CHAPEL HILL -- Henry David Thoreau wrote in "Walden" that "a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone."
By that measure, Andrew Fu is a wealthy man. Fu, a 25-year old Californian left his entire life alone when he quit his job in February, during a recession, and sold everything he owned. Fu left Riverside, Calif., on March 23 to meet America.
On July 30, 130 days later after circling the country, Fu arrived to start business school at UNC Chapel Hill. He was 12 pounds lighter but many pounds richer emotionally after partying for 21 hours in Chicago, jumping off cliffs in Burlington, Vt., crab-fishing in Florida and living among Americans of all stripes and philosophies.
"My parents tried everything in the book to keep me from going," Fu says of his nearly four months living out of his car. "But once they saw what the trip was doing to me, what I was learning, they were very supportive."
Why would a gainfully employed college graduate leave his life? Working as a software engineer for SanDisk in the Silicon Valley's tech haven, he says he saw too many peers yearn for more. In the middle of a recession, those same career-minded peers couldn't loosen their death grip on whatever job security they had.
"I felt it was more important to follow a dream," Fu says. "I can work the rest of my life. I have no baggage on me right now. I had to do this."
Bare necessities
Reading Thoreau during the trip helped clarify Fu's ambitions. In "Walden," Thoreau also talked about embracing simplicity and living with the bare necessities. But how could Fu live meagerly and still travel? I could hitchhike, he thought. No, you can't, his parents said.
Fu decided to drive -- he already owned a car -- and spend as little money as possible. To pay for food, gas and other essentials, he used the $500 he'd made selling off his stuff. He added the to his savings to bankroll his dream.
He gathered recommendations for books from friends and took 12 including "Walden."
He stocked up on peanut butter, jelly, canned vegetables, dry beans and rice. He figured he'd turn Rachael Ray and cook everyday.
"That lasted a week," he says.
Finding it too hard to find power for his portable stove and water to clean, Fu ate PB&J and canned vegetables, adding tuna and vitamins for better nutrition.
Fu longed for solitude and living one with nature but that dream died one cold morning when he woke freezing, in a sleeping bag good only to 30 degrees.
"I woke up at 3 a.m. and thought, 'What am I doing here, in Kansas? It's 10 degrees outside. I'm freezing!'" Fu says. "That was the only moment I thought about going back. I thought I would [get homesick] but I was having too many mad adventures. I never had a chance to miss home."
Meeting America
John Steinbeck wrote in "East of Eden" -- another book that Fu read during his trip -- that " Perhaps the best conversationalist in the world is the man who helps others to talk."
Fu engaged stranger after stranger. He met Billy Mays in a bathroom at a food festival in New York two days before the TV pitchman died.
He chatted up firefighters in Huntington, W.Va., one morning in front of their station and ended up staying at the firehouse for two nights.
He stayed with Christian missionaries who had gone to New Orleans to help rebuild the 9th Ward, still struggling from Hurricane Katrina. He fell in love with NOLA while watching six children start an impromptu concert in the French Quarter at 3 a.m. during the city's jazz festival; a crowd gathered to cheer them on.
In Atlanta, Fu walked into a tent in Centennial Park. The next day, he walked out after having helped to set a world record for the most pancakes made in eight hours.
Walking through Dodge City, Kan., Fu walked into the First Christian Church and met Jeff Bogner, a church member who owns an 8,000-acre farm. Fu toured the farm for two days, riding horses with Bogner's sister and learning to run a tractor.
"How amazing to be young and carefree," Joanne Bogner says. "I told Andrew I'd never have the courage to load all my stuff into a car and take off."
In Baltimore five weeks ago, Fu was hanging out at a used DVD/CD store when he saw a man showing off his graffiti artist's "bible" or portfolio. Fu stuck his head into the conversation and a couple of days later found himself hiking during a storm with the artist known as "Saike 183" to the local graffiti "hall of fame."
A place to rest
Saike took Fu home to his family, fed him, gave him snacks for his trip, and a bed for a night.
"I told him he could stay whenever he wanted but he was too proud," Saike says now. "He wanted to stick to the spirit of roughing it. He was real diligent about it."
Fu left with original artwork by Saike's 5-year old son.
In Chicago for the Fourth of July, Fu met a woman who invited him to her DJ boyfriend's house party. It raged for 21 hours, during which Fu and his new friends tried to define truth.
Fu blogged about that hours-long debate last month, writing, "Truth, in essence, is absolute. ... Truth is pervasive; it exists regardless of opinion. ... Everyone strives to know the truth but everyone's perception of it is different."
Fu might have exchanged the biggest piece of his soul with a homeless man in Bethesda, Md. Damon Negron was the most intelligent man Fu says he met during his trip. At 7 p.m., Negron tried to sell Fu some paintings and National Geographic magazines. They went for Chinese food and were still talking at 6 a.m.
"We talked about everything -- philosophy, government, society. I'd call him a modern-day Renaissance man," Fu says.
Not all of Fu's experiences rocked his world.
"I'd wanted to go to Kokomo my whole life," he says. "[The Beach Boys] song came out when I was five. I thought it had a beach. It's this tiki bar [in the Florida Keys]. And it was closed!"
In Seattle, Fu paid a guy in an orange vest $20 to park in a downtown lot. Not until he walked away and saw the "No attendant on duty" sign did Fu realize he'd been bilked.
Fu spent an hour tracking the guy down, using intelligence from a drug dealer who was working a corner not far away. He got his money back.
Wild rides
Fu had a few scary moments as well. He arrived in North Carolina in the fourth car he'd driven during the trip. He rolled Car No. 1, which he'd already paid off, in West Virginia after veering off road, then swerving back. The car was totaled, but he walked away with a sprained wrist and minor scrapes and cuts. Fu had no health insurance.
Car No. 2 was a rental car he used until he bought a new Honda Element, a blue one. No. 3, the blue Honda, overheated in Arizona on the final leg of Fu's trip. He had to get to Chapel Hill for orientation at UNC by July 31. He rented Car No. 4 -- Barbara Fu insisted Andrew use her credit card for the rentals -- not knowg how he'd be able to drive 55hours in two days by himself. Fu picked up Bob, a hitchhiker and former Green Beret. The Vietnam veteran, who for a living travels the country sandblasting water towers, drove most of the way.
"We talked for two days," Fu says.
True to the spirit of his wild four-month ride, another glitch occurred. While driving through Oklahoma, a day before he arrived in North Carolina, Fu woke wondering why the car had stopped. Looking around, he noticed Bob sitting in a police cruiser and a K-9 unit driving up. Fu's friend was stopped for not using a turn signal, but police also thought Bob was a wanted man. He wasn't.
"There were some flashing lights and I was like, 'Well, it can't be too bad; no one's in handcuffs yet,'" Fu says, laughing.
Moving on
Fu learned to roll with it.
"When you're on the road alone, you're homeless so, just by nature, you learn to be a little more shameless," Fu says. "You want to practice a pickup line, a certain way to talk to people, whatever. When you're on the road, it's a perfect opportunity to do it."
Fu says he developed more compassion. He chose to live out of his car so he knows what it means to sleep in the cold. He avoided fast food because it would have eaten up his budget. He knows what it means to long for a hot meal.
He also knows he had a safety net -- parents, their credit cards, a destination -- many people don't have. He knows his adventure was just that, and one he had by choice.
The net doesn't make the change he underwent any less real or enduring.
"What impacted me was the number of people who housed and fed me without knowing me," Fu says." I want to do the same for those who haven't been lucky and who want to change. I want to be able to follow through on anything I say."
In "On the Road," Jack Kerouac talked about the feeling you have "when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? It's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies."
Fu leaned hard into his trip. He recommends it.
"The journey you take now won't be the same one you take 10 or 20 years from now. Take it now."
