I am honored to have Ken Ilguna on the blog today, in an exclusive interview. I came across his book titled, Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road From Debt to Freedom, and fell in love with his writing style, the memoir structure, and his quest for a completely debt-free life – no matter what it took – including living secretly in a van on the Duke University campus. Sit back, sip on your favorite beverage, and get ready to meet a wonderful author and man who won’t take debt for an answer, including getting a college education.
Q: During graduate school, you lived in a van! Did your parents know, and just exactly how did you handle the dating thing?
Yes, my parents knew. I told them what I was doing after I’d lived in the van for a couple of weeks. My mom thought I was crazy and offered to rent me an apartment. I politely declined since I was living in the van not just for financial reasons. I also wanted to challenge myself, to see how little I needed, and if I could get by on the little bit of savings I had. And you can’t test yourself in such a way if you’re living in a plush apartment where your every desire is within grasp, or if you borrow from your family when confronted with the slightest hardship. My dad, though, who’s a bit more easygoing, saw some sense in what I was doing.
As for dating, I’ve never really “dated” in the way that other people date, so not dating at Duke was nothing out of the norm. I didn’t have money and I lived in a van—that narrows your options quite a bit. Besides, I didn’t enroll in grad school to date, so I was prepared for a period of monastic self-denial. It did get lonely after a while, though.
Q: I get the sense that you honestly believe less is more. You said, in your book, “I was buying stuff simply because I could afford it. I knew what was missing in my life. It was people. It was community. It wasn’t things.” What are your plans now for the future as far as housing choices, luxury items, and belonging to a community?
I rarely think more than a year ahead of time, other than to look out for my future health and money savings. My 29-year-old self is going to have slightly different desires than my 35-year-old self. So I try to not to make presumptions about what he’ll want. I prefer flying by the seat of my pants because at least I can be sure about what I want now. But I do know that I probably won’t live in my van again, at least on a permanent basis. There are many shortcomings to vandwelling. The absence of electricity and Wi-Fi, for instance, make it very difficult to write and do research, which are critical for writers. But yeah, luxury items and a big home don’t intrigue me at all. More than anything, I seek and savor purpose.
Q: Do you have any plans for advocacy work in the world of speaking out about tuition rates, debt management, or teaching others about sustainable living?
I don’t have any plans to, but it would bring me great joy to be able to speak with high schoolers, shake them by their shoulders, and tell them not to go deeply into debt for an education—or remind them that there’s a great big world out there and they don’t have to embalm themselves in a college or cubicle.
Q: Just exactly how hard was it to lie about where you lived?
It was pretty easy to lie about it. I was lying to people I didn’t know, and the lie itself was harmless. Living in a van in secret, though perhaps against the rules, was harmless, too.
Q: If you could give memoir writers one piece of solid advice, what would it be?
Be brutally, embarrassingly, appallingly honest.
Q: If you had a chance to do it all over again, would you? And if so, what changes would you make, knowing what you know now about van dwelling?
Would I live in a van again? Probably not—or at least not unless I had to. But if I put myself in the same situation I was in back in 2009—when I was broke and wanted to go to graduate school more than anything—I would definitely do it again, even knowing what I know now. If I could do it over again, I’d probably pick a different school. Duke was great in many ways, but it was hard to connect with the student body; and I might have made friendships more easily at a school where people don’t look at you like you’re from Mars when you tell them you live in your vehicle.
Q: I’ve had a few life-defining moments myself. We always seem to come out stronger and wiser, don’t we? What’s the biggest lesson you learned about yourself through this experience?
I’ve learned that I have great follow-through. I have few talents, but perhaps the only one I can boast of is sticking to a goal, even when the goal is no longer as sought-after as it once had been.
Q: You mention the Yahoo message board, “VanDwellers.” Did you use that group as a support system and reference during your time living in the van?
Not really. I sent a few messages to the board before my experiment to find folks who’d done what I was about to do, but I had no luck. I had to figure out how to live in a campus parking lot on my own, which, as terrifying as it originally was, made it more exciting, too.
Q: Do you still own the van? It seems as if it might be a part of your being now.
I do own the van, but try to drive it as seldom as possible since its gas mileage is terrible. I do attach some sentimental value to it for sure, but it is still just a hunk a metal, and eventually I’ll have to part ways with it when it no longer makes any economic sense to hold onto a gas guzzler.
Q: Your book has been published! Can you talk a little about the writing process of getting your story on paper? Did you keep notes in the van, knowing one day you would write a memoir, or did you recall the experiences following graduation and write from that standpoint?
I think it would have been almost impossible to write a memoir from scratch, well after the actual experiences. Fortunately, I’d taken copious notes during my experiment. I’d write emails once or twice a week to my best friend, and I blogged. As I wrote my memoir, I was constantly consulting those old emails because the nature of those emails are very honest and open, and by transferring those thoughts into my memoir, it gives the memoir an unusual degree of authenticity, I think.
Q: What’s next for you? What great adventures can we expect to see from Ken Ilgunas?
I’m currently writing my second book, about a 1,700 hike I just went on across America, tracing the path of the proposed and controversial Keystone XL pipeline. After that, who knows? But I would guess more adventures and more writing about adventures.
