R.I.P Hunter S. Thompson, Gonzo Traveler

The counterculture legend and self-proclaimed “gonzo” journalist who died by his own hand Sunday is being remembered for all sorts of contributions. I’ve yet to hear anyone describe him as a travel writer, but Thompson often wrote about travel in his unique style.

His classic, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” which chronicles his drug-crazed journeys to Las Vegas on assignment for a sporting magazine, includes the kind of passages one might find in a conventional travel memoir, albeit with Thompson’s signature drug-obsessed, paranoid touch. “Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only real cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas,” he writes in the book. “To relax, as it were, in the womb of the desert sun. Just roll the roof back and screw it on, grease the face with white tanning butter and move out with the music at top volume, and at least a pint of ether.”

It’s hard to read that without smiling. Like a lot of people, I read the book in college, along with the other college classic, “On the Road.” Those two books, I suspect, have introduced more young Americans to the possibilities of the road—and to the possibilities of road literature—than any others in recent years.

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