Q: What’s better than a road trip? A: A road trip funded via scholarship. Photo: wili_hybird .

Everyone at Matador has been so amped on community member Pat the Digital Vagabond’s Roads Scholarship that we decided to sponsor the event. Look for chapters from the winning writer’s travelogue here at the Notebook.

If you haven’t yet heard about the Roads Scholarship, here’s the basic outline:

• The winner will be paid a stipend of $1,200 a month to travel North America this summer (June through September of 2009).

• The winning writer will get to share their travel articles and photo essays on Digital Vagabonding.com and here at Matador.

• The winner will also get a ticket to the Burning Man Festival, which is held during the last week of August in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.

• Two runner up winners will also get free tickets to Burning Man.

• Winners will be chosen in May 8, 2009 and their journey will culminate the first week of September at Burning Man where the Digital Vagabonding tribe will welcome them home.

For more details, as well as how to apply for the scholarship, please check Digital Vagabonding’s Road Scholarship. And if you’ve never heard of Burning Man, that alone is worth checking out.

We can’t wait to see who gets this first scholarship. There are also rumors floating around of some kind of crazy launch party. Whoever gets this thing is going to be stoked.