Selling It All and Hitting to Road: Elliott Hester

It's a fantasy many travelers and cube slaves share. You make the decision and bring up Ebay or Craigslist on your computer screen, then you begin listing nearly every item you own. That big work desk, $40. The big screen TV $250. Dinner jacket $35…OK, $10…forget it, just take it. The dough comes rolling in, and what is not sold maybe gets brought to the Salvation Army for both charity and a tax write off. Then it's time to leave. You fill your pack, buy a one way ticket to wherever, and, man, you're golden. But then, poof, the dream bubble pops and there you are, still anchored to your desk.

But such was not the case with Elliott Hester. Nope, in the fall of 2002 he set off on an 18-month, around-the-world adventure but rather than book that flight back home to pick up where he left off, he continued on, traveling, traveling, traveling. He's been on the road ever since.

Hester, the author of a forthcoming book called "Adventures of a Continental Drifter: An Around-the-World Excursion into Weirdness, Danger, Lust, and the Perils of Street Food", talks about the life of a "continental drifter" in this article/interview in the SF Chronicle. He talks about living on the road for over three years and, interestingly, reveals the contents of his backpack:  "a few articles of clothing, toiletries, an iPod, digital camera, cell phone (Elliott, phone home!), notebook computer, guidebooks". Must be tough to lug around all those gadgets.

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