"The Gypsy Rover came over the hill and down through the valley so pretty. The Gypsy Rover came over the hill and he won the heart of a lady."
Irish folk song

Our culture has a strange outlook on the wanderers of the planet. There is plenty of romance (the beautiful gypsy lass), fear (Attila rides through Europe, Geronimo races through the West), anger (vagrants, homeless, and gypsies once again), and guilt (taking land from people who do not claim "ownership" of it.) What we don't have is an identity with wanderers. They are always the other in our stories, the person of a foreign culture that we can admire or hate, but never be like. Even our own cultural wanderers; wagon train settlers, cowboys, and truckers; are viewed as hybrid wanderers. We think of truckers as having homes they return to when their freight is hauled, cowboys as returning to the ranch after a cattle drive, and settlers... well, that's even a part of their name.

So what happens to those who have a far-off look in their eye? To those who feel the wind gusting in their face and know that it's calling to them? To those who'd rather own a backpack than a house?

For me, the answer was to become a hiker.