Summer, 1998.
You could hear the mechanical rattle from miles away. Soccer moms in minivans turned to look at us in horror as black smoke plumed out of the rear of my car. I had the gas pedal to the floor, yet we were barely creeping along at 50 mph while white smoke seeped through the seams of hood. Suddenly, we more felt than heard the loud bang as something large, metallic, and definitely essential to our journey came tumbling out of the engine compartment and down the road behind us.
Eric looked at me from the passenger seat, through the smoke slowly filling the inside of the car, and said from the passenger seat, “I don't think we're going to make it, dude.”
My only response was to crank up the radio and start laughing maniacally. Joined by Eric and his girlfriend in the back seat, we hooted and hollered into the face of our current disaster. That we wouldn't make it very far was obvious. What was surprising was how much fun it was.
A few days earlier I had left my childhood home of Post Falls, Idaho to move to the great city of Los Angeles, California. Of course, my parents knew nothing of this. Convinced they would never let me leave on such a foolish adventure in a vehicle barely capable of such a journey, I told them I was going to play a show with my band in Seattle.
Doubtful that my car would make it even that far, my parents bought the lie and I took off with the majority of my belongings the next day.
When I hung up the pay phone in Eugene, Oregon, I wasn't feeling that great about myself. My car was on it’s last legs and despite my parent’s offers to buy a greyhound ticket back home, I had decided that I couldn't go back. I was determined to do something besides rot in the hometown I hated, but my dad had been clear; I was on my own from now on. At that moment the thought was terrifying.
I had no idea where to go or what to do from there. I was in a strange city and had the whole world before me. Fortunately, I wasn't alone. One of my best friends of the past few years, the drummer of my band, and the motivating factor for this whole journey in the first place, Geoffrey Kerns stood next to me.
“Dude, let’s go find some punks,” he said. It was sound advice. Punk rock had been the first way I'd been able to connect with people and it fueled the majority of what I wanted to do with my life. I figured it wouldn't be too hard to spot some kids rocking mohawks and studded vests. Perhaps they could help us get the lay of the land and figure out what to do next.
One of the things I've always enjoyed about the punk rock culture is a general willingness to open up to complete strangers based on something as simple as a similar set of ethics, which could often be interpreted through clothing. Some people will criticize ‘fashion punks,’ but more often than not it's served as a useful tool for making friends while looking damn good doing it. It’s a simple equation. If you're wearing an Antischism shirt, you're probably into anarchy. I’m into anarchy, so if you're wearing an Antischism shirt we should probably be friends. Punk patches, spiky hair, and studs can go a long way towards establishing a common bond.
So it was no surprise that we were met with warm smiles from a group of punks just down the road in the outdoor strip mall in downtown Eugene. After a brief explanation of who we were and our current situation, we were immediately pulled in tow on a group mission to come up with beer money and do some drinking down by the river.
Two hours later we sat in a patch of woods with the sun setting on the river behind us and a set of railroad tracks in front. Between the eight of us it didn't take long to come up with the money we needed and we sat in a circle around the three twelve packs needed to start the night. It was there that I first got to know the person that would be my first real travel partner.
Eric was traveling with his girlfriend and another friend named Church-Key. Back then I’d always described Eric as looking like Leonardo DiCaprio with a Mohawk. His girlfriend was blond too, so the two of them made a cute couple, but I didn't find her all that interesting. Church-Key on the other hand was the oldest of the four of us, and the most experienced. I asked him about his name, and he demonstrated for me by taking his bottle opener (which he called a “church key”) and punched series of three holes at the top of my beer. “It’s to let air into the beer as you drink. That way you can drink faster.”
We spent the next few hours drinking and watching freight trains pass by. Church-Key explained how you could hop freight trains all around the country, hitchhike to anywhere you pleased, and the bounty of food to be found in dumpsters wherever you went.
Such base concepts of underground travel were so new to my virgin mind that it felt like my head had exploded. Before that moment things like ‘hitchhiking’ and ‘train hopping’ were the realm of fantasy; things you'd only see and hear about on television or in books. The people I was surrounded by seemed to be laughing in the face of all the naysayers of society, and I wanted to be laughing too. With the split second consideration capable of only the young, I wanted in.
We had gotten along well enough that the next night we decided to pair up into two groups. Geoff was going with Church-key and another person, while I was going with Eric and his girlfriend.
Our goal was to hitchhike to Ashland, Oregon, the next town south worth visiting. There we'd regroup and spend some time exploring. My life had in no way prepared me for this, so I made an emergency run to the local thrift store, where I bought my first travel pack, an old 1970’s frame pack for ten dollars. After picking up a sleeping bag out of the trunk of my car, I'd be set.
My car’s first breakdown had been on the outskirts of Eugene’s south side, so after a short bus ride we found it sitting in the parking lot I'd left it in a few days earlier. I gathered together everything I needed, prepared to ditch all of the remainders of my life that couldn't fit in my backpack. As a joke and expecting nothing, I turned the ignition key.
To my shock the engine turned over and started. The pistons were pounding even worse than they had been before, but we all looked at each other and I simply said, “Fuck it. Let’s see how far we can get.”
We pulled onto the highway laughing maniacally in the face of society and sanity.
The hammering of the engine, the black smoke coming out the back, and the white smoke coming out the front climaxed as the engine’s temperature gauge shot up. Smoke was filling the inside of the car faster than we could get it out the windows, and I knew the last voyage of my first car was at an end. It’s final blaze of glory lasted about three miles.
We pulled into the first rest stop south of Eugene, Oregon and that’s where my lovely turd colored beast gave up the ghost.
We all climbed out of the car as white smoke billowed out of the engine compartment, cursing and kicking it in a half joking manner. As I walked around to the front to open the hood, the beast’s radiator popped, dumping the greenish contents on the ground at my feet.
I looked around us at the scene we were making. At a rest stop in the full swing of summer, we were a group of maniacs laughing and kicking a car in it’s death throes while families in their RV’s looked on like we were one horseman short of the apocalypse. It was no surprise when the police showed up about a half an hour later, just as we were about to stick our thumbs out and continue our adventure southward.
As cops go they were pretty cool, laughing with us and asking us about our piercings and mohawks, and letting us make funny faces as they took polaroids of us. They wouldn't let me ditch the car of course, but they did call a tow truck for it, at which point I sold what remained of it to the junkyard for the price of a tow, and a ride to the next town. Assuming it hasn't been crushed into a tiny square, it’s probably still in Cottage Grove, Oregon with my high school diploma sitting in the back seat.
The next six months of my life was a combination of slowly wandering down (and back up) the west coast, a myriad of misadventures and summer crushes, my first freight train ride, and the beginning of my lifelong addiction to travel. Not just any kind of travel, but that special mix of punk-as-fuck, zero budget wandering with the kind of friends that will never tell you what can and can't be done.
Shortly after this first journey, I started the website Squat the Planet (http://squattheplanet.com). It began as a way for me to document my fascination with this new world in a time before blogs, when coding HTML by hand in Windows Notepad was the norm (For the curious, you can still find this original version of the website at: http://squattheplanet.com/old).
Over the next few years Squat the Planet (StP) would go through a slow metamorphosis, eventually becoming a message board and an entire community of people joined together in a celebration of the ‘travel punk’ lifestyle.
This book is a compilation of the fifteen years of life experience I've gained on this journey. It’s not meant to be a “bible” to this lifestyle or any such nonsense, but rather a practical guide for those who want an escape to the standard career/work/retirement cycle.
Rough Draft Note: So, you might have noticed that last paragraph is kinda odd, and the reason for that is this is a second draft of an introduction I'm writing for my upcoming book The Anarchist's Guide to Travel. I'll be publishing a first draft of each chapter as they get written, so folks can follow along on my progress.
You could hear the mechanical rattle from miles away. Soccer moms in minivans turned to look at us in horror as black smoke plumed out of the rear of my car. I had the gas pedal to the floor, yet we were barely creeping along at 50 mph while white smoke seeped through the seams of hood. Suddenly, we more felt than heard the loud bang as something large, metallic, and definitely essential to our journey came tumbling out of the engine compartment and down the road behind us.
Eric looked at me from the passenger seat, through the smoke slowly filling the inside of the car, and said from the passenger seat, “I don't think we're going to make it, dude.”
My only response was to crank up the radio and start laughing maniacally. Joined by Eric and his girlfriend in the back seat, we hooted and hollered into the face of our current disaster. That we wouldn't make it very far was obvious. What was surprising was how much fun it was.
A few days earlier I had left my childhood home of Post Falls, Idaho to move to the great city of Los Angeles, California. Of course, my parents knew nothing of this. Convinced they would never let me leave on such a foolish adventure in a vehicle barely capable of such a journey, I told them I was going to play a show with my band in Seattle.
Doubtful that my car would make it even that far, my parents bought the lie and I took off with the majority of my belongings the next day.
When I hung up the pay phone in Eugene, Oregon, I wasn't feeling that great about myself. My car was on it’s last legs and despite my parent’s offers to buy a greyhound ticket back home, I had decided that I couldn't go back. I was determined to do something besides rot in the hometown I hated, but my dad had been clear; I was on my own from now on. At that moment the thought was terrifying.
I had no idea where to go or what to do from there. I was in a strange city and had the whole world before me. Fortunately, I wasn't alone. One of my best friends of the past few years, the drummer of my band, and the motivating factor for this whole journey in the first place, Geoffrey Kerns stood next to me.
“Dude, let’s go find some punks,” he said. It was sound advice. Punk rock had been the first way I'd been able to connect with people and it fueled the majority of what I wanted to do with my life. I figured it wouldn't be too hard to spot some kids rocking mohawks and studded vests. Perhaps they could help us get the lay of the land and figure out what to do next.
One of the things I've always enjoyed about the punk rock culture is a general willingness to open up to complete strangers based on something as simple as a similar set of ethics, which could often be interpreted through clothing. Some people will criticize ‘fashion punks,’ but more often than not it's served as a useful tool for making friends while looking damn good doing it. It’s a simple equation. If you're wearing an Antischism shirt, you're probably into anarchy. I’m into anarchy, so if you're wearing an Antischism shirt we should probably be friends. Punk patches, spiky hair, and studs can go a long way towards establishing a common bond.
So it was no surprise that we were met with warm smiles from a group of punks just down the road in the outdoor strip mall in downtown Eugene. After a brief explanation of who we were and our current situation, we were immediately pulled in tow on a group mission to come up with beer money and do some drinking down by the river.
Two hours later we sat in a patch of woods with the sun setting on the river behind us and a set of railroad tracks in front. Between the eight of us it didn't take long to come up with the money we needed and we sat in a circle around the three twelve packs needed to start the night. It was there that I first got to know the person that would be my first real travel partner.
Eric was traveling with his girlfriend and another friend named Church-Key. Back then I’d always described Eric as looking like Leonardo DiCaprio with a Mohawk. His girlfriend was blond too, so the two of them made a cute couple, but I didn't find her all that interesting. Church-Key on the other hand was the oldest of the four of us, and the most experienced. I asked him about his name, and he demonstrated for me by taking his bottle opener (which he called a “church key”) and punched series of three holes at the top of my beer. “It’s to let air into the beer as you drink. That way you can drink faster.”
We spent the next few hours drinking and watching freight trains pass by. Church-Key explained how you could hop freight trains all around the country, hitchhike to anywhere you pleased, and the bounty of food to be found in dumpsters wherever you went.
Such base concepts of underground travel were so new to my virgin mind that it felt like my head had exploded. Before that moment things like ‘hitchhiking’ and ‘train hopping’ were the realm of fantasy; things you'd only see and hear about on television or in books. The people I was surrounded by seemed to be laughing in the face of all the naysayers of society, and I wanted to be laughing too. With the split second consideration capable of only the young, I wanted in.
We had gotten along well enough that the next night we decided to pair up into two groups. Geoff was going with Church-key and another person, while I was going with Eric and his girlfriend.
Our goal was to hitchhike to Ashland, Oregon, the next town south worth visiting. There we'd regroup and spend some time exploring. My life had in no way prepared me for this, so I made an emergency run to the local thrift store, where I bought my first travel pack, an old 1970’s frame pack for ten dollars. After picking up a sleeping bag out of the trunk of my car, I'd be set.
My car’s first breakdown had been on the outskirts of Eugene’s south side, so after a short bus ride we found it sitting in the parking lot I'd left it in a few days earlier. I gathered together everything I needed, prepared to ditch all of the remainders of my life that couldn't fit in my backpack. As a joke and expecting nothing, I turned the ignition key.
To my shock the engine turned over and started. The pistons were pounding even worse than they had been before, but we all looked at each other and I simply said, “Fuck it. Let’s see how far we can get.”
We pulled onto the highway laughing maniacally in the face of society and sanity.
The hammering of the engine, the black smoke coming out the back, and the white smoke coming out the front climaxed as the engine’s temperature gauge shot up. Smoke was filling the inside of the car faster than we could get it out the windows, and I knew the last voyage of my first car was at an end. It’s final blaze of glory lasted about three miles.
We pulled into the first rest stop south of Eugene, Oregon and that’s where my lovely turd colored beast gave up the ghost.
We all climbed out of the car as white smoke billowed out of the engine compartment, cursing and kicking it in a half joking manner. As I walked around to the front to open the hood, the beast’s radiator popped, dumping the greenish contents on the ground at my feet.
I looked around us at the scene we were making. At a rest stop in the full swing of summer, we were a group of maniacs laughing and kicking a car in it’s death throes while families in their RV’s looked on like we were one horseman short of the apocalypse. It was no surprise when the police showed up about a half an hour later, just as we were about to stick our thumbs out and continue our adventure southward.
As cops go they were pretty cool, laughing with us and asking us about our piercings and mohawks, and letting us make funny faces as they took polaroids of us. They wouldn't let me ditch the car of course, but they did call a tow truck for it, at which point I sold what remained of it to the junkyard for the price of a tow, and a ride to the next town. Assuming it hasn't been crushed into a tiny square, it’s probably still in Cottage Grove, Oregon with my high school diploma sitting in the back seat.
The next six months of my life was a combination of slowly wandering down (and back up) the west coast, a myriad of misadventures and summer crushes, my first freight train ride, and the beginning of my lifelong addiction to travel. Not just any kind of travel, but that special mix of punk-as-fuck, zero budget wandering with the kind of friends that will never tell you what can and can't be done.
Shortly after this first journey, I started the website Squat the Planet (http://squattheplanet.com). It began as a way for me to document my fascination with this new world in a time before blogs, when coding HTML by hand in Windows Notepad was the norm (For the curious, you can still find this original version of the website at: http://squattheplanet.com/old).
Over the next few years Squat the Planet (StP) would go through a slow metamorphosis, eventually becoming a message board and an entire community of people joined together in a celebration of the ‘travel punk’ lifestyle.
This book is a compilation of the fifteen years of life experience I've gained on this journey. It’s not meant to be a “bible” to this lifestyle or any such nonsense, but rather a practical guide for those who want an escape to the standard career/work/retirement cycle.
Rough Draft Note: So, you might have noticed that last paragraph is kinda odd, and the reason for that is this is a second draft of an introduction I'm writing for my upcoming book The Anarchist's Guide to Travel. I'll be publishing a first draft of each chapter as they get written, so folks can follow along on my progress.
Attachments
Last edited:
