Nathan Gelgud illustration inspired by William Finnegan's surf memoir, 'Barbarian Days,' 2015.

[Editor's Note: Scroll down for an epic illustration. To buy originals, contact Gelgud.]

In the late 1970s, young surfer William Finnegan was in the South Pacific, jumping from Fiji to Sumatra to Australia on a three-year journey to find the best waves in the world. He was working on a novel, but mostly, he was working on his surfing.

With his friend Bryan, he was chasing an endless winter – contrary to surfing's association with beachy summers, winter is the best season for the sport. Finnegan’s book Barbarian Days begins with his time as a tyke learning to surf in California and Hawaii, and the globe-hopping journey he makes as a young man takes up a big chunk in the middle of the book.

A woman they meet along the way wonders what they’re after, exactly. She accuses them of caring about nothing, that even if they experienced a terrible earthquake, they’d chalk it up to just that, “an experience.” Finnegan feels something beckoning when it’s time to change locations, but he’s rarely sure exactly what it is. They go to terrible places with lots of heroin addicts and no waves and to welcoming places with great surf.

Was this is a spiritual search? No, Finnegan didn’t think so, at least he didn’t want it to be. The perfect wave? No such thing. Finnegan knew that even as a young man, but it didn’t keep him from hoping that it might be out there somewhere. On the hunt, he surfs a transparent wave that makes him feel magically airborne. He catches waves on which he loses all control and puts his life at risk, only realizing the enormity of his stunt when he’s made it back to the beach. He surfs in waters with pig corpses and poisonous snakes, drives across Australia in a car that might not make it ten miles, and teaches teenagers in South Africa during Apartheid.

So, what was he after? He says it wasn’t mushy mysticism, but he got gooey-eyed enough about the quest to alienate Bryan. What has he learned from surfing? Barbarian Days is, at times, a way of processing that question. Finnegan, now a staff writer for The New Yorker, credits surfing’s strong influence on his worldview and work as a journalist. His passion as pastime evolves into a way of life, and it’s exhilarating to join him on the journey.