and

00:52:27.540 then my wife and i's business is called boldly went adventures it's uh boldly went adventures.com

00:52:33.900 there's about four years of podcasts there that are stories from all types of of people in the

00:52:41.760 outdoor community a lot of blog content that sort of thing that people can check out as well

00:52:46.220 fantastic well tim mathis thanks for your time it's been a pleasure yeah man thanks for having me it's

00:52:50.820 great my guest there's tim mathis he's the author of the book the dirtbags guide to life it's available

00:52:55.520 on amazon.com you can find out more information about his work at his website boldly went adventures.com

00:53:00.460 also check out our show notes at aom.is slash dirtbag where you find links to resources we delve deeper

00:53:05.080 into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website at

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00:53:48.740 into action

The Art of Manliness - October 19, 2020

#653： The Dirtbag's Guide to Life

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