Travelers

I am currently interested in Travelers. Sadly there is very little information to be found about these people that isn’t wildly biased. Like many tightly knit ethnic groups they are not known for being chatty with outsiders about their way of life. I am curious about these modern day nomads because I have no frame of reference for them. Their nomadic behavior is not like that of itinerant laborers who follow the harvest seasons through the country, nor are they like the snow-birds who follow the warm weather. I have read many books that touch on the Travelers and I have seen both fictional and reality based TV programs about them but the picture painted is always skewed (though the books have tended to have a more sympathetic view of the Travelers). They are almost always shown as a roving gang of confidence men and fortune tellers and while I am sure that there is some truth to that (because even in a best case, or worst case depending on your point of view, scenario I challenge anyone to show me a population that is devoid of criminals) I doubt that it is the whole story. The problem with learning about the Travelers is that they are so insular they are harder to infiltrate than the Mafia. My best understanding is that if a Traveler marries outside their ethnic group they must leave the clan. That makes it hard to get an outside perspective on their lifestyle and their tight lipped nature prevents an inside perspective.