About this item
In this frank and witty memoir, Ken Ilgunas lays bare the existential terror of graduating from the University of Buffalo with $32,000 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 master's 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 adventure - it would be his very own "Walden on Wheels.
About the Author
Ken Ilgunas (1983-) was born in Hamilton, Ontario and raised in Niagara Falls, NY. He's worked as an elementary school tutor, an Alaskan tour guide, and a backcountry ranger at the Gates of the Arctic National Park. He's hitchhiked 10,000 miles across North America, canoed across Ontario, Canada in a birch bark canoe, and hiked the length of the controversial 1,700-mile Keystone XL Pipeline. For two years, he lived in his van at Duke University so he could receive his graduate degree in liberal studies debt-free. Ilgunas currently lives on a farm in Stokes County, North Carolina.
