Dan Wake was 28 and litigating at a big Washington, DC law firm when he walked away to backpack through Asia with one deadline: whenever the money ran out. On his first day in Manila, he wandered into a political rally and ended up 50 feet from Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. A few weeks later, the Philippines had a revolution.
He wrote the whole trip down when he got home, saved it to a floppy disk, and left it in a drawer for 35 years. That story is now his new book, Eat the Wind: Travels with Dictators, Mercenaries and Queens.
In this episode, Dan and I talk about the moment the idea of quitting became "like a virus in my head," and how a 20-year-old with his brother's Nikon talked his way into the press section at the Queen's Silver Jubilee. We get into the two sides of Dan, the overachieving lawyer and the hitchhiker who kept saying "it's my turn," and the wife who told him to go dirt biking in Cambodia at 50. He also tells me about rafting the Nahanni River in Canada's Northwest Territories this summer, a trip so remote it took four flights and a float plane to reach.
We also talk about what we've lost now that every trip comes with an app, why Gen X remembers travel before it was handed to us on a silver platter, and why pushing your comfort zone can mean Borneo for one person and the next county over for another.
IN THIS EPISODE
Why Dan left a big DC law firm at 28 for a trip with no end date
Landing in Manila with no ticket out, and standing 50 feet from the Marcoses on day one
Crashing the press section at the Queen's Silver Jubilee with a borrowed camera
Luck versus opportunity, and why long, slow travel puts you in the room when history happens
The 35-year-old floppy disk that became Eat the Wind
The lawyer and the hitchhiker: making peace with both sides of himself
Dirt biking to Khmer temples in Cambodia at 50
Rafting the Nahanni River at 70, and 11 days with no contact with the outside world
What travel lost when the internet arrived, and the sweet spot between exciting and scary
His next trip: hiking the Caucasus in the Republic of Georgia
Rapid fire: scary jungle buses, the country he'd skip, and the one thing always in his bag
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