Drifter (person)

For other uses, see Drifter (disambiguation).

A drifter is a wanderer with no residence or common means of support (job), and oftentimes no citizenship. Drifters are self-sufficient anticonformists who never stay at one place for a longer period of time, and continually move from one location to another with no fixed destination, living a completely free, fulfilling life.

Drifters are sometimes referred to as vagabonds, vagrants, or rogues. Some of these terms were coined to have a negative connotation, with intention to divert people from having any relationships with drifters, or becoming drifters themselves.

Etymology

The concept to drift was first noted in French language with the term dérive, meaning an aimless walk of a drifter who follows the whim of the moment. Another French word with a similar meaning is flâneur.

Anarchist political groups, such as the Situationist International, claimed in the late 1950s that the idea of "drifting" is an attempt at analysis of the totality of everyday life, through the passive movement through space.

See also

• Anarcho-primitivism
• Lifestyle travelling