BootsnAll Intern – Jared Johnsen

Jared Johnsen
Author Bio

Jared on the Rails

Jared Johnsen’s addiction to traveling seems to have begun growing up in the Midwest when his family took him on yearly road trips “out west,” where his father’s penchant for mountains and autumn colors pulled them in the same direction every fall. In the back of the car with his head propped against the window, dark and starry sky glowing in from the other side, Jared would never again rest so peacefully as when under the comfort of this motion carrying him somewhere new and unseen.

During his junior year of high school in Red Wing, Minnesota, his older brother went with him on a month-long visit to Europe, visiting an old friend in Switzerland and taking in some of the traditional European highlights. Armed with the infamous Eurail pass and an erasable pen, Jared slept with deep inner peace crossing national borders in the night, and waking to the sunrise over landscapes virgin to his eyes. Sometimes there was no other option than the floors of the walkways; sometimes he was awoken by pickpocketers reaching into his blue jeans. But always he slept under the spell of motion introduced in youth. This trip brought to his attention, for the first time, his purpose in life: to explore new places and to tell their stories.

Years later, majoring in English with a minor in history at Portland State University, he took the opportunity his junior year to study abroad in Barcelona, Spain where he still maintains he will live someday. A year after the trip and graduating from college, frustrated in his waning abilities in Spanish and unquenched desires for traveling, he developed a plan. He decided he would do what any good graduate in his position ought to do: store the degree along with his other belongings and travel the world. Within six months, he had finessed just enough tips out of the affluent guests frequenting the hotel that employed him in order to purchase a ticket to Lima, Peru with a return flight for the 364^th day of the following year. In South America he visited 10 countries, taught rural Ecuadorian elementary schoolchildren English, tutored college students in Buenos Aires, and, on a trek, set foot above 5,000 meters for the first time in his life. It was a brilliant year for an aspiring writer. He encountered many a unique character and cultural beliefs that would fuel his writing and alter his future forever. But always, rolling through the night aboard the disparate styles of buses, from luxury to cattle transport, the motion lulled him into a sleep much sweeter, with dreams more peaceful.