- Ken Ilgunas
- Jun 13, 2012
Updated: Mar 4, 2022
Yesterday, after eight lovely days on the road, I arrived in Denver, Colorado. I’m staying with a friend in Denver because, later this month, I have a magazine assignment for which I will go on a three-day hike with the greatest hiker in the world.
To get in shape for the hike, I decided to begin my road trip with a 71-mile hike on the Appalachian Trail through the Great Smoky Mountains, which runs along the Tennessee and North Carolina border. Later, I drove along Highway 70 in Tennessee, Highway 64 through Arkansas, and Highway 400 through Kansas.
Some notes from the trip:
-There are a lot of dead trees in the Smokies. In the picture below, you can see a typical vista: Rolling forest country out of which sprouts the bare skeletons of hemlocks or Fraser firs, coloring the landscape with unwanted streaks of white and gray in an otherwise healthy head of green hair. Such trees were the victim of the rapacious Woolly Adelgid, which is an exotic pest that kills the trees.
On the trail, I came across two rangers wearing blue latex gloves applying something to the roots of several surviving hemlocks. They told me that they were applying an insecticide to the remaining hemlocks every five years. I thought there was something desperate and futile about having to go to each hemlock to apply this treatment every five years, and I wondered if it might be best to let nature take its course, as ruthless as that may seem. Yet I also thought there was something incredibly noble for the Park Service to commit to such a grand, implausible vision. It’s like the Great Wall of China or the Pyramids—a feat that shall require the concerted effort of thousands of people over hundreds of years, except better because they’re saving a species.
-Despite the pretty pictures, the Smokies—once known for their misty, cloudy, foggy vistas (good smoky)—are now known for all the pollutants from southern and midwestern cities that journey into the mountains and sully such views (bad smoky). It’s estimated that visibility is reduced by 80 percent because of these pollutants. When I stood on the top of Clingman’s Dome, the highest point of the AT at 6,643 feet, I was disheartened—disheartened because even there, on one of the tallest mountains east of the Mississippi, on a trail created to give people a place to get away from the city, in one our nation’s few protected stretches of wilderness, I knew, looking into the haze, that I’d never be able to fully escape the plumes of industry and chemical clouds of civilization.
Part of me wished I could see all the way to the horizon. Perhaps I’d view an undulating sea of blue-green mountain humps leveling out into a valley dotted with farms and country hamlets. I wished I was somehow an exception to the rule; that I was somehow exempt from the haze. But like everyone else, I couldn’t see more than a couple of miles. Now matter how much organic food I eat, no matter how much of my time I spend in natural places, I realized that I was just as susceptible to pollution and just as affected by industry as everyone else. Just as there are pollutants in the Smokies, there were pollutants pocketed in my lungs. Mercury was swimming in my blood. Cell phone waves were sending tidal waves rippling through my testicular seas. There is no escape.
To be there, in a national park, and to NOT BE ABLE TO SEE MORE THAN A FEW MILES seems to me like a dead canary in a coal mine. It should give us cause to think, “Hmmm… Maybe we took things a little too far…” Instead, we’re going to build another pipeline.
-After my hike, I hitchhiked back to the van with three very friendly and generous drivers, then took off west in my van down the I-40. I was starving from my hike, so I was on the lookout for a mom and pop diner—some place that might offer some authentic American cuisine that I’d normally abstain from for health and ethical reasons, but because of my grueling hike and the sense of freedom I felt heading west in my own van, I was prepared to throw all caution to the wind, shoe-shoe my inhibitions, and indulge in all the sinful fantasies I’d been dreaming about: hillocks of sodium-rich golden french fries smothered in ketchup, an obscenely large cheeseburger layered with slabs of bacon, ice cold chocolate milkshakes as thick and heavy as a jar of honey. I thought this fantasy wasn’t too far-fetched and that I’d have no trouble realizing it, but it soon became clear to me that I’d find no such diner on the interstate. All I saw were giant pillared signs for Ruby Tuesdays and McDonalds and Shoneys.
As my stomach grumbled, my misanthropy was raised to a fever pitch. The traffic was awful. The air smelled of rotisseried skunk slathered in rotten eggs. It was getting late, so I took an exit to a Love’s rest stop to buy a sandwich at a Subway. Four giant appallingly obese people—together forming a set of monster truck tires—were standing in front of the food line. One of them was talking to the cashier about “baby daddies.”
“You better watch out. Your baby daddy’s gonna leave you.”
“Nuh-uh. Not my baby daddy. He ain’t never gonna leave me.”
In the corner of the restaurant was a TV playing Fox News. Geraldo Rivera was talking to some “expert” on some Miss America fiasco, in which a contestant refused to compete with a transgender person.
It seems as if I’d wandered onto the hairy hemorrhoid of America. I got my sub, bought a map, and scurried out of the restaurant, promising myself that I wouldn’t go anywhere near the interstate or places like this for the rest of my trip.
And that’s just what I did. I listened to pop country the whole way through Tennessee and Arkansas and Kansas, drinking three chocolate milkshakes, going for morning jogs at campgrounds and finding myself becoming so prideful and impressed with this country and all the beautiful places left in it.
- Ken Ilgunas
- Jun 3, 2012
Updated: Mar 4, 2022
After five months at Acorn Abbey, I’m once again headed west, this time to Denver, Colorado. I have a magazine assignment later this month in the Rockies, and my good friend Josh and his fiancee have welcomed me into their home, where I’ll stay through June and parts of July.
It’s unusual how unusual a place like Acorn Abbey is. It’s so quiet and peaceful and secluded that–after a while–it just begins to feel normal. It’s normal how you never see other people or cars. It’s normal how you eat food you’ve planted. It’s normal how you live without high blood pressure, sickness, smelly traffic, and the horrid cacophony of civilization. It’s normal that you’re happy. It becomes so normal that you feel that you’ll always have these things and feel these things wherever you go. But that, of course, is not always the case. The truth is, a place like this is truly abnormal. And it should be daily revered as such lest you’ll forget and leave it and do something stupid.
I’ve spent the last five months finishing up my book. (It’s in my editor’s hands right now. We’re expecting a May 2013 release date–I know, that sounds like a really long time.) And I’ve been gardening and developing the place, namely with an ambitious irrigation project that has been operational for the last month or so.
Here is the finished product:
The van is cleaned out and ready for its first big-time road trip. It’ll be a 1,000 mile drive, starting with a stop at the Great Smoky Mountains, where I’ll hike the 71 mile section of the Appalachian Trail.
- Ken Ilgunas
- May 20, 2012
Updated: Mar 4, 2022
(Alternate title: How to pay off $35,000 in student loans in two and a half years)
Recently, a 29-year-old Harvard business school grad has become a media darling for paying off his $90K student debt in seven months. I’ve seen his story pop up in my Facebook feed from people who’ve read articles about him on the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, and Yahoo “News.”
I have nothing against the guy—and I do think there are useful things to learn from his experiences—but I think it’s absurd that media outlets have been so quick to share his story, misleading readers into thinking his example might actually help them deal with their debts. The thing is, this guy’s situation is nothing like the average, everyday, student debtor’s situation. Consider, for instance, how he paid off his debt: He rented out rooms in the home he owned (yes owned!), sold excess vehicles sitting in his driveway (yes, “excess!”) and—just one more little thing—he was getting paid over $100,000 a year (yes, $100,000 a year!). How many 29 year olds have homes AND excess vehicles AND six figure salaries?! One percent? One tenth of one percent?
His video:
His story might in fact be useful for Ivy League grads who make $100K+ a year, who have excess vehicles sitting in their driveway, who have 401Ks they can momentarily put on hold, and who ought to undergo a period of serious self-examination to come to terms with psychotic consumerist habits, but for everyone else, his advice just doesn’t apply.
So, while I am mostly tradeless, talentless, useful-skill-less, I am, however, a self-avowed expert at one thing, and that’s paying off student debt. As an everyday anybody with a worthless liberal arts degree from a state school—and no seedy uncles to hook me up with lucrative jobs—let me share a few tips on how I paid off $35,000 in student loans in 2.5 years by working mostly low-wage jobs.
1. Think of your debt as a sworn enemy, and indebtedness as a life and death situation. I know that sounds extreme, but grand feats require grand thinking, not to mention a little bit of insanity. If you aim to put 10%, or 20%, or even 50% of your monthly income toward your debt, you’re not taking the conundrum you’re in seriously enough. You should be doing everything (without sacrificing your health) to put 100% of your monthly income toward your debt. When you can do that, even humungous unmanageable debts will shrink and become manageable.
2. Get rid of your vehicle. Article One in Ilgunas’ Law of Cheapness is: Don’t own a vehicle. The average American household spends about $8,000 per year on all vehicle costs, which will probably be 1/3 of many graduates’ salaries. Not only will vehicle costs cut away a huge slice of your yearly salary, but the vehicle itself will severely hamper your ability to take a series of low-wage room and board jobs at remote camps across the country, which is, I would argue, the ideal way to quickly pay off your debt. (Exception: If you are getting a vehicle to also function as your home, the costs of maintaining the vehicle, in this case, I would argue, are reasonable.)
3. Do everything you can to reduce food and shelter costs. In fact, it would be best to eliminate them altogether. You can do this by getting a camp job—most of which offer free room and board. You’ll be getting paid very little (probably no more than $10/hour, if that), but if you calculate what you’re not spending on food, room, and transportation (which you won’t need to pay for at these camp jobs), you might as well assume you’re getting paid more like $20-25/hour. The work at most of these camps is pretty grueling, require long hours, and the labor is fairly menial, but there is the opportunity for promotion. For instance, I started working as a maid at a truck stop in Coldfoot ($8/hour), got a promotion to be a tour guide the following summer ($9/hour plus tips). Then I used my guiding and recreational hiking experiences in the arctic to persuade the Park Service to hire me as a backcountry ranger ($20/hour). But even before I was getting paid the healthy ranger salary, I was making $18,000 a year as a tour guide in the summer and cook in the winter. All that money went toward my debt because I had no room, board, or transportation costs. (For camp jobs, I recommend www.coolworks.com.)
4. Remember, this is a life or death situation. Your freedom is on the line. You’re sacrificing your precious twenties trying to aimlessly climb office hierarchies and corporate ladders. You’re hardly putting anything toward your debt because you must pay to maintain the appearance of a prosperous, up-and-coming professional, car and clothes and apartment costs and all. If your life really was on the line, what would you do? You would probably resort to desperate measures. You’d become a depression era tramp, traveling via freight train and taking jobs and food wherever you could get them. You’d hitchhike instead of spend $800 on airfare. You’d wrest otherwise costly meals from Dumpsters. You’d live in a van and survive on $103/week. Get obsessed with your debt. Hate it. Despise it. Anthropomorphize it. Murder it. Don’t think like a “young professional.” Think like a tramp.
5. Find a way to stop paying interest. Interest is a tumor, a quiet killer that grows in your bank account without you hardly knowing it. The best and perhaps only way to deal with interest is to go on a ruthless, full-out, no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners offensive against your debt immediately, blitzkrieging it with payments in order to paralyze your debt before it paralyzes you. So, use speed and power and force against your debt. But also take advantage of any situation you can. My mom, for instance, had a zero-interest credit card. She put my whole “private debt” (which was $18,000) on her credit card, and I steadily paid her back. This was ideal for me because—on her credit card—interest no longer accrued. And it didn’t cost her a thing. This situation may not be available to everybody (and I’m actually unsure about the legality of it), but take advantage of like situations if you can.
I’m actually thinking about writing a short, how-to survival guide about getting out of debt (with my friend Josh who’s just about paid off his $70,000 debt), so if you have any tips/ideas that you’d like to share, please do!
