“I felt a strange twinge of anger looking at the stars. It was as if I’d just learned of an inheritance that had been stolen from me. If it wasn’t for Alaska, I might have gone my whole life without… — Ken Ilgunas Copy Share
“Perhaps there’s no better act of simplification than climbing a mountain. For an afternoon, a day, or a week, it’s a way of reducing… — Ken Ilgunas Copy Share Image
“... But these skeptics are only selectively skeptical. They think themselves enlightened for resisting all this new proof and remaining steadfast in mistrusting anything… — Ken Ilgunas Copy Share Image
“I learned such a glimpse cannot be gotten with half-hearted journeys and soft endeavors. Nor could I hope for such a glimpse merely by setting out to conquer some random geographic feature, like getting to the top of a mountain. Rather, I knew one must confront the very beasts and chasms that haunt our dreams, block our paths, and muffle… — Ken Ilgunas Copy Share
“I felt a strange twinge of anger looking at the stars. It was as if I’d just learned of an inheritance that had been stolen from me. If it wasn’t for Alaska, I might have gone my whole life without knowing what a real sky was supposed to look like, which made me wonder: If I’d gone the first quarter… — Ken Ilgunas Copy Share
“I could sense the slightest abridgment of my freedom like a princess who can feel the impression of a pea under forty featherbeds. I… — Ken Ilgunas Copy Share Image
“Like us, many students had spent their years in college thinking they’d get that well-paying, planet-saving job, even if they’d heard horror stories from recent underemployed grads. Those jobs, of course, no longer exist (if they ever did). By 2009, 17.4 million college graduates had jobs that didn’t even require a degree. There are 365,000 cashiers and 318,000 waiters and… — Ken Ilgunas Copy Share
“I am a member of the “career-less generation.” Or the “screwed generation.” Unlike previous generations, the members of my generation won’t get jobs and respectable wages straight out of high school, let alone college. We don’t have the means to buy homes and start families in our twenties. We’re the first generation in a while who will be less well… — Ken Ilgunas Copy Share
“Sometimes, to cede control to fate, I realized, is to assume more control than ever before. I wasn’t just traveling anymore. I was traveling… — Ken Ilgunas Copy Share Image
“We have trains to hop, voyages to embark on, and rides to hitch. And then there’s the great American wild—vanishing but still there—ready to… — Ken Ilgunas Copy Share Image
“On this voyage, I couldn't help but think we need need. We need to be forced to go outside. We need to be forced to depend on one another. we need to be forced to sacrifice, to grow a garden, to fix a rood, to interact with neighbors. Nature has been all around me as a boy. It unleashed terrifying… — Ken Ilgunas Copy Share
“Be a devotee in the Church of the Consumer and you’ll forever live in fear of the capricious God of Style. Freedom, though, is… — Ken Ilgunas Copy Share Image
“It was strange how it was always the poor who picked us up [hitchhiking]...They dwelled beneath poverty lines and were undereducated, but they were...more… — Ken Ilgunas Copy Share Image