SANTA FE NATIONAL FOREST, NEW MEXICO – JULY 7:
A young woman who camped out near the ÒDirty Kids CornerÓ at the National Rainbow Gathering in New Mexico re-arranges her belongings, July 7, 2009, New Mexico, next to her new permanent home, traveling around the country on a schoolbus. ÒThe idea is to turn this bus into a traveling kitchen. We want to find a really cool group of kids and travel around the country together, feeding other street kids and wanderersÓ her friend says, as she breathes out of an inhaler for her asthma.

Every summer hundreds of runaway vagabond teenagers and youth make their way to the National Rainbow Gathering, an annual festival which takes place during the weeks surrounding the 4th of July weekend in a different national park in America. In 2009 the Rainbow Gathering was held in New Mexico. Most of the youth, known at the gathering as “The Dirty Kids”, travel around the country, individually or in groups during the remainder of the year. They have been described as ‘wonderers’, individuals traveling via train-hopping or mobile home, living in utopian communities, gathering at outdoor festivals, dwelling in communal housing projects and forming fellowships over brief and extended periods of time.

(Photo by Kitra Cahana/Reportage by Getty Images)