Boat from Manaus to Belém on the Amazon River in Brazil
This is another one of those ideas that I’ll never actually pursue, but I enjoy dreaming about it.
A few years back I crashed at a scout headquarters carved out of Brazil’s Amazon. Concrete floor, hammock hooks, and a soundtrack of rain beating down like it had cash on the game. A couple of local scouts, barely taller than my backpack, offered me a plate of arroz e feijão and a crash course in tying a bowline one‑handed.
I went to bed with a mosquito net for walls and the smell of camp‑stove coffee in my hair. By sunrise I could rig a tarp faster than I could scroll Instagram, even without cell coverage. That overnight stay felt less like lodgings and more like a life cheat code.
That’s the magic I’m chasing with Scoutel. Scout halls as pop‑up hostels where travelers trade a few bucks and a chore for shelter plus a slice of practical wisdom. Learn a knot, patch a canoe, pick up “always leave it cleaner than you found it.” You leave stamped with low‑key bragging rights and maybe a tiny blister from the rope.
Scouts get fresh stories to tell around the next campfire and a hand tidying the gear closet. Travelers get a bed that comes with lore instead of laminated checkout rules. Everyone walks away a little more prepared for whatever wild shows up next.
It worked in the Amazon. It can work anywhere. Pack your sleeping bag and curiosity, let’s turn every scout hall into the world’s chillest hostel chain.
This was the place where I had a near-death experience similar to the one in Stand by Me.
I am still breathing, which feels like decent breaking news. Chris McCandless is not. That detail hit me only a few months ago, even though he checked out over a decade back. His ride is chronicled in Jon Krakauer’s book and Sean Penn’s film Into the Wild. No spoilers here. Chris dies in the prologue too.
I ran into the story while my head was already juggling big feelings. Folks love to label the guy without reading the footnotes. Online you will find every take from heroic dream‑chaser to flaky drifter with a loose screw. I am still standing in the aisle of that legendary bus, watching both camps argue, not sure which seat fits.
Risk is a coin toss
Chris tossed the coin. Heads gave him epiphanies, tails bit him hard. Smart dude, well read, still human. He reached a few conclusions, just not the ones he planned, and by then his clock had stopped.
The catch in his dream was nonnegotiable. No modern crutches. Family, car, IDs, cash, even his birth name, all gone. Hard to call that right or wrong until you see where the breadcrumb trail ends. For him it was simply part of the blueprint.
A quick detour
Someone accused me of being obsessed with “wild” lately. Guilty. I ranted about it in another piece over here. Evolution breeds some odd backslides. People pretend they get themselves.
So is wandering into unknown terrain with duct‑tape gear and half‑baked prep just a loud way to sign your exit papers? Maybe. Same odds as chain‑smoking, binge‑drinking, or commuting by bike in Brazil.
Humans need rulebooks to keep from nuking the joint. Do not smoke. Do not drive drunk. Do not do drugs. Do not lie. Do not kill. Do not off yourself. We still rip the warning labels off, bend the jail bars, pitch the rulebook out the window, occasionally launch a toddler after it. Funny how we never jump ourselves.
Chris was that rule‑breaker in high‑definition. He even warned everybody he might not be coming back. He did not. The tale did, though, and that might be the point.
Trying to hack the world
The guy questioned the script most people follow. Maybe he aimed to change the world, but “world” here was personal, bite‑sized. Everything and everyone inside his bubble. He just misjudged how much a single decision can rewrite that bubble.
Nobody in his circle fully backed the plan. Makes sense. They wanted a cameo in his future and he was busy slashing pages from the script.
Adventurers, backpackers, stray humans with a map tattooed on the brain. Pack an extra layer. Not for rain. For a brand‑new prejudice wrapped in polite smiles. Turns out the so‑called “developed” crowd still runs on tribal wiring.
Quick mental detour before the mosquitoes bite. We live in a world of many worlds. Every time progress tries to glue two together, three more pop up like stubborn weeds. I warned you it was a weird trip.
The spark? A real trip, heavy on backpack and reflection. A thought loop kept buzzing:
First-world people can be downright savage. Yet, we Latin Americans carry that label. Go figure. I guess I prefer being savage.
In Europe, birthplace of youth hostels and questionable techno, I spotted a different flavor of bias. Sexual hang‑ups might be dying there, racial ones still kick, and now this new strain: Backpacker Phobia. Culture clash or philosophical crisis? Hard to say. Being a backpacker is either a lifestyle or a wearable manifesto.
I felt the stares. People swerved like I carried dengue in my pack. Hostel roommates finally named it: Punkabbestia. Italian for gutter punk. Cute. They swore folks were feeling paura, good old fear, around me.
So I watched closer. Fear stared back. Fear of anyone who refuses the dress code: lone wanderers, immigrants, buskers, punkabbestias. Anything with legs, a pack, and no clear destination.
That fear is an export of the shiny world. I have seen the same jittery eyes in “modern” South American cities (Hello Curitiba 👋😊). A backpacker breaks every template. No shape. No flag. Just a walking question mark. Even we do not know what is hiding behind the zipper.
Maybe they are right to worry.
Get ready. This prejudice is sprouting new branches. Stand tall. Flash a grin. A smile still bends arrows mid‑flight.
Plenty of people swear this is not real. Maybe they have never met those feral travelers from Planet Elsewhere. The ones stubborn enough to learn a world that spins backward and never really belonged to them in the first place.
This was originally published on my old blog BackpackBook (Livro de Mochila), a project that blended literature and travel, sometimes just traveling in my lucid dreams.
The Art of Travel is basically the original backpacker’s book, maybe even the reason this project ever existed. New stories and places spark new ideas, simple as that.
I still haven’t found the perfect words to describe certain emotions, maybe because I’m afraid of saying more than what’s already written on the book’s dust jacket. So, let’s switch gears for a moment before I let the book jacket do its thing. Don’t worry, I won’t make a habit of this.
I stumbled upon this book at a time when traveling was starting to lose its magic. I had that false sense of expertise, like a new driver who hits 100 km/h for the first time and suddenly thinks he’s a Formula 1 pro. I figured past experiences were enough to make me a seasoned traveler, and just like that, trips started feeling more stressful than exciting.
It took me a while to realize what was off. The first trips were so much more fun, but I was too busy micromanaging logistics, safety, time, costs, all that “practical” stuff, to see what was right in front of me. I had lost sight of what makes traveling special, the people, the cultures, the landscapes, the unexpected moments.
Before I crashed completely, I found Alain de Botton’s The Art of Travel, lying next to me on the grass at UFSC, the university I never got into but still ended up living next to, more on that later. Like most self-help books, it didn’t exactly tell me anything new, but it reminded me of things I had forgotten. And sometimes, that’s exactly what we need.
(Quick aside, back when I was applying to universities, those grassy areas at UFSC were my main motivation for getting in. Spoiler alert, I didn’t. But hey, I still get to enjoy the lawns, just on a slightly delayed student timeline.)
At times, the book gets lost in its own philosophical rabbit holes, but for the most part, it nails the Livro de Mochila ethos. It helped me understand why my trips weren’t hitting the same anymore and taught me to pay more attention to the little joys along the way.
“People rarely notice details. De Botton laments the blindness and rush of modern tourists, especially those bragging about covering all of Europe in a week by train. No amount of moving from place to place at 100 km/h will make us stronger, happier or wiser.”
The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton
So, if you do find yourself lost on a trip, don’t panic. Some of the best travel moments come from getting lost.
I could go on, but I don’t want to keep you from planning your next vacation. I’ll let the book jacket take it from here:
Book Jacket Blurb: Few things are as thrilling as the idea of traveling somewhere far away, to a place with a better climate, more interesting customs and scenery that fuels the imagination. So why do we often feel underwhelmed when we actually get there?
In The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton, author of The Consolations of Philosophy, takes us on a journey through the highs and lows of traveling. From airports and exotic rugs to the rush of vacations and the existential crisis that comes with mini-bars, this humorous, insightful book explores the hidden motivations, expectations and disappointments of seeing the world.
To guide us through this, De Botton brings in great thinkers and artists who were inspired by travel in all its forms, Flaubert, Edward Hopper, Baudelaire, Wordsworth, Van Gogh, Ruskin. They’re all here, ready to share their thoughts.
Forget those travel guides that just tell you what to do. The Art of Travel is more interested in the why, why we crave new places, why we’re often disappointed and how we can actually enjoy the ride.
“The joy we get from travel might have less to do with the destination itself and more with the mindset we bring. Openness could be considered its key ingredient. We approach new places with humility…”
The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton
Traveling with a Book in Your Backpack De Botton would love to tag along with you and The Art of Travel:
On a window seat, staring out as the plane glides toward the unknown.
In a dimly lit hostel room, trying not to wake your bunkmates.
Under a tree on a lazy Sunday morning, flipping through pages on the UFSC lawn.
Wherever you take it, one thing is guaranteed, you’ll come back with a heavier suitcase.
This was originally published on my old blog BackpackBook (Livro de Mochila), a project that blended literature and travel, sometimes just traveling in my lucid dreams.
The Livro de Mochila (Backpack Book) project had been on my mind for a while, a way to share good books and great travels, but it only became real when time started feeling scarce and valuable. I didn’t let the opportunity pass me by. I saddled up.
I had to. It’s not every day that you function on a few hours of sleep and somehow still manage to stay up late reading blog setup guides on a makeshift workstation in the kitchen. Temporary setup? Maybe. Maybe not.
It was also a time when my impulse buying was at an all-time high. A lot of good money was spent on books I still haven’t gotten around to reading. Turns out, my ability to buy books is greater than my ability to read them. So, for now, I’m keeping a safe distance from bookstores.
And the author?
Not that it really matters, but this post is called “Author,” and so far, I haven’t actually said much on the subject.
First, a little clarification. Whenever these posts use “we,” it’s really just me, for now. The idea is to give voice to anyone who agrees with what’s being said, even if that number is currently… limited.
“We call ourselves,” Diego Dotta. Aspiring traveler, recent reader, and someone still navigating a world that’s unknown to many, but excited about how much there is to explore and respect.
Personal Goal
I’ll spare you a long-winded introduction. The whole point of this project is to share and encourage friends to embrace the joys of reading and traveling. If we aren’t friends yet, give it time.
Carrying the words of my friend Richard, a specialist in parentheses-travel, Faust in my backpack, I can’t help but notice how little time people have for entertainment these days. Livro de Mochila was built for travelers who are shackled by their schedules, giving them a small taste of freedom, even if the next destination is just another day at the office.
Because in the end, the journey matters more than the destination.
And if this project doesn’t reach its intended goal? That’s fine too. What matters is the ride.
See you out there, in the real world, or the virtual one.
