Travelogues

Favorite Gym Characters: Bakken Oil Field Edition

by Matt Forney 05.03.2013

NOTE: This article was originally published at Bronan the Barbarian! on October 12, 2012. I’m re-posting it here as the site is now defunct. *** Greetings from the heady hinterlands of North Dakota, where jobs are plentiful but housing is scarce. That means a lot of folks signing up for gym memberships solely so they can cleanse their [...]

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Hitchhiking on the Highway

by Matt Forney 05.01.2013
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This is an excerpt from my book, The Hitchhiking Crash Course. The vast majority of states outlaw hitchhiking on Interstates by virtue of outlawing pedestrian traffic on them period. This is ostensibly for safety reasons: at speeds of 55 miles per hour and up, you’re guaranteed roadkill if you get hit by a car. Most states [...]

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Where Do You Go Hitchhiking?

by Matt Forney 04.24.2013
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This is an excerpt from my book, The Hitchhiking Crash Course. Before you set out, you need to look at a road map and figure out where you’re going and what you want to do. You want to plot out a route that will get you to your destination with a minimum of fuss and wasted [...]

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Why You Should Go Hitchhiking

by Matt Forney 04.17.2013
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This is an excerpt from my book, The Hitchhiking Crash Course. Last year, I took a six-month road trip from Syracuse, New York to Portland, Oregon. Exempting three short bus rides (from Plattsburgh, New York to Syracuse, from Chicago to Madison, Wisconsin and from Madison to Des Moines, Iowa), I hitchhiked virtually the entire way: a [...]

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Autographed Copy of Dirty Projectors’ Swing Lo Magellan for Sale

by Matt Forney 04.16.2013
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I’m back in upstate New York temporarily on a work assignment, and I had the opportunity to see Dirty Projectors performing at the Westcott last Sunday. There’s not much to say about the night: I had a damn good time, I didn’t get molested by any drunk women, and the Westcott is a dump that [...]

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New Article at Return of Kings: “What Hitchhiking Taught Me About Picking Up Girls”

by Matt Forney 04.12.2013
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What do getting a ride and getting laid have in common? I talk about it over at Return of Kings: Hitchhiking is best described as short bursts of action separated by long stretches of boredom. As a thumber, it’s your job to sift through the drivers who pass by you, signalling them all until one of [...]

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Buy The Hitchhiking Crash Course: How to Travel the World and Meet Cool People Today

by Matt Forney 04.12.2013
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Today is the release date of my second book, The Hitchhiking Crash Course. Here’s what you’ll learn from this 90-page book: Why most conventional wisdom about hitching is wrong The most important thing to have before you leave on your journey What to bring with you The most effective places to get rides How to dress [...]

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I Call Portland Women Fat and Ugly, Hilarity Ensues

by Matt Forney 04.09.2013

Last Friday, Return of Kings published my article “Six Reasons Why Portland Sucks for Single Men.” While I love Portland as a whole—the culture, the music, the spirit of entrepreneurship—I took issue with the city’s cliquish atmosphere, its depressing weather, its preponderance of bums, and its fat, unfashionable, unjustifiably egotistical women. In response, Portlanders took to [...]

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My Next Book, The Hitchhiking Crash Course, Drops This Friday: Get it for a Discount

by Matt Forney 04.08.2013
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A new month means a new book out from yours truly. I decided to cram all my wisdom about hitchhiking—how to dress, what to bring, where to do it—into a single volume for the benefit of future adventurers. The Hitchhiking Crash Course is quite possibly the only handbook on hitching in the modern era, dealing with the unique [...]

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New Article at Return of Kings: “Six Reasons Why Portland Sucks for Single Men”

by Matt Forney 04.05.2013
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I make a fair and balanced assessment of the Rose City’s womenfolk over at Return of Kings: Portland is supposedly one of the fittest cities in America, but you wouldn’t know it by actually visiting here. The average PDX girl either has a body shaped like a beach ball or looks like an Auschwitz survivor; nothing in [...]

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A Place Where Nothing Ever Happens

by Matt Forney 03.25.2013
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They call it “Dignity Village” because that’s the only thing you have to give up in order to stay there. The place gets a lot of attention in left-wing circles, for obvious reasons: it’s the only officially chartered squatters’ camp in North America. Operated according to socialist principles, the Village has amenities that no other [...]

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Notes from the Road: I’ve Seen America with My Clothes On

by Matt Forney 01.16.2013

As I’ve mentioned before, periods of incredible pain and bad luck in my life are followed with periods of amazing good fortune. After landing in Snoqualmie, on the fringe of Seattle’s eastern exurbs, I not only found myself up $20 and a free dinner, but free bus fare to Seattle. Here are some pictures from the [...]

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Notes from the Road: Six Days of Hitchhiking Hell

by Matt Forney 01.07.2013

Hitchhiking in Wyoming: don’t do it. Just don’t. The Equality State is a perfect storm of hellish conditions. Beyond the fact that it’s only one of a few states where hitching is illegal, it also has a paucity of actual drivers, being the least-populated state in the Union. And too many of those drivers are [...]

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To the Fat Hipster Girl Who Felt Me Up at the Holocene the Other Night

by Matt Forney 12.20.2012
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Dear Fat Hipster Girl, It was quite a shock when you came onto me at the Soft Moon concert a couple of nights ago. Thanks to you, I’ve now calculated that I have a 25 percent chance of getting sexually assaulted at any concert I go to. It seems that girls who mosh next to [...]

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Notes from the Road: Flee Into the Night

by Matt Forney 12.19.2012

I am an extremely lazy hitchhiker, mainly because I like to sleep in. I’m the kind of asshole who waits until thirty minutes before check-out time to roll out of bed. Fuck your hemming and hawing about “Circadian rhythms”; I know my body, and I know I function better getting up late. Unfortunately, sleeping in [...]

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That Feeling When You’ve Accomplished Something That Everyone Said Was Impossible

by Matt Forney 12.10.2012

I’ve given up a lot to complete this little project of mine; free time, money, health etc. Right now, I’m sitting in a nondescript Starbucks in a losing battle against fatigue. I’ve only been able to get about two hours of sleep in the past two days. I’ve pushed my body to the limits of [...]

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