By Linda C. Brinson

If you have access to the Greensboro News & Record today (May 26), please read my interview with Ken Ilgunas and my review of his book Walden on Wheels. The N&R doesn’t provide its copy free online, so I can’t offer a link.

Ken is a thoughtful, engaging young man who’s also well traveled and well educated – his degrees include a MALS from Duke. Making it all better, he doesn’t owe a penny in student loan debt, in part thanks to his personal Walden – the beatup Ford van he lived in for a couple of years while a student at Duke. If you can’t get hold of the N&R, just read Ken’s book for yourself. You’ll enjoy it.

He talks about a lot more than just the student debt trap. Having traveled more and under more difficult circumstances than most young Americans, he has some good tales to tell. And in the intellectual footsteps of his hero Thoreau, he reflects – in a decidedly 21st-century way – on other such matters as what’s really valuable, the nature of freedom and the importance of the liberal arts.

Since completing his degree at Duke, Ken has backpacked the proposed route of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, blogging along the way. Expect to see another book from him soon.

Thanks to my neighbor and friend David Dalton for the photo.