About the Author, Rajam Roose

Growing up in North Alabama, there was plenty of space for being outdoors, hiking and rafting.  As a kid, I would put my doll in a shoe box and watch her travel the world with not much but the clothes on her back.

When I was 14 years old, my rebellious nature sent me to a wilderness school for 18 months where I lived with other teens in cabins that we designed and built ourselves.

When I was 20 years old, I was personally introduced to hitchhiking when my roommate's friend, who was hitchhiking around the country, stayed with us for a few days. I tried out a small hitchhiking jaunt and loved it so much that my dream of traveling finally became a reality.

The adventures and experiences I had were so incredible I immediately put them to paper where they languished for years before being noticed by a freelance editor (who discovered my stories on the once popular hitchhiker's website, Digihitch). He was instrumental in helping to polish the stories into a book.

I currently reside in San Diego and founded the San Diego Pain Summit, LLC, a series of conferences to help clinicians learn how to bridge the chasm between research and clinical practice. 

Although I no longer hitchhike, I still enjoy traveling.

My traveling companion, Jambalaya, who lived to be 12 years old.