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Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road from Debt to Freedom by [Ken Ilgunas]

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Ken Ilgunas

Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road from Debt to Freedom Kindle Edition

by Ken Ilgunas (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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In this frank and witty memoir, Ken Ilgunas lays bare the existential terror of graduating from the University of Buffalo with $32,000 of student debt. Ilgunas set himself an ambitious mission: get out of debt as quickly as possible. Inspired by the frugality and philosophy of Henry David Thoreau, Ilgunas undertook a three-year transcontinental journey, working in Alaska as a tour guide, garbage picker, and night cook to pay off his student loans before hitchhiking home to New York.

Debt-free, Ilgunas then enrolled in a master’s program at Duke University, determined not to borrow against his future again. He used the last of his savings to buy himself a used Econoline van and outfitted it as his new dorm. The van, stationed in a campus parking lot, would be more than an adventure—it would be his very own “Walden on Wheels.”

Freezing winters, near-discovery by campus police, and the constant challenge of living in a confined space would test Ilgunas’s limits and resolve in the two years that followed. What had begun as a simple mission would become an enlightening and life-changing social experiment.

Walden on Wheels offers a spirited and pointed perspective on the dilemma faced by those who seek an education but who also want to, as Thoreau wrote, “live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”

Print length

319 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Amazon Publishing
Publication date

May 14, 2013
File size

3410 KB
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ken Ilgunas is an author, journalist, and backcountry ranger in Alaska. He has hitchhiked ten thousand miles across North America, paddled one thousand miles across Ontario in a birchbark canoe, and walked 1,700 miles across the Great Plains, following the proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline. Ilgunas has a BA from SUNY Buffalo in history and English, and an MA in liberal studies from Duke University. The author of Walden on Wheels, Trespassing Across America, and This Land Is Our Land, he is from Wheatfield, New York.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Most college students these days take burdensome, long-term loans for granted as the obligatory cost of earning their degrees. For recent University of Buffalo liberal-arts graduate Ilgunas, however, the sight of $32,000 printed in black and white on a Sallie Mae loan statement yielded a life-changing epiphany. Instead of remaining shackled to his low-wage job at a Niagara Falls Home Depot and rooming with his parents to better whittle away his debt, Ilgunas struck off to remote Coldfoot, Alaska, to get a taste of wilderness living while working as a cook and sometime nature guide. Many years, odd jobs, and escapades later, including hitchhiking across the U.S., paddling a canoe as a “voyageur” across Northern Canada, and joining a cleanup crew in Katrina-ravaged rural Mississippi, Ilgunas was finally debt-free. Yet a new epiphany led him back to college for a master’s degree. Inspired by Thoreau’s example of low-impact living, and determined to minimize housing expenses to avoid another mountain of debt, Ilgunas spent the last of his savings on a used vehicle he variously dubs the titular “Walden on wheels” or “a creepy red van.” Replete with colorful anecdotes and disarming wit, Ilgunas’ account is both a goad for chronic debtors and an irresistibly engrossing true-life adventure tale. --Carl Hays --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Review

"Walden on Wheels [is] a remarkable memoir that manages to stay light on its feet while saying a great deal about the state of modern American society. Ilgunas is a rare and wonderful travel companion. Along the way, he describes natural phenomena so skillfully that you might be compelled to flee your desk and head for the hills, walking stick in hand." --Washington Post

"Ilgunas penned the most readable of the tomes on education this year. Ilgunas lives [the educational crisis] and tells quite the adventure tale. His education--flawed and expensive as it was--pays off." --The Globe and Mail

"[Walden on Wheels is] searching and ambitious--one of the best books I've read this year." --LA Review of Books

"Walden on Wheels is a funny and poetic tale of personal growth, suburban angst, and beef jerky." --A.J. Jacobs, author of Drop Dead Healthy and The Year of Living Biblically

"A thoroughly endearing account." --The Wall Street Journal

"Replete with colorful anecdotes and disarming wit, Ilgunas' account is both a goad for chronic debtors and an irresistibly engrossing true-life adventure tale." --Booklist, Starred Review

"Walden on Wheels should be required reading for every student, not to mention every elected official and candidate for office." --BizPac Review

"[Ilgunas] tells a good, refreshingly honest story about one young man's quest for freedom, a story that has something to say to Americans, whatever their age." --Greensboro News and Record

"Walden on Wheels is essential reading for liberal arts majors because it will inspire you to follow your dreams." --LiberalArtsSurvival.com

"Walden on Wheels, a remarkable memoir that manages to stay light on its feet while saying a great deal about the state of modern American society. Ilgunas is a rare and wonderful travel companion" --Tampa Tribune

"Ilgunas' radical approach to life and unique sense of humor is what makes Walden on Wheels a great read." --Metro

"A funny and poignant take on debt in America, education, and making the most out of life." --Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine

"This enthralling account ...is richly layered with both humor and deep circumspection. Thoughtful and well-crafted, [and] inspiring to read, Walden on Wheels, reminds one that life is made up of the little things, the experiences gained, the adventures survived, rather than the consumables acquired." --Summit Daily

"Ilgunas heroically (and often comically) maps out a life beholden to no one. Standing against the madness of conformity, Ilgunas offers what could be the Walden of our age." --Andrew Steele, former head writer of Saturday Night Live and creative director of Funny or Die

"Wrapped in a powerfully told, often self-deprecating travel memoir, Walden on Wheels delivers important, even life-changing, insights into navigating your way to a saner life in a sometimes insane, debt-driven, consumer culture." --Jeff Yeager, author of The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map to True Riches

"Walden on Wheels is a powerful narrative that puts a human face on the problem facing too many college graduates these days as tuition prices and student debt continue to climb. Ken Ilgunas' humorous coming of age story should be a warning to any student who doesn't worry about how taking on excessive debt might impact them." --Jeffrey J. Selingo, author of College (Un)bound

"Give him anger or give him tears, but nothing's going to hem in the energy force that is Ken Ilgunas." --Daniel Asa Rose, author of Larry's Kidney

"Loved this book--and was both entertained and encouraged--from page one to the very end." --Backwoods Home Magazine

"Among many other delights, Ken Ilgunas offers a fresh, provocative perspective on the student debt debate in his rollicking coming-of-age memoir--a funny and inspirational debut." --Robert Twigger, author of Angry White Pyjamas

--This text refers to the paperback edition.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00B77UDWU
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Amazon Publishing (May 14, 2013)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 14, 2013
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3410 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 319 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #159,738 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #116 in Personal Money Management (Kindle Store)
- #150 in U.S. Regional Travel
- #184 in Travel Writing

Customer Reviews:
1,781 ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

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William Quinlivan

Lemonade extraordanaire

Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2017

Verified Purchase

What a wonderful book by a young man with great wisdom, creativity and courage. I am 70, have among other grandchildren, a 27 year old grandson who is facing the same world. He too is a writer and aspires a writing life on the road. I have shared this book with him. I highly recommend this book to anyone living a young or vintage life in our current country. I suggest you will find this an enlightening read. Enjoy-- I certainly did and am a better person for having this story touch me.

27 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

I both loved the book and hated the author and visa versa on alternate days. I admired his freedom and I was jealous of it too. .

Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2019

Verified Purchase

I did a anti middle class lifestyle in order to complete college in my middle age. I lived in an abandoned second story building, my art school's painting studio and occasionally my van during my undergraduate and graduate years. I also took showers in the gym, my pastors home and in the potting studio's outdoor shower. I read this book to see how he did it compared to my way of doing it. While uncomfortable and inconvenient, it can be done even by a middle aged woman. It compromised my health and I probably has contributed to my early disability. Because he was young and fit his health only took temporary hits and then rapid recovery times.
This where I diverged from him. I quickly went back to a normal living mode to complete my life while he insists on living a wild and free lifestyle. That is what frustrated me so, his complete rejection of society seems almost pathological in origin. That I do not understand. I can only say that as a fellow non conformist, we must each take our own path.

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

Jelly Bean

You'll laugh. You'll cringe. You'll smirk. You'll be touched. You might even be inspired to change.

Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2014

Verified Purchase

I should probably mention upfront that my husband and I are both 39, so we're probably older than the majority who would gravitate to this book. Twentysomethings and fortysomethings will experience this book very differently. As ones who are about to turn forty, we chuckled a little at points in his book. Does Ken seem self-absorbed? Obsessive? Preoccupied with what he feels entitled to? A little commitment phobic? Does he seem to have all the answers in such a way as only a youngling in the world does? Absolutely. Because we were reading this aloud to one another, we both couldn't resist the urge to laugh at points by his largely self inflicted angst. Maybe we were laughing at ourselves, because we married at nineteen, and after college we bought an Airstream and lived in it for two years, seeing the country, so we saw something of ourselves in his journey. But unlike Ken, we came from very poor families, and those who grew up truly poor will always smirk or laugh at those with money who find life so…hard. Despite his very age-appropriate outrage, angst and inclination to preach, we surprised ourselves by how much we both enjoyed the book.

Overlook his shortcomings - they're largely predictable and age-appropriate. What Ken has to say is worth hearing, no matter your age. Life is lived poorly when lived in pursuit of things. He's right: you can be happy with less than you think you must have, are entitled to, cannot do without. For all your outrage in your youth at how dysfunctional the world is, as you get older, time and experiences will color your view of people differently. You soften. Outrage turns to an understanding and if you're lucky, compassion. If you're fortunate, you'll find happiness in an imperfect world you won't effectively change, but you'll spend your life doing your part. Maybe you'll recycle, bike rather than drive when you can, drive a tiny car, be part of the tiny houses group, farm your food, watch less TV, and never give a moment of your time worrying about what the Joneses have.

Ken was us at nineteen. Ken is many people in their youth. This book is an engaging read. Some of us will be reminded whom we were at his age. You'll laugh. You'll cringe. You'll smirk. You'll be touched. As I write this from our 710 square foot home, I'm smiling because the world keeps producing people like us - Kens - people like many of you. I hope his book touches those who are nothing like us, as that'd be the best result of his book.

Thank you, Ken.

86 people found this helpful

Helpful

The Economist

Gen X'er loves this Millennial Writer's Book! Young People, Read this before you start your life!!

Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2016

Verified Purchase

Ok, I am 50 and although my politics are opposite of Ken's, I enjoyed his adventure and more importantly his writing craft. He is an excellent writer. Goes to show how a liberals art's education is still valuable, not to mention a major in English and History. I could not put the book down and I recommended his book to a co-worker and my 83-year-old mother. (I bought a 2nd copy to send to my mom) Both of them absolutely loved his story. Now my sister is reading his book. I highly, highly recommend this book, especially to students coming out of college. Read this before you start to put your life plans in place. I am married with 2 daughters and wish I could take off and get a job for $9 an hour in Alaska with room and board. That is all I would need.

20 people found this helpful

Helpful

RF_JStout

Highly recommend!

Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2022

Verified Purchase

What a fantastic find in the Kindle unlimited library! For whatever reason, this book was suggested as something I might like. While a few others recommended for me have been lackluster, Ken’s story was the perfect read at the perfect time. He’s a gifted storyteller with a zest for living life to its fullest. Maybe this speaks to me because I have a daughter burdened by student loan debt that wants nothing more than to work remotely, live in a vehicle for a bit, and explore the world. My husband and I also dream of selling the house and heading out for an adventure on the sea. If, like us, you are questioning what society says “normal” is you’ll probably love this book too. Enjoy.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Customer

Candid account of a non-traditional way of living

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2018

Verified Purchase

I enjoyed living vicariously by reading this book. I am a retired senior citizen who grew up in an era of conformity and living by expectations that I allowed to limit what I did as a youth and young adult. I admire Ken Ilgunas for being willing to think (and act) outside the box and live his life in a non-conforming adventurous manner. I enjoyed reading about what it was like to live and work in northern Alaska, and especially what it was like to live in a van while in grad school -- something I wouldn't be able to tolerate myself, loving creature comforts as I do. It was interesting how he compared his post-college life with that of his friend Josh, who I assume allowed his story to be told in this manner.

Ken is a very good writer who made me think in new ways. If I have any criticism, it would be that I think he "over-shared" some personal details that could have been left out, but overall I enjoyed the read and learned from it.

8 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Candygirl

No, no, no

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 6, 2020

Verified Purchase

I've had this book languishing on my kindle for years and finally decided to read it. Firstly, the title and blurb is a bit misleading, you think the book is about a man living in a van, well part of it is, but the main story is about Ken working jobs in Alaska and Mississippi to save money to repay his student debt. I had a few issues with the book, the Alaskan section was by far the most interesting but the author never strays far from describing everyone he meets in 2 sentences using only derogatory words about them. It ever seems we saw fair fight when you place a liberal arts degree student up against a poorly educated, low paid alcoholic or ex- criminal and the author's sneering just makes me dislike him. I also had massive issues with the main premise of the book, after deciding to save money to repay the debt the author tells us at length how he can't be like us morons, working 9-5 and owning property and cars, we are so boring, he needs to be free, however he's pretty happy to sleepmon other people's couches when he needs a roof over his head, accept money from parents or food from others, I found this hypocritical. I was astounded when he says to himself he may need to distance himself from his parents as he can't align his own values to theirs - they are also dumb wage slaves!

This book could have been funny, informative and enthralling but Ken is just not likeable, sorry Ken, he seems to want to become an internet sensation because he lived in a van but as he's a middle class arts student it is always his free choice to do this, there are may less fortunate people who live rough who do so because they have to, Ken doesn't give these people the time of day. Not for me.

7 people found this helpful

Mr. G. Wright

Living debt free: A 2013 book that is even more relevant in 2020

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 30, 2020

Verified Purchase

I came to this as a recommendation following reading Mike Hudson's ridiculously long titled: 'How to live in a van and travel: Live everywhere, be free and have adventures in a campervan or motorhome' (covering all his bases for searcches, eh?). I checked out a couple of reviews and was particularly drawn to the reviewer who disliked author Ken Ilgunas's negative criticism of everybody from fat people to the homeless and even to his own parents. I thought this is the book for me. And I wasn't disappointed.
That criticism, is wrong and unfair but equally this book has only a little to do with van dwelling (though Ilguna covers it well) and a lot more to do with a young man's journey through the debt of college and the subsequent enforced participation in 'normal' life. It is a reflection on the United States' structure and an enormous amount about the author's discovery with his own place in the world. He works in Alaska as he seeks to clear his $32,000 student loan and prepares for a post-grad course at Dukes (meant nothing to be as a Brit, but it's a top drawer Uni). He hitchhikes from Alaska to his parent's home in New York state, and returns to Alaska on the Arctic circle repeatedly. Alsaka is cool, Ilguna's reflections on the wilderness and how it equates to his own life experience is worth the price of admission.
I'm old, but I would honestly recommend this book to anyone between the age of 17 and 30. Not because it preaches - which is does occasionally - but because it offers a perspective on your options.
The author is a product of the video age and admits to underachieving as a youngster, as so many of his generation who are used to instant gratification from computers or video games. More importantly, while this book was written in the shadow of the financial crash, with all the implications that held for reducing living expenses, it is surely once again a timely read in 2020 as the world is still unsure of its way out of the impending Covid-induced recession, set to make 2008/9 look like a mere overture.
I enjoyed this book. As I said at the beginning, it was some of the irritated reviews that drew me to it and then I saw the reviewer who wrote he could take a chance for $3.99. That was the clincher and sure enough Amazon UK was offering it for just £1 as an eBook.
Bargain read of the year for me so far. Recommended. If van living interests you, add it to your list, for a glimpse into life in Alaska, also worth it but far more importantly, if you are a youngster trying to find your way in this crazy world, it's worth a read.

One person found this helpful

Leza H

An intelligent insightful memoir from an idealist who shuns expected societal expectations to make his own way

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 29, 2017

Verified Purchase

Often you take a punt on an author unknown to you and often in recommended travel literature I wonder if it's going to be too simplistic, too jovial or at the other end of the spectrum far too indulgently learned and dry. This book falls in to the perfect in-between of balancing intelligent humour with insight and theory as well as wonderful wild descriptions of wide open places. I loved this book, so much so that I felt a sense of loss when I finished it. But I also felt enlightened and encouraged. His insights in to society by trying to escape from it in Alaska, the education system that left him with huge debts, the way so many have unwittingly been hoodwinked by a capitalist society that has stolen so much of our freedom without us even realising...it's disturbing, refreshing and yes a little idealistic; we cannot solve societal weaknesses and the failings of burgeoning debt sold to us by an infrastructure we are supposed to blithely trust, by all of us turning to and converting our vehicles in to our primary residence...but this is a brave memoir of someone who stuck two fingers (I'm British!) up at the system. His sense of wonder and initial hikes in to the wilderness are honest and often foolhardy...but his self discovery is a lesson worth being present for. I want another book please Ken Ilgunas. I'm recommending Walden on Wheels to everyone.

3 people found this helpful

Cols

Wow..... what a good book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 25, 2017

Verified Purchase

This chap can really write. I have read some excellent books recently but this already a hot contender for my book of the year. The story is brilliant, it’s about a growing problem many poor students must come across, but which is almost hidden – the massive loans they take out to study at University. This problem must be growing here in the UK.

This is a down-to-earth great read on how the author tackles his debt and has many adventures (eg cr*p jobs) to cure the debt. The author is a naturally gifted writer, the book is so well written, I was only a quarter of the way through and already recommending it to friends. I am going to look out for other books by this writer.

One person found this helpful

Jon Scott

Thought-provoking

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 15, 2017

Verified Purchase

I enjoyed this one; a coming of age/finding oneself story with a difference. Ken, wishing to free himself from the shackles imposed by modern society - the catalyst and motivator being the intolerable pressure of a large student loan - takes us on his journey with him; a journey whose focus is on living a simpler, more natural life and one than offers an alternative to society's norm. As well as an absorbing adventure story, the book is though-provoking and is likely to leave a lasting impression on the reader. It is clear that this type of existence is not for everyone - it wouldn't suit me - but the message coming across is that the way we live today is moving us further and further away from our original roots as human beings.....to the detriment of all.

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