Coming-of-age on the road as a dirtbag backpacker (with Pam Mandel)

“That sort of fearlessness, and the assumption that the world is a good place – I like holding onto that idea to this day.” – Pam Mandel

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Pam discuss the good that can come out of bad travel, and how Pam became a person who spent a lot of her teen years outside of the US (2:30); how Pam came to travel to Israel and work on a kibbutz as a teenager after high school (9:00); the magic of traveling while young, and Pam’s experiences of hitchhiking across Europe (21:00); Onward travel to Egypt, Pakistan, and India, and how the assumptions of travel as a woman in certain countries are different from those of young men travelers (30:00); what it was like to write a book about experiences that happened 40 years ago (45:00); and how Pam now sees her coming-of-age travels as a complicated mix of good and bad experiences (51:30).

Pam Mandel (@nerdseyeview) is a travel writer and co-founder of The Statesider, a travel newsletter. Her book The Same River Twice, comes out this November. For more about Pam, check out her Nerd’s Eye View blog. 

Notable Links:

• Hippie trail (1960s and 1970s travel subculture)
• Kibbutz (collective community)
• Tony Wheeler (founder of Lonely Planet)
• Squatting (practice of living in abandoned buildings)
• Child marriage in Pakistan
• Fields & Stations (magazine)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets.

This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey.

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

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