“My future captain interviewed me with three questions,” remembers Joe Aultman-Moore. “Had I ever sailed before? No. Did I get seasick? I don’t know. And, could I leave tomorrow? Yes.”  As Joe learned to sail while hitchhiking on a sailboat across the Atlantic Ocean, he also discovered the unexpected ways in which travel can explode his perceptions of normal.

Check out “Going Into the Wild,” another essay Joe wrote on hitchhiking–but this time thumbing cars not boats, through Interior Alaska.

This episode reposted by permission from our friends at The Dirtbag Diaries. For more great episodes, visit them at dirtbagdiaries.com.