num_pages: 297
description: In this memoir Ken Ilgunas lays bare the existential terror of graduating from the University of Buffalo with $32000 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 3-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 masters 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 adventureit 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 Ilgunass 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.
language: English
title: Walden on Wheels: On The Open Road from Debt to Freedom
publisher: New Harvest