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{{trope}}
[[File:fallout3dogmeat 4984.jpg|link=Fallout 3|
{{quote|''"I'll just walk the earth
|'''Jules Winnfield''', ''[[Pulp Fiction]]''}}
Footloose and fancy-free, perhaps [[Noble Fugitive]]s on the lam, or maybe [[Desperately Looking for a Purpose In Life]], we set off among the [[Adventure Towns]], seeking the next place, rather than our fortunes.
This trope is bottomless, it seems. The audience ''wants'' to believe life without roots is romantic and [[In Harm's Way|full of adventure]]. [[The Drifter|The character]] has no home, no job, no money, no identification, no friends, and no visible means of support, yet is always healthy, well-fed, clean, and welcome wherever he goes.
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Most of us would agree with Vincent Vega's response to Jules: "You're gonna become a ''bum!'' If you don't have a job, a home, and legal tender, that's all you'll be is a bum. Someone who picks in garbage cans and eats the stuff I throw away." Most people who go '''Walking the Earth''' by themselves are male (or [[Sweet Polly Oliver|disguised as male]]). Females generally belong to a nomadic group, mostly for defense purposes.
It's much easier when you have a valuable skill... but this is [[Knight Errant|a different trope]]. You can get away with just
This trope is a very American one. As far as big TV producing nations go, The U.S. of A. has the geography best suited to this form of adventure. Australia also has the tradition of the Walkabout, where young men would wander the land for months as a spiritual journey. Notable exception: [[Doctor Who]], largely because the protagonist isn't limited to walking the ''Earth''. Also a very common trope in older [[The Western|Westerns]].
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When one is forced to walk the earth against one's will, this trope becomes the much darker [[Flying Dutchman]].
If a character
Most [[Wuxia]] heroes fall under either [[Knight Errant]] or (if they do not have a code of honour but merely wanders the land for enjoyment) this, they will master their arts and search for worthy opponents, either before a remarkable quest calls for them or after they already finished their quest in life and decides to drift off to other places.
Subtrope of [[In Harm's Way]]. See also
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Mushishi]]'' is a good example of this because its main character, Ginko, goes from place to place studying the mushi and helping others with mushi. While it's true he has friends and tends to revisit places, he has no real home.
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** not to mention that it's nigh impossible to accomplish too. Getting from one level of the superstructure to another involves penetrating nigh indestructible wall/ceiling/floor, it also involves fighting endless hordes of mindless robots and nigh indestructible endlessly regenerating super cyborg agents with weapons of mass destruction. It's no wonder people stare in disbelief when he claims that he has traveled over 3000 levels or possibly more. They find it hardly believable that someone is from just the next level.
* The anime ''[[Golden Boy]]'' is about a young man who ''bikes'' the Earth.
* The cast of RPG-trope specific ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' also engaged in Walking the Earth, as especially pointed out via the amazing [[Ghibli Hills]] landscapes in the ending credits of the first movie. If the game is any indication, it's a-okay to wander the world alone at the age of ten! While Ash and his entourage all do have homes with families they can fall back on (Pallet Town in Ash's case, Pewter City for Brock, Cerulean City for Misty, and so on) they're rarely actually at home.
** [[Mons|While carrying around superpowered monsters capable of breathing fire, flying, generating enough electricity to power a small town, et cetera]]. When there's a free [[Trauma Inn]] in nearly every town. And remember that [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture|just about every region is analogous to a part of Japan.]] ([[Pokémon Black and White|except the one based off]] [[Big Applesauce|Manhattan]])
* ''[[Kino's Journey]]'' has a main character and a talking motorcycle travel across a fictional world. She has a pretty good reason.
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* This makes up most of the plot of ''[[Scrapped Princess]]''...but they do a lot more running, so to speak.
* {{spoiler|Simon and Boota}} did this at the end of ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]''. Not all fans were pleased with the circumstances.
* The characters from ''[[Blood
* Kenshiro is introduced doing this in ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'', and generally wanders when he isn't dealing with a specific foe.
* Guts wanders Midland in ''[[Berserk]]'' when we first see him, searching for demons to slay and trying to track down Griffith, his former commander and best friend who betrayed him during the Eclipse, until the "Conviction" arc gives him something to focus on.
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* Renton & Eureka literally end up like this by the end of ''[[Eureka Seven]]'' for over 1 year until they find their way home. The Gekkostate lifestyle is also full of this, considering they are mercenaries. The couple Ray & Charles as well.
* Parodied in ''[[Silver Spoon]]'' with {{spoiler|Yugo's older brother}}, who is an [[Lethal Chef|awful cook]]. He believes that the ramen chef he was apprenticed to sent him out on a quest to find the best ramen ingredients in the world, when in actuality he was fired.
== Comic Books ==
* Doctor Bruce Banner in ''[[Incredible Hulk|The Incredible Hulk]]''. Given [[Hero with Bad Publicity|his alterego's reputation]], it's never a good idea to stay in one place for long.
** And David Banner in [[The Incredible Hulk (TV series)|the TV series]].
* Miyamoto Usagi of ''[[Usagi Yojimbo]]'', much like the historical figure he's loosely based on, [[Miyamoto Musashi]]. And many others.
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{{quote|''I cannot rest from travel: I will drink''
''Life to the lees:'' }}
* [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s blind singer Rhysling, composer of the song "[[The Green Hills of Earth]]" in the short story of the same name. Until the accident that blinded him, he had been a spaceship engineer; after the accident, he took advantage of the informal custom that a spacer could have one free trip home, using it to wander at will all over the solar system.
** His most famous character, Lazarus Long, spends centuries wandering the galaxy. His wanderings are fueled both by boredom, and by needing to move on from a community before the locals start to suspect his immortality.
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* ''Voyage of the "Princess Ark"'' (first published as series in ''[[Dragon (magazine)|Dragon]]'' magazine, later collected in ''Champions of Mystara'') is a [[Mockumentary|log]] of an Alphatian airship wandering the skies of [[Mystara]] ([[Space Sailing|and beyond]]), as narrated by the captain and a few other officers.
▲== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[The Incredible Hulk (TV series)|The Incredible Hulk]]'' has David Banner walking the United States.
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' is a classic example of this, though it's helped by the fact that the Doctor, with a TARDIS and [[Time Travel]], really doesn't need to worry about food, shelter, or expenses.
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* In ''[[The Immortal]]'', has Christopher George as Ben Richards, who runs from the employees of a terminally ill, wealthy man who want to capture him for transfusions of his blood because he has every immunity there is, and is likely to live forever, and would do something similar for anyone who got transfusions from him. The exact opposite of ''Run For Your Life'' (see).
* Caine in ''[[Kung Fu]]'' is, of course, the [[Trope Namer]], and did a lot to show people how easy it was to apply the model of [[Adventure Towns]] to an ongoing series.
* ''[[The Littlest Hobo]]'' was this kind of series, only the central character was a dog. (And [[Canada|Canadian]], which makes this a rare non-American example.)
* Some versions of ''[[Lassie]]'' also depict her travelling alone, a la ''Littlest Hobo''.
* ''[[Quantum Leap]]'': Like the show article says, replace "Earth" with "Timeline."
* In ''[[Renegade (TV series)|Renegade]]'', Reno Raines was a [[Bounty Hunter]] on the run from the law while trying to [[Clear My Name|clear his name]] of a [[Wrongly Accused|false murder accusation]].
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* In the short-lived [[FOX]] series ''[[Danger Theatre]]'' one of the two rotating series was "The Searcher," a parody of ''Renegade'' and ''Knight Rider''.
{{quote|Someone needs help, so they called me. That’s what I do. I help people in trouble...They call me: The Searcher.}}
* The short-lived [[Judson Scott]] TV series ''[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083464/combined The Phoenix]'' also followed this model, except the man doing the walking was a space alien.
* The western series ''[[Wagon Train]]'' featured a group of people "walking the earth". According to Gene Roddenberry, the show's format of wandering from place to place and encountering different characters and adventures was the template for his own ''[[Star Trek]]''.
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{{quote|Oh yeah, I'm the type of guy that likes to roam around
I'm never in one place, I roam from town to town.}}
* [[Frank Sinatra]]'s "Love's Been Good to Me":
{{quote|I have been a rover
I have walked alone
Hiked a hundred highways
Never found a home
Still in all I'm happy
The reason is, you see
Once in a while along the way
[[Title Drop|Love's been good to me]].}}
== Mythology ==
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== Tabletop Games ==
* Too many ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' [[We Help the Helpless|adventuring parties]] to count. (Although all those dungeons mean that they have ''some'' means of support, at least...)
** The [[Greyhawk| Oeridian]] deity Fharlanghn is an extreme example. As befits the God of Roads, he is always traveling and exploring the Multiverse, never in one place for long. Being an actual god, he is often in ''more'' than one place at a time, but always traveling. His petitioners and worshippers tend to do the same, as his faith and dogma encourage traveling in order to learn and experience the world.
* Eldar in ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' who feel too confined by their society's rigid structure are allowed to pursue the Path of the Exile and become Rangers, though they usually respond to requests from their craftworld to return and offer their skills (and sniper rifles) in defense of their race.
** The Orks have their own inversion- Ork society is based on any boy doing whatever he wants, as long as it doesn't get him krump'd by da Boss. For some younger, 'rebellious' Orks, the pressure is too much, and so they decide the best option is to enlist with the Stormboyz, whose training includes un-Orky training like marching and regimented training drills.
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** In the original game, killing Ganon and saving Hyrule was framed as one of his many adventures; he was a wanderer already, and was going to wander off with the Triforce once he was done. He hung around to help the kingdom rebuild itself in ''Zelda II''.
** ''Link's Awakening'', ''Majora's Mask'', and ''Phantom Hourglass'' are similar wanderings (presumably of different Links), outside the Hyrule story. ''Majora's Mask'' occurred when Link was looking for an unspecified friend. Hopefully not [[The Scrappy|Navi]], but perhaps Saria, or Nabooru, [[Wild Mass Guessing|or the Skull Kid, or...?]]
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild]]'' downplays this, as there is an optional side quest that lets Link buy and then fix-up a house in Hateno Village. The lore heavily implied that it was his house before he had to take a hundred-year nap to heal himself. Still, he can't exactly stay home much, considering his mission, even if it does give him a free place to heal and store weapons and armor.
** Beedle is this too, overlapping with [[Intrepid Merchant]]. In games where he appears, he differs from the typical merchant in that he's never in one place for long, traveling Hyrule to sell his wares. Kind of a boon for Link, of course, seeing how much ''he'' fits the Trope.
* Ike from ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' does this. He turns down a chance to be a noble in order to wander around with his posse of mercenaries, and all of his endings involve him leaving Tellius forever, presumably to do some more earth-walking.
* Guy in the ending of ''[[Final Fight]]'', after clobbering fellow player character Cody for practically ignoring Jessica [[Blood Knight|to get to the next big fight]] despite their epic adventure to rescue her from the Mad Gear gang.
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* [[Radiata Stories]] {{spoiler|Human Path}} and its part of what makes that ending such a downer.
* Allowing for the 'walking' to be done by horse, boat or teleportation magic, [[The Elder Scrolls]] protagonists tends to do this, as a side-effect of the [[Wide Open Sandbox]]. Why rush to finishing the main quest when you can travel around Tamriel/the Iliac Bay/Vvardenfell/Cyrodiil/Skyrim finding random stuff to do/take/buy?
== Webcomics ==
* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' Oasis started doing this after the "Dangerous Days" arc (though so far we've only seen one of the [[Adventure Towns]] she's visited).
** Turns out she did it until she found Podunkton, then stopped. So there wasn't much wandering after all.
* Ohforf'Sake, the main character of ''[[The Noob]]'' is continuing to wander the world of a [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]].
* Galatea in ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]''.
* Subverted in ''[[Cwen's Quest]]'' where Cwen is [https://web.archive.org/web/20110402000949/http://www.drunkduck.com/Cwens_Quest/index.php?p=413930 cold, hungry and miserable] during a walking the earth phase in her past. Even in the present, while she is on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]], her life is often shown to be less than glamorous.
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== Western Animation ==
* [[Ben 10]].{{context}}
▲** Samurai Jack does have a purpose to his wandering, however: he's looking for a way back into the past. A journey without a specific destination, but with a very specific goal.
* Sonic and Tails in ''[[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]]''.
*
* ''[[Scooby-Doo]]'', in all its incarnations, is centered around this trope, as the teenage heroes roam the country solving mysteries for local townspeople, without getting paid, without having any recurring family or friends, and without ever worrying about school or jobs. Later spin-offs, adaptations and supplemental material refer to them as "Mystery, Inc.," though it's only in the more recent entries that they're generally recognized as investigators, and even then there never seems to be any payment involved. Their wanderings are [[Parental Bonus|subtly]] parodied in some spin-offs: at one point, the Mystery Machine drives through a snowfield to a scientific outpost,
** [[Suspension of Disbelief]] however, states that they probably have some kind of (short-term) employment when they aren't solving mysteries.
* [[Adult Swim]]'s ''[[Xavier: Renegade Angel]]''.{{context}}
* Any show (Hanna-Barbera or otherwise) that involves a
** The
▲* Any show (Hanna-Barbera or otherwise) that involves a travelling musical group (e.g., ''[[Josie and the Pussy Cats]]'', ''[[Jabberjaw]]'') can be considered a subversion, since they're likely on some kind of indefinite "tour."
* ''[[The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin]]'' starts out this way initially, but then they return to Newton Gimmick's house until the next adventure, making it another subversion.
* The Gaang must do this in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', initially
** Similarly, Zuko spends three years <s>walking</s> sailing the earth, mostly in pursuit of the Avatar, and spends a couple of months wandering around in the Earth Kingdom. Said wandering did more for his character development than just about anything else.▼
**
▲** Zuko spends three years <s>walking</s> sailing the earth, and spends a couple of months wandering around in the Earth Kingdom. Said wandering did more for his character development than just about anything else.
** In ''[[The Legend of Korra]]'', the sequel, {{spoiler|Zuko explores the world again, this time as a peace ambassador, after he retires and his daughter takes over as Fire Lord.}}
* In ''[[Transformers Prime]]'', it's Wheeljack who does this with the galaxy. It's later revealed that a fellow Wrecker of his, Seaspray, did the same until Dreadwing killed him. Wheeljack then pursued him to Earth and has since given up the whole galaxy wandering - but now he wanders the Earth instead.
* In the [[Netflix]] version of ''[[Carmen Sandiego]]'', Carmen has no home, nor does her accomplices Zach and Ivy. While Player does serve as their [[Mission Control]], they spend all their time traveling the globe, using a portion of the funds pilfered from V.I.L.E to pay travel costs and lodging. Indeed, one episode shows that she's become a rather troublesome drain on V.I.L.E.'s finances, and they do NOT like it...
* In ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'', the [[Physical God|Babylonian god Marduk]] is always traveling, partially because he is God of the City, and partially to avoid his [[Arch Enemy|eternal nemesis Tiamat]]. Although he claims [[Big Applesauce|New York City is his favorite]].
== Real Life ==
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