Phil Elverum Quotes

When I was a teenager, I went to Europe on a backpacking trip by myself, and I met a woman who was following Sebadoh. It was the early 1990s, and that was my introduction to indie rock.

I quit my job. I bought myself a real cheap, like, around-the-world flight ticket, and I went to 16 countries for six months just backpacking, living in cheap hostels, looking for stories with a camera and my ex-girlfriend.

After I wrapped 'Sons of Anarchy,' I traveled by myself for ten weeks. I started in Jordan and finished in Mali, in Timbuktu.

I did a lot of traveling after college on trains through India, China, and Russia. I somehow managed to make it back in one piece, and I actually pulled a lot of the anecdotal experiences into the making of 'Transsiberian.'

When I was 18 years old, in a more innocent time, my first backpacking trip through Europe, I sneaked into the Temple of Saturn in the Roman Forum after nightfall and spent several hours in there avoiding the guards patrolling.

When I graduated from college in the spring of 1970, I decided to hitchhike around Europe with my guitar and my backpack. I was gone for about four months.

I don't much enjoy travelling, but I have always longed to take a slow train to Russia. I'd like to go alone - like writers do - with only a pencil and piece of paper as company. I'd take my sketchbook and note down all the wonderful details of other travellers.

It was the first time I traveled alone, but I was not scared.

Getting to places like Bangkok or Singapore was a hell of a sweat. But when you got there it was the back of beyond. It was just a series of small tin sheds.

When I was 18, I took a trip to Thailand with a friend. We stayed for a month. Bangkok was very raw for a teenager: there were no cellphones, no Internet, and the only music I had with me was this cassette by Liz Phair. I was writing a lot of poetry, and she embodied a talky style of songwriting that I found very accessible.

I sailed around Europe and lived with the Karen tribe in Thailand for a month.

When I graduated high school, I was one of many English-majors-to-be traveling through Europe with a copy of 'Let's Go Europe' in one hand, 'Anna Karenina' in the other, a Eurail pass for a bookmark.

I love anywhere new and different. That's the fun of travel. I've always loved driving through Spain, France and Italy - sometimes in an Alfa Spider.

I'm quite happy trekking around Greenland on my own, but those big book tours in America or the Far East are the only time I ever really feel lonely.

The Trans-Siberian Express is like a cruise across an oceanic landscape. I've done it three times.

I survived many a youth hostel bunk room reading Tolstoy by flashlight.

After I graduated from college, while traveling around Europe, hitchhiking, doing the tourist thing, I went into a church in Dublin.

I'd really like to visit India and South America. I think India will be a great mix of sightseeing and relaxing, and I've got a feeling it will also be good for one's soul and spirit. And I'd love to go backpacking around South America at some point. I did that in Australia when I was younger, and the camaraderie was great fun.

All my friends were off on gap years, so going to New York alone, at the age of 18, was kind of my flying the nest. It was an amazing experience.

I always have more fun when I stay in hostels - you just meet so many more people. A hotel makes sense when you're doing work things, but travelling, you don't really get a feel for a place if you're in a hotel. I find it seems to make it all feel like everywhere else.

There is a part of me that still wants to go out and grab a backpack and unplug - not take a cellphone or even a camera and just get out there and experience the world and travel. I have yet to do that, but someday I hope.

When I was on the road with Billy Bragg, it was cool because I was doing the whole thing solo and travel a lot by myself, which I quite like. I mean, I love being with friends, but it's kind of nice having that alone time.

I just like being on my own on trains, traveling. I spent all my pocket money travelling the London Underground and Southern Railway, what used to be the Western region, and in Europe as much as I could afford it. My parents used to think I was going places, but I wasn't, I was just travelling the trains.

In the '50s, I was traveling alone all over Mindanao, Basilan, all the way to Tawi-Tawi with just a camera and a notebook. I always stayed in the houses of Moros.

I wanted to travel the world - I don't how that idea got in my head, but I really wanted to see the world... towns, cities, countries, I wanted to see them all.