By Adam Stone, the Examiner News, March 14, 2025
I stopped by Soul Brewing Company in Pleasantville last night to grab a pint with Mark Orwoll, a veteran journalist and author who has published a new memoir, Just One Little Hitch, detailing his hitchhiking adventures across Europe and Morocco in the 1970s.
Orwoll brought along a copy of the book, and although our meeting was supposed to be a social outing, I couldn’t resist breaking out my tape recorder for the last 20 minutes of our time together.
“This book was written after about 50 years, almost 50 years after the fact,” Orwoll told me. “In 1976, I went hitchhiking across the face of Europe and North Africa because I dropped out of college and I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do on this planet. And this is the end result of those five months on the road.”
His past work includes a book about John Wayne – John Wayne Speaks: The Ultimate John Wayne Quote Book – and Orwoll told me he has another project cooking on Humphrey Bogart.
You might recognize Orwoll, a seasoned travel writer, from his more than 75 appearances over the years on NBC’s Today Show. Now a semi-retired freelance writer, he contributes to Travel + Leisure, the Los Angeles Times, Slate Magazine, and AARP.
Orwoll, a musician, is very engaged on the local scene as well.
“I was in the very first band actually who played at the Pleasantville Music Festival,” noted Orwoll, who moved to Pleasantville in 1995 with his wife, Kathy Fox, who he married in 1983.
He’s been involved with Circle of Friends at the St. John’s Episcopal Church in Pleasantville for the past quarter century.
“We’ve had open mic nights and we’ve had the more or less performance nights throughout the years,” he said. “And it was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. And a lot of people worked very hard to make that happen.”
I’m excited to dig into Orwoll’s new book. The Amazon summary notes how the memoir details Orwoll’s adventures hanging out with Beat Generation poets, getting dosed on acid at an illegal rock festival, losing everything he owns to thieves, and decidedly not learning how to ride a camel.
“He would also find his calling in life – at 4 p.m. on July 17, 1976, over a beer on the terrace of the Café Select in Montparnasse,” the summary notes. “Harps, trumpets, and cathedralesque sunbeams may have been involved.”
But, I asked, what more exactly was his discovery?
“I had an epiphany,” he explained between gulps of an IPA. “And I know this is going to sound stupid, but it’s true. I had an epiphany. Jesus, why don’t you become a journalist? You like to interview people. You like talking to people. You’re a good writer. This is what you should do.”
My sense, in hearing Orwoll describe his book, is that he’s trying to tell us to listen to our guts, to hear our intuition.
“The moral of the story is do believe in yourself,” he told me. “I was very fortunate in that I did not have parents who are forcing me into one career or one lifestyle.”
I also couldn’t resist asking him about those psychedelic trips.
“The 1970s were an entirely different world,” the married father of three adult children said. “However, I will also add that it made my mind wider, bigger, gave me more of a sense that I will listen, I will accept and be willing to take on new experiences. I’m not going to suggest that you raise your children this way. But I will tell you this: it worked for me.”
If that piques your interest, check out Orwoll’s new book right here.
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