A Journey Begins

An Appeal to Readers of Hickman's Hinterlands

My dear friends,

As time goes on, I realize that there are two distinct versions of Hickman’s Hinterlands that I am capable of offering you. Particularly as it relates to this year’s project — the Falling Back in Love with America Project — these competing visions for this publication and my work here have now become quite pertinent to consider, as we are on our first leg of our 12-month trip across America. And so it is that I write you now, for your input and support will determine what the rest of this year of ours will shape up to be.

The first version is the version where my fair wife and I sleep in ditches, subsist on rice and dumpster pizza, fill our cavities with pine tar, and hastily peck out articles on McDonald’s WiFi before the closing hour. Where our travels are restricted by whatever is the absolute cheapest, never deviating for the sake of reader interest — no pricy tickets to Alaska, no canoe voyages to isolated Adirondack hamlets, no monthlong ventures in the frigid islands of Maine and Michigan, where lodging is expensive and camping could prove to be a bone-chilling folly.

In this version, the eventuality of our having a baby might involve Keturah giving birth in a Motel 6, or a tent, or a Greyhound bus. We’d move from one dirt-cheap haven to another — desert encampments, hippie communes, Church pastor basements, and long-term camp-outs on public land — and we’d travel only wherever it is warm enough to sleep rough. The portrait of America that such travels could provide would not be without its beauty — but it would not be without its difficulties either.

Such a version of Hickman’s Hinterlands is what we can now afford, and it is not without its benefits — for the vantage point gained by extreme-low-budget travel is incredibly unique, and Lord knows I am versed in the methods it requires. We are not afraid to make our yearlong sojourn across the United States in this manner, and as it is, it is already an incredible privilege to be receiving such tenacious and loyal support from you as we go.

But there is another variation of this publication that you may take an interest in — it is the version where we are able to go after the living marrow of the American nation in the most unfettered and unconstrained manner imaginable. To venture into the bush in the January cold with good gloves and coats, hitchhiking snowmobile rides to inaccessible villages — confident that the steep weekly rate at the outpost’s only lodging would not leave us bankrupt. Cash visits to the dentist, the occasional steak, or a bourbon with a small-town Mayor — a canoe with which to paddle across isolated lakes to seldom-seen villages where old codgers fry up the moose meat. All things which may interest the reader — and all true articles of what this country has to offer.

All of this, taken together and carefully mixed with the occasional month of extreme-low-budget travel — could allow me to portray America’s own bones as completely as possible. For the United States is not only a series of commune backyards and Church suppers and $8/night city-owned campgrounds. She is also alive in historical hotels and brass-bar taverns; she thrives in hard-to-reach locales where a carton of eggs might sell for $19 and the only room in town might rent for twice what the Super 8 on the interstate charges.

While we have no desire to live as wastrels on the good will of our readers — we must admit that the quality of work we are able to produce for you is directly tied to the level of financial support you collectively contribute to Hickman’s Hinterlands.

My wife and I are already “all in” on the work we are doing. We’ve decided we’re going to do it no matter what, even if it leaves us poorer, more tired, and worse off in practically every regard. We are 100% committed to giving America a thorough, sober, passionate inspection, not only for ourselves, and not only for our readers — but for the good of the country. For with your paid subscriptions, the project that we have now just begun could make waves through the hearts of Americans the whole nation over. It could, if we are lucky, change our homeland for the better. For the sleeping spirit must be roused, and its songs must be sung; we must amble through the far-reaching depths of this old nation — and then sit somewhere with a desk and a bed for as long as it takes to type out what we’ve seen and learned each month.

And with the right amount of resources, we’ll go to places so “out there” that our essays may provide one of the only glimpses of the place that many readers will ever get. We want to take them there with us.

As of now, we are 1,600 miles from home, living out of our backpacks and traveling with folding bikes. We are sleeping in tents in public parks and highway off-ramps and cooking our dinners on a camp stove, wandering across the High Plains by train, bus, automobile, and bicycle. I’ve written the first introductory essay of the series already — which will find its way into your inboxes soon — and twenty-four articles will follow it in the next twelve months.

The rest is up to you.

With these reflections put to paper and ink — or, to pixels, I should say — I will leave you with this: If you’ve been on-the-fence about whether to become a “paid” subscriber to Hickman’s Hinterlands, now’s the time. Your support will determine what sort of project we are capable of doing this year.

We’re happy to do it either way.

My sincerest gratitude for your incredible faith in what has now become my life’s work. As long as you have the interest and faith that I can deliver worthwhile articles to each of you, I will not stop doing this work. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Warmly,

A.M. Hickman
Wyoming, August 2024