Ken Ilgunas has hitchhiked 10,000 miles across North America, traveled 1,000 miles across Ontario, Canada in a birch bark canoe, and worked as a backcountry ranger at national parks in Alaska. He’s written for the New York Times, Time, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and his adventures and book have been featured on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the New Yorker, National Geographic, and NPR.

His first book, Walden on Wheels, is a travel memoir about student debt and living in a van for two years when he was enrolled at Duke University. His second book, Trespassing across America, is about his 1,700-mile hike following the proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline.

He has a B.A. from SUNY Buffalo in history and English, and an M.A. in liberal studies from Duke. His most recent book is called This Land Is Our Land: How We Lost the Right to Roam and How to Take It back.