In this post, I’ll be reviewing Ten Years a Nomad: A Traveler’s Journey Home by Matthew Kepnes.
A Brief Preview of “Ten Years a Nomad”
Ten Years by Matthew Kepnes, also known as Nomadic Matt, was quite the page-turner! Interestingly enough, I knew within the first 5 pages that I would devour the book in a few days.
It’s not that the book represents a masterful piece of literature—I absolutely love Matt, his blog, and this book, but it’s simply not that type of work, nor do I think that’s his goal.
What the book does offer, however, is an inside look into an experienced traveler’s sojourn around the world.
From a bit of “destination talk” where he recounts the places he’s been and sights he’s seen, to sharing with the reader the very personal challenges he’s faced in his life of travel, Matt invites you into his reflections and contemplations throughout his 10 years on the road.
Seeing Myself in Matt Kepnes
There were so many instances throughout the book where I thought—and literally wrote in the margins—wow, this is me! One of these instances occurs when Matt writes about his realization that 1) long-term nomadic travel was a thing that people did and 2) he could be one of those people who did it!
“I could really do this. I thought the next day as Scott and I left Bangkok again. I could stay in run-down hostels, eat cheap street food, talk to strangers, and have the adventure of my life. Or more simply, just have a life.”
— Ten Years a Nomad (Kepnes, 2019, p. 30)
I vividly remember experiencing both of these things. To be fair, that memory is so vivid because both of those realizations came within the last year or so.
I think back to last summer, 2022, when I started to listen to podcasts and watch YouTube videos about people living their full lives on the road. Before this, I had a sense that there were people out there who traveled a lot, but I didn’t understand the extent to which it could be done.
Moreover, I didn’t realize how accessible it was. In other words, the fact that I—a person who is far from rich and in plenty of student debt—could live life on the road was simply not a thought.
To say this was a game-changer would be a complete understatement!
Like Matt, once I saw this was a possibility, there was no going back to the (conventional) life I saw on the horizon.
“It was my life, all right, and it turned out to be an endless loop of sameness. When I complained, I was often told that it was normal. How it’s supposed to be. ‘Don’t worry, honey. When you find a job you love, life will be a lot different’, my mother would say to me. ‘You just graduated. You’re twenty-three. Don’t be so impatient. We all start off at the bottom’”
— Ten Years a Nomad (Kepnes, 2019, p. 4)
I also say myself in Matt when he spoke about the resistance he got from his friends and family once he declared he would be quitting his job and traveling.
Luckily, my decision to do exactly this hasn’t faced as much resistance as Matt’s did. But I have faced intense questioning and weird looks from my grandmother who can’t understand it.
“I knew there was a better world out there. I had seen it. I had felt its power to change me for the better. Elsewhere was out there and it was calling me. I was going to go, have the time of my life, come back in one piece with some stories to tell, and show everyone back home that travel is not a crazy idea.”
— Ten Years a Nomad (Kepnes, 2019, p. 52)
This lack of understanding we received about our wanderlust and our rejection of the norm made me see myself in Matt and his experience, which made the book much more impactful.
This is Not a Typical Travel Book
Ten Years a Nomad is by no means a typical travel book.
While Matt’s trajectory—realizing the monotony of life, deciding to quit his job and travel, facing resistance, setting off anyways, and having a great time with some challenges along the way—is not entirely unique, the book is quite distinct in that it doesn’t paint travel as the antidote to most or all of one’s problems.
In fact, Matt, in seemingly full transparency with the reader, states that after a while, continuing to travel was actually contributing to his anxiety and unease.
“Most travel memoirs are about escape…My story isn’t so canned and predictable…This is a deeper, more elastic story than that. It’s about what you find at the end of ten years of ceaseless, relentless travel”
— Ten Years a Nomad (Kepnes, 2019, p. 213)
This is not what you would expect from a person with one of the top travel blogs. But it’s exactly this that makes the book so compelling.
Matt is so honest with his readers about everything he faced on his 10-year nomadic journey: being alone, burnout, fear, and anxiety, to name a few.
I think perspectives like this are needed for travelers.
It’s easy to find people who write about all the amazing things that travel does to one’s self—and Matt is among those sources.
However, he doesn’t shy away from writing about the negative topics that other travel writers hide.
I can’t blame these travel writers. As Matt suggests, travel is central to their identity, like it was to his. If you write negatively about the thing that is most close to who you are, what does that say for your personhood?
“I had been wrapped up in my nomadic identity for so long that I failed to realize that the original reason I left—to become a better, more confident me—no longer applied, and hadn’t for years.”
— Ten Years a nomad (Kepnes, 2019, p. 212)
But, Matt acknowledges this and shares openly with his audience. He writes how for so long he kept traveling even when he had a feeling he needed to slow down—how could a person so widely known as “Nomadic Matt” live and stay put in one place?
The Reality Without Complaining
In all of Matt’s honesty about the annoying and frustrating parts of travel, he never comes off as a privileged person who simply complains for complaining-sake.
No doubt about it, he’s a lot more privileged than many of us in all of the opportunities he has had to travel. Yet, when he writes about the annoyances of hostels, the cons of constantly moving around, or the unhappiness he felt at various points in his travel journey, I understood him.
For the most part, reading someone complain about this stuff, particularly for those of us who aren’t on the road yet and are desperately seeking to get there, can prompt us to feel anything but bad for him.
But Matt’s honesty and deep reflection cause the reader to feel for him. This is not pity, by any means. Rather, it’s an understanding of the deep internal complexities that come with a life of travel.
This was an important lesson for me—one that I’ll continue to think about as I embark on my journey of travel.
You Should Read This Book
I typically don’t write reviews for books I wouldn’t recommend, so the following goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway: you should definitely read this book!
It’s a combination of one’s sojourn, practical travel tips, highlights to some of the most amazing, as well as less-traveled places in the world, and a reality check for anyone romanticizing life on the road.
“Travel creates opportunities to meet people you wouldn’t give a second thought to walking down the street. It strips away the artifice and lets you walk away with some of the best friends you’ll ever have—friends who will be there your whole life, ready to pick up right where you left off whenever you happen to meet again”
— Ten Years a nomad (Kepnes, 2019, p. 92)
It’s also, simply, a really good book. Matt is engaging, personal in his writing, and quite informative.
It’s evident Matt has years of experience in travel writing—that shines throughout.
What I love most about Matt’s book, though, is that he communicates the message that, through all of the challenges he faced, he would choose a life of travel all over again if he had to.
While I don’t believe he’s still nomadic, he encourages us to get out there and experience it for ourselves, because travel is worth it!
