What is a hobo? Am I a hobo?

For those of you who didn’t grow up packing all of your life’s essentials into a red bandana and searching your yard for the perfect stick to tie your bindle to while threatening your parents that you were going to join up with the next hobo coming through town, we’ll explain . . .

A hobo is a born traveler.  A hobo is a person—probably a bit of a loner—who is always on the move, looking for a meal here and there, looking for lodging here and there, looking for work here and there . . . and maybe even a drink or two.

Hobos have been traveling by riding the rails of North America for over 100 years, usually on freight trains, going from town to town and region to region, making friends along the way and experiencing the countryside.  Other hobos, in a broader sense of the term, get around by whatever other transportation is available to them.  The essence of being a hobo is being on the move.  It is a way of life, it is an attitude, it is state of mind.

A hobo has an adventurous spirit, is fiercely independent, loves to travel and lives a nomadic lifestyle—itinerant and constantly going somewhere.  A hobo is synonymous with rough edges and living on the land.  Hobo life conjures up images of the country, the West, folk music, bluegrass, and the wilderness.

For the record, hobos distinguish between three types of people often seen by the outside world as being of the same breed, but who actually live very different lives: a hobo is a traveler who is willing to work; a tramp travels, but will not work; and a bum will do neither.

Are you a hobo?

What’s so unique about hobos?

Hobos have their own sense of community and culture.  A hobo has a “moniker” (a hobo name) and is friends with other hobos—his “hobo family.”  That community has its own unique forms of communication, in symbols and slang.

Think of hobo symbols as a pre-internet form of SMS or IM, for the open road.  Hobo symbols might look like random markings, but leave an important message for other hobos.  A hobo etching an icon of a picnic table into a fence post is telling other hobos coming through town that someone living in that house might fix him up some supper.

Hobo vocabulary is rich as well: a “jungle” is a place where hobos take refuge together for a night, often around a fire near a train depot, finding food, drink, warmth and, not least of all, a sense of community.  From language to writing to gatherings, hobos have a sense of culture and community.  Just like you.

Hobo life is chronicled in literature.  For some examples—ranging from Steinbeck to the Holy Bible—take a look at the hobo book list on the Hobo In Paris online bookstore.

Are there really hobos in Paris?

Yep.  Although not many of us hobos in Paris got here by hopping in a boxcar (except, of course, for our hero, patron saint and anthropological test subject Jimmy Trout), in our hearts all of us expats are travelers—hobos away from our countries of birth, away from most of our families, here looking for a meal, lodging, work . . . and maybe even a drink, a joke and a story.  Whether you’re an artist or a musician, an attorney or an investment banker, chances are that you’re just as much of a hobo as Jimmy.

We’re here to learn about our new place and to make new friends.  We might come here as loners, but we find community, just like hobos in a jungle.