Interview With Walden on Wheels’ Ken Ilgunas

The following is a reprint of a previously published post. Enjoy!

Today is a very special blog post, as it features an interview with Ken Ilgunas, inspirational author of Walden on Wheels: On The Road From Debt to Freedom. (New Harvest Publishing)

I’d been hearing about this book from all over the blogosphere, so put it on hold at the library. Expecting yet another I-did-this-social-experiment-for-a-year style of publication, I was pleased to discover the book to be so much more than what I’d anticipated. Ilgunas was living and chronicling his unconventional life with the specific goal in mind of rapidly paying off his crushing $32,00o student loan debt. (A subject frighteningly near and dear to my heart as my older son starts college next year!) After meeting that goal, he then entered a Master’s Degree program. However, being too familiar with the perils of student debt, Ilgunas chose to secretly live in a van instead of traditional housing.

I don’t want to give too much away, as the book is a better read if you don’t know everything ahead of time. Suffice it to say, Ilgunas now holds a Master’s Degree and is gloriously debt free.

Ilgunas was kind enough to take the time to answer a few questions right before heading off for a month-and-a-half long British adventure.

Unlike many stunt journalists, who take on an extreme lifestyle change for a specific one-year period, your project did not have a finite beginning and ending. Are you still “vandwelling,” and do you see yourself ever becoming a homeowner or living a more traditional life?

I still have the van, but I’m not vandwelling anymore. I’m living with a retired friend in North Carolina on a small farm, where I barter labor for room and board. Like living in a van, it’s an affordable lifestyle, but now I have my own bathroom and Wi-Fi. I’ll probably come to be an owner of a (small) home at some point, but I’m not so sure about ever having a traditional lifestyle. I like going on adventures and writing books, and I plan on doing that for the foreseeable future. But who knows? There are many stages to life, and I must acquiesce to my soul’s shifting priorities.

What advice would you give to people who are unable to afford college without taking out massive student loans?

Well, most everyone can afford college if we’re responsible consumers. The average public in-state tuition is $8,500 a year and the average scholarship and grant aid is $5,500. That means that tuition at a respectable school costs about $3,000 a year, which is very manageable, especially if we commute from our parent’s home. But debt, for many, is unavoidable. In that case, work part-time, live frugally, and don’t go any more than $25,000 in debt. Any more than that and it’s going to be a pain paying it off. (Source)

You wrote that the required secrecy of living in a van during grad school limited your ability to socialize and make friends. How would you do things differently if you could turn back the clock? 

I’m four parts hermit and one part social person, so the aloneness was only tough during severe social droughts. For the most part, I enjoyed the solitude. And honestly, the loneliness had little to do with my secret and the van, and much to do with the fact that I was going to Duke, where the great majority of the student body is insanely career-driven and success-oriented. As a proud and self-avowed idler, I just found it difficult to make connections. I might have been better off at a smaller liberal arts school, where economics and business weren’t the most popular majors.

Have the responses to your book and various interviews/articles surprised you in any way? Any backlash or negative reaction?

I suppose I’m a little surprised with the continued interest in my story, especially considering it’s been over two years since I lived in the van. But I’m not complaining. I knew it was a good story, and that’s why I was eager to share it. Surprisingly, there hasn’t been much of a negative reaction, except for people complaining about the vulgarity in the book. It’s true—it’s plenty vulgar. But I wanted to write this book with a twenty-something’s voice who’d grown up in hockey rink locker rooms. It would have been dishonest to assume a voice different from my own. I think we all have sick, twisted, hormone-fueled thoughts, and, in as a first-time memoirist, I saw it as my duty to present to others a clean view into another person’s mind.

Have you heard from anyone else who is following your lead to find alternative housing while in college?

I’m not sure they’re following my lead, but once in a while I’ll get an email from someone saying they’re doing something similar. I think that’s great—it’s a great way to save money, and it’s a great learning experience in and of itself.

“In September 2012, I stuck out my thumb in Denver, Colorado, and hitchhiked 1,500 miles north to the Alberta tar sands. After being duly appalled, I commenced my 1,700-mile hike south following the route of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast. It would become a 4.5 month journey across the Great Plains. To follow the pipe, I couldn’t take roads. I’d have to walk across fields, grasslands, and private property. I’d have to trespass across America.”