Walden on Wheels, Ken Ilgunas
Walden on Wheels, Ken Ilgunas
4 Rating(s)
List: $35.99 | Sale: $25.20
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Walden on Wheels
On the Open Road from Debt to Freedom

Author: Ken Ilgunas

Narrator: Nick Podehl

Unabridged: 8 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download (DRM Protected)

Published: 05/14/2013

Synopsis

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.”

About Ken Ilgunas

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.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Meghan on June 17, 2013

I wanted to like this book because I admire minimalist and naturalist lifestyles, and Ken has an interesting story to tell. That said, I grew frustrated with his condescension toward consumer culture, reliance on stereotypes, and countless references to his own moral superiority. The "characters" in......more

Goodreads review by Carmen on March 28, 2016

My goal was simple and straightforward: get the fuck out of debt as fast as humanly possible. This book was excellent. Ilgunas is funny and also asks some very important questions about life and civilization. He works tons of odd jobs to work off his $32,000 debt for undergrad, and later lives in a v......more

Goodreads review by Michael on June 09, 2013

Dylan asked, "How Does it Feel?" This guy tried to find the answer. I came looking for a story about a guy in the van down by the river (thanks NYT and LAT), but am enjoying getting there the long way. The key, they say, to a good memoir is honesty, and this one pulls few punches (though it looks lik......more

Goodreads review by Joseph on June 07, 2013

I can agree with many of the ideas that drive this book: college has become far too expensive; life has become far too materialistic; education is still worth whatever we pay for it, as long as it is education; for-profit university's are parasites; and the harshness of the "wilderness" is not exper......more

Goodreads review by Carrie on September 11, 2013

I was really looking forward to reading this book. I have been a proponent of the Voluntary Simplicity movement since the early 1990s when I happened upon a book called YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE by Vicky Robin and Joe Dominguez. Through the years I have learned firsthand how frugality can ransom that......more

Quotes

“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

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