Ed Buryn, Vagabond

Hey Ed. What a great looking blog. Merry Christmas and the happiest of New Years! Sally

Hello,
Thanks for your book, “Vagabonding in Europe and North Africa”, which I bought in ’82 at 17. I’ve read it hundreds of times, annotated it copiously, lent it, spilt beverages on it, carried it abroad in several countries, and covered it in protective plastic wrap. It has lasted the ravages of time in amazingly good condition, and remains a favorite as I approach my ripe and travel-worn 45th year.
It was part of my “groovy trinity” of influences which included James Michener’s the Drifters and the classic albums of The Moody Blues.
It was good preparation for spending more than a decade travelling and living in Europe.

One of the places I lived was Poland, in the city of Katowice, where I taught EFL. Back in ’98 it was still “undiscovered”.

I am planning a trip back to Europe this spring ’09. Plan to bring along my guitar and a backpack, do some busking, hitchhiking. And of course, I’ll read your book again to get inspired.
Regards,
Patrick

Wow. Ed! I’m so glad you’re here. *Vagabonding in America* was a sort of Bible to me when I was growing up as a hippie kid. In a moment of idiocy I loaned it out, and now I don’t know when/if I’ll ever get to read it again. (Though a friend has a copy he bought on my recommendation in 1980 or so, and I might be able to borrow his copy. I was tempted to start re-reading it the last three nights while I slept in his guest room, but I wasn’t sure I would have been able to stop once I started.) I mean, I’m talking about the big, fat original–not the slimmed-down variations.

I also read Vagabonding in Europe/North Africa, though I think the closest I’ve come to that is doing the college-student Eurail-pass thing when I was 19 or so.

Since then, things have changed. I’m writing a lot myself–mostly through my blog, though in other venues as well–and I’m a professional proofreader/fact-checker/copy editor. One of my clients is Ten-Speed Press, which brings things full-circle, since I believe they published VIA (am I right?) as well as half the books I read, growing up as the children of quasi-hippies in the 1970s.

I love the Whole Earth Catalog, too: it was the internet before there was an internet.

Keep up the good work! You rocked my world! Grow the website, okay?–let us know what you’re up to.

Hello Ed!

We have never met but you are a legend in my life. I read your book “Vagabonding in Europe and North Africa” almost 30 years ago. I spend two and a half years knocking around Europe and vagabonding has become a way of life for me. Your book was profoundly inspiring and my copy of it is kept in a very safe place! Thank you! I hope you can sign it someday. It is inspiring beyond everything to read that you are still vagabonding too.

From one vagabond to another your books have magickly fell into my hands and inspired me for years. Glad to see you blogging! Keep on Truckin!!

Wow! You’re alive and well! How wonderful! I’m one of the thousands, Ed, whose life you changed with ‘Vagabonding In Europe and North Africa’, still the ultimate travel classic in my opinion. And I’ve read ’em all! We met once when you visited the Caltech campus in the mid-’70’s. I purchased an autographed copy from you of your book, then just out, Vagabonding in The USA, but by that time I had already taken your earlier advice, applied for a leave of absence from grad school in early ’72, and spent the next nine months hitching through Western Europe and Morocco; visited the old Soviet Union on a British student tour; lived and played flamenco with the gypsies near Arles, in the South of France; and traveled through Morocco for a month in an old VW bus with an ever-changing cast of international characters. It took me months – no, years – to come down from that trip! Six years later, in 1978, still inspired by repeated readings of your book, my then-wife and I spent six months bicyling through Europe, starting with the British Isles, then over to the Continent to Holland and down through the Ardennes, along the Mosel River, through the Black Forest, over the Alps, across the South of France and then over the Pyrenees to Spain. We met people on that trip we are both still friends with today, thirty-five years later. I hadn’t been back to Europe until 2000, but have returned 14 times since, thanks to having a French girlfriend, sometimes with one of my three college-age children, all of whom have received their copy of Vagabonding as part of their parental legacy. I feel, if taken to heart, that book is one of the greatest gifts I can bestow. My kids and I enjpy traveling with no reservations, staying in hostels, B&Bs, and pensions, but have expanded to include train travel, renting gites by the week in France, and often just picking a place, renting a car, then heading out into the unknown for awhile, having some goals but no timetable, and taking things as they come. I finally fulfilled a thirty-five year repressed fantasy of travelling through Rajasthan last October, and my girlfriend and I are planning a month-long walk along the southern medieval pilgrim’s route from Arles to Santiago de Compostela this summer, so the effects linger on…Thanks, Ed, for turning my life into a frequently postponed but never-ending adventure.
Best always, Mike

Hey Ed – I would love to do a quick Q&A with you for my VW website. I did a little a little deal about you ’cause I dig your work. Probably got something wrong: http://www.bigbluevw.com/2011/03/ed-buryn-vagabond-and-vw-man.html. Fantastic info you share and I’m glad to have found the books.

Anyway – would love to have a chance to ask you some questions about your travels.

Dear Ed, I remember you mentioned some of your polish relatives possibly murdered by Hitler. I was wondering if you were Jewish.