Random Thoughts from the Road is a tribute to fifteen years of overland wandering, when the road felt more like home than any fixed address.
In those pre‑internet years, Robert Louis DeMayo traveled mostly overland—by bus, train, boat, or on foot—crossing every continent but Antarctica before returning to the family farm in New Hampshire. Along the way, he filled thirty journals, recording border crossings and night buses, cheap rooms and long hikes, small joys and occasional disasters.
The pieces collected here come straight from those notebooks and remain close to their original form, carrying the dust, sweat, and rough edges of a nomadic life. Some pages are poems, some brief scenes, some fragments of thought—together they read like the dog‑eared journal you’d find at the bottom of a well‑traveled pack. This isn’t a guidebook or tidy narrative, but the way the road actually feels while you’re on it: immediate, unpredictable, sometimes frightening, often beautiful.
Readers of The Wayward Traveler, The Road to Sedona, and Pithecophilia will recognize familiar landscapes and themes, but here the voice is more intimate and fragmentary, closer to the raw impressions that never make it into a polished travelogue.
Masada
Sun in my eyes, wind in my hair,
Reach in my pocket, but I’ve no money there.
Don’t have any food or a bed for the night,
But I can’t help thinking this is working just right.
You think I’ve gone mad and laugh at my ways,
But this life is free – I like it that way.
Jill’s covered with sweat, the sun’s trying to beat her,
But she laughs it off; her beauty runs deeper.
In the heat for an hour and not a ride yet,
My shoulders are stinging, my body is wet.
The bus comes along, but we don’t have the fare,
We get on regardless and fight down the stares.
The buses are cool, and if worse comes to worst,
We’ll relax for an hour before regaining our thirst.
The driver lets us stay, my bad luck streak may falter.
But he searches my bags and finds my last dollar.
I sit on the floor, my shorts torn at the seams,
I may have no money, but I’m living my dreams.
(Nergav Desert, Israel – September 86)
Note: About hitchhiking broke with a fellow traveler, Jill,
from the Masada ruins to Elate (on the Red Sea) to find work.
Coco Cola in Neon
Claws in my stomach…
a little hunger makes you think clear.
I drift through Kings Cross like a ghost,
Watching faces and strange people.
Some dry toast for breakfast.
Bag of chips for dinner.
I’ve found lots of friends,
But there’s no work in sight.
Often, I’ve gone two days without food,
But always on the third, something comes through.
Long, tunnel-like alleys, Coco Cola in neon.
A couple of bums share a bottle,
One’s passed out in the street.
Young girls in black leather,
Long legs, fishnet stockings.
And sure, I get tempted,
But some food would do more.
Confused tourist with their cameras.
A train arrives with a parade of yuppies.
Crowded bars filled with laughter,
But Coco-Cola in neon is all that I drink.
(Sydney, Australia – August 90)
Hwange Nat. Park, Zimbabwe - 1992
Orkney, South Africa, about to descend 8,000 feet into the deepest verticle shaft on the planet.
If you enjoyed following along on my journeys and want to see what travel books I would recommend, please check out my list on Shepherd.
After finishing this journey, be sure to explore Robert Louis DeMayo’s other travel narratives—stories that trace real‑world paths through wild landscapes, rich cultures, and moments of profound discovery.
