What It's Like to Be Voluntarily Homeless (and to be a 'Traveler')

To learn about the mainstream culture of an era, it helps to look at the vagrants and nomads who have dropped out of it: the tramps of the Gilded Age; the beatniks of the 1950s. Today they are called crusties, gutter punks, or the voluntary homeless—but they often refer to themselves simply as travelers.