Leaving college temporarily during 1919, Halliburton became an ordinary seaman and boarded the freighter Octorara that July, bound from New Orleans to England.
He toured historic places in London and Paris, but soon returned to Princeton in early 1920 to finish his schooling.
His trip inspired in him a lust for even more travel.
Voiced in different ways, seizing the day became his credo.
The words of Oscar Wilde, who in works like The Picture of Dorian Gray enjoined experiencing the moment before it vanished, inspired Halliburton to reject marriage, family, a regular job, and conventional respectability as the obvious steps after graduation.
He liked bachelorhood, youthful adventure, and the thrill of the unknown.
To earn a living he intended to write about his adventures.
He dedicated his first book to his Princeton roommates, "...whose sanity, consistency and respectability ... drove [him] to this book".

Halliburton's father advised him to get the wanderlust out of his system, return to Memphis and adjust his life to "an even tenor":
"I hate that expression", Richard responded, expressing the view that distinguished his life-style, "and as far as I am able I intend to avoid that condition.
When impulse and spontaneity fail to make my way uneven then I shall sit up nights inventing means of making my life as conglomerate and vivid as possible.... And when my time comes to die, I'll be able to die happy, for I will have done and seen and heard and experienced all the joy, pain and thrills—any emotion that any human ever had—and I'll be especially happy if I am spared a stupid, common death in bed."
Leaving college temporarily during 1919, Halliburton became an ordinary seaman and boarded the freighter Octorara that July, bound from New Orleans to England. He toured historic places in London and Paris, but soon returned to Princeton in early 1920 to finish his schooling. His trip inspired in him a lust for even more travel. Voiced in different ways, seizing the day became his credo. The words of Oscar Wilde, who in works like The Picture of Dorian Gray enjoined experiencing the moment before it vanished, inspired Halliburton to reject marriage, family, a regular job, and conventional respectability as the obvious steps after graduation. He liked bachelorhood, youthful adventure, and the thrill of the unknown. To earn a living he intended to write about his adventures. He dedicated his first book to his Princeton roommates, "...whose sanity, consistency and respectability ... drove [him] to this book".
Halliburton's father advised him to get the wanderlust out of his system, return to Memphis and adjust his life to "an even tenor":
"I hate that expression", Richard responded, expressing the view that distinguished his life-style, "and as far as I am able I intend to avoid that condition. When impulse and spontaneity fail to make my way uneven then I shall sit up nights inventing means of making my life as conglomerate and vivid as possible.... And when my time comes to die, I'll be able to die happy, for I will have done and seen and heard and experienced all the joy, pain and thrills—any emotion that any human ever had—and I'll be especially happy if I am spared a stupid, common death in bed."
Richard Halliburton