Fleeing the increasing pressure to settle down, a restless young man heeds the call of the road and sets out on a meandering four-month bus trip from Dawson, Yukon, to Key West, Florida. Continental Drifter is the record of that journey.

Although a journalist by training, Dave Cameron is reluctant to play the role. He hopes merely to observe quietly, to collect experience. On the road he meets a variety of strangers, some more strange than others -- from the Dawson City gold miner in designer sunglasses, the evangelistic co-ed, and a number of alcoholics (some more recovering than others) to the owner of a shrine to Elvis, the Crocodile Lady, and the leathery pensioner intent on passing his days beneath the palm trees of Miami Beach. Collecting stories and mementos as he goes, by the end of his travels Cameron has also acquired a richer sense of the possibilities of his own life. Equal parts travel picaresque and coming-of-age memoir, Continental Drifter is at once an interpretation of many fleeting individuals and a gradual discovery of one in particular.