Travel Dork: Wade Shepard, Vagabond Journey

Travel Blogging | rishegee | December 7, 2010 at 8:19 am

Travel Dork: Wade Shepard

Ever fantasized about leaving everything behind and traveling… with no end in sight? Perpetual traveler, Wade Shephard, has made this fantasy his reality for over 11 years. Staying no longer than three months in one place, Wade has pushed across 5 continents and over 50 countries – thus far. He’s even picked up a wife (the lovely Chaya) and baby daughter (Petra) along the way.

Wade’s travel e-magazine, VagabondJourney.com, doesn’t just tell the tales of his travels throughout South America, Asia and Europe, where he’s lived on a budget of close to $10 a day by picking up any job that comes his way. His e-magazine and travelogue, is chock full of nerdy travel tidbits that inspire us travel obsessives, with travel news, tips, information and pictures.

An archaeologist by trade, Wade gets to channel his kiddie sandbox fantasies, but excavating ancient sites in places like Honduras and Ecuador. Wade has also lent his skills to building a hermitage in the mountains of Japan, working at the Finca Tatin in the jungle of Guatemala, and researching and publishing magazine articles on everything from Japanese tattooists and Portuguese graffiti artists to Turkish motorcycle travelers and Indian woodcarvers. Wade doesn’t just like to get his hands dirty – he’s all about getting active, hitchhiking across China from Mongolia to Vietnam, tramping the Himalayas, and riding a bicycle across Europe. While it’s handy being a trained journalist and archaeologist, Wade has also been a gardener, English teacher, traveling webmaster and web host for hostel websites, bartering his talent for free accommodation. Now that’s one crafty travel dork!

Wade expanded his travel entourage in 2008, when he teamed up with now-wife Chaya, who then proceeded to coast across Eastern Europe and the Middle East – overland – while pregnant. The most well-traveled fetus of all time, Petra, was born on Chaya’s parents’ living room floor in Maine and began to cement her title as best-traveled infant, road-tripping with her parents across the States. Travel dorks united, Wade and Chaya are breeding the next generation of dorkiness as they continue their adventures this year in South America.

http://www.vagabondjourney.com/journalism/tattoo-in-new-japan/