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Planet Backpacker: Across Europe on a Mountain Bike & Backpacking on Through Egypt, India & Southeast Asia - Around the World
 
Manufacturer: The Wandering Press
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Product Description
More than a book about traveling around the world, Planet Backpacker is a celebration of the backpacking lifestyle enjoyed by an estimated 100,000 travelers at any given moment. The global journey packs everything from a love story to encounters with wild women and dangerous men, history, myth, humor, and thoughts on the traveling life.

Think of it as A Walk in the Woods meets On the Road.

The nonfiction paperback was written one excerpt at a time in 100 internet cafes around the world as part of a blog written by author Robert Downes. The author pedaled a mountain bike across Europe, backpacking on through Egypt, India and Southeast Asia -- around the world.

Planet Backpacker offers an optimistic view of the world as the author deals with anti-Americanism using a smile for an umbrella. If you love literature and travel, you'll enjoy this rallying cry to visit some of the most exotic countries on earth.

Planet Backpacker is completely revised for 2009, with the addition of maps and a 'how-to' section for traveling on a budget.

Product Details
  • ISBN13: 9780982134412
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

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Customer Reviews
This isn't just for backpackers
 
Review Date: December 15, 2008
Reviewer: Allan Nahajewski, Lake Orion, MI USA
From the title, you might think this is a book about backpacking. It's more than that. It's about following your dreams.

Bob Downes wanted to travel around the world. And that's what he did. And because he can write so well, we can relive the journey with him from the comforts of our favorite reading spot.

This is a book that I will give to my grandson. He is in kindergarten and he wants to an adventurer when he grows up.

This book should also be on the required reading list for people who are in the process of reinventing themselves. Bob Downes has reinvented himself many times over -- as a newspaper publisher, a triathlete, a singer in a rock band, a world traveler and now an author. This book provides insights into the kind of thinking that makes successful reinvention possible.

This is not a "what I had for breakfast" travel diary. The candid daily reports from internet cafes around the world capture both the ups and downs of globetrotting. The reports also include splashes of history and philosophy and just enough detail to bring the people, places and on-the-road encounters to life.

Add it all up and you have an informative, inspiring, page-turning travel journal. Highly recommended for life adventurers of any kind.
a BACKPACKER'S DREAM COME TRUE
 
Review Date: December 1, 2008
Reviewer: Harley Sachs, Portland, Oregon
Marco Polo may have been the most famous of early world travelers and in the 18th century it was common for people to do the Grand Tour. Usually such tours were done by people in that time of passage between education and getting married, finding a job, etc. Relatively few take the plunge at age 50, but Robert Downes did: a five month around the world trek sstsarting on an old mountain bike in Ireland, onto the continent, and down the Danube. After giving his bike to a hostel for some other adventurers to use, he proceeded with just his backpack to southeat Asia. It's a great read. What Downes laments is how few American backpackers are found among the Australians, Swedes, Germans and other backpackers. As "Planet Backpacker" reveals, there's a subculture of young people seeing the world on the cheap.
What Marco Polo and the 218th century travelers did not have were credit cards, ATM machines, and internet cafes to stay in touch with home. Without finding obscure internet cafes in the back alleys of the world, Downes would have been mighty homesick for his trusting and loyal wife who stayed behind in Traverse City, Michigan while he lived out his dream. The moral of the story is do it while you can. I doubt if Downes' aroundthe world adventrure will be his last hurrah, for there are more places to see.
The book has valuable tips for travelers. What is clear is there is hardly any path that is not trod by adventurers like himself. Never robbed, held up, held hostage, or kidnapped, the only discomfort Downes really suffered were bouts of stomach upsets from exotic foods like fried scorpions and mystery meat, Indian spices, and ingredients best not identified.

I'd have liked to see some maps among the illustrations. Not everyone knows where those adyllic beaches are.

--Harley L. Sachs [...] where you can listen to two short stories as broadcast on the BBC World Service short wave and read a funny mustery.

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