Book!
 

Seven Ages of Parisb - by Alistair Horne

One of my very favorites <3

Elspeth Beard - Lone Rider
 

Plus 1 for this book. Amazing way she portrays her journey. It's not just about the riding or destinations. It describes the personal issues travelling as a lone female in a man's world (as it was deemed back then). the break downs (both bike and relationships), working, harassment, extortion etc...

I read it in 2 days. :thumbup1:

Agreed there. Riding and destinations are fine, but articulating the experience and how it affects you is where the depth of the writing comes into focus.

Which rather neatly encapsulates the dire condition of many blogs about riding motorcycles that are churned out these days.

I don't follow.

This is DEAD ON! and yes ... I felt that fear too. For a while he went missing and no one seemed to know where he was. Before that I saw this darkness closing in on him ... and I feared the worst.

He finally surfaced in an old Buenos Aires Hotel, after a long bender. Seems like he was lucky to have made it through. :mchappy:

It takes a writer to write a decent blog
 

For example:-

https://www.writerswrite.com/authorblogs/

I recognize some of those authors. Very nice. :thumbup1:

I'd add "A Fortune-Teller Told Me", by Tiziano Terzani.
Not so much to do with fortune tellers, to be honest, just a Dude who made up an excuse to go to some pretty interesting places, and talk to some interesting people. A very engaging writer, I thought.

The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, is a short, but powerful book about life and travel, that feels like it's so much longer, in a good way.

I also had problems, at first, with "Zen and the art of.......".
After finding the right time, and forcing myself through it, I've now read it multiple times.
It's one of those book that doesn't actually seem to say a lot in itself, but sends me off down another rabbit hole, that I'd not even thought of before.

Another one, that is nothing to do with travel or motorcycles, but it kind of makes me want to travel, just in the grasp the moment, you only have one life kind of a way, is "As a man thinketh" by James Allen. Another thin book, short book, that feels like an epic, and a multiple reader for me.

Big thumbs up for Joshua Slocum too. If you liked that, try "Ocean Crossing Wayfarer", by Frank and Margret Dye. Not quite the epic of Slocums tale, but a similar spirit of adventure, and gets the travel/adventure juices flowing.

Good suggestions. I've read The Alchemist and As a Man Thinketh. I enjoyed both, although they did not stir me as much as I had expected. Perhaps their reputations led to greater expectations. :thumbup1:

As an update, I re-read Jupiter's Travels and then paired it up with Riding High, both by Mr. Ted Simon. I still think he is one of the best wordsmiths out there in this genre. I finished Lone Rider by Elspeth Beard a few days ago and found her book very engaging. She went through some crazy experiences on her trip.

I began Sam Manicom's Into Africa but didn't mesh with it. I tried a few others and eventually settled on The Long Ride Home by Nathan Millward. Guy rode a postie from Australia to London. Millward has a good sense of humor and I enjoy his reflective writing. I guess with a max speed of 68km/h you have plenty of time to reflect! haha

The nice thing about a Kindle is that you can usually download a sample chapter for free. Really enjoying that little device.

Also, I was looking for Dan Walsh's These are the Days that Happen to You for my Kindle, as getting books down here to Honduras is a pain the ass. The Amazon USA store sells only paperback and hardcover. Upon investigating, Amazon UK offers a Kindle version but it wouldn't let me download it to my device! How annoying. I reached out to Walsh and he said that he sold the rights to the book and has no involvement with the distribution and that he couldn't help me at all. /shrug

Perhaps also search for the alternate title:

Endless Horizon

https://www.amazon.com/Endless-Horiz.../dp/0760336040

But several dealers stock the book under both titles.

Thanks for the update ... YES, Ted's books do hold up well over the years!

Thanks for the recommendation with the alternate title. I gave it a go and it looks like I'll have to wait until my family sends me a box from the motherland. I found a used copy on Amazon for a few bucks. With my work at school starting this week, I doubt I'll have much time for leisure reading anyway. beer

Edit - Where there is a will, there is a way! It's up next after I finish Millward's book.

I'm happy to report that The Long Way Home by Nathan Millward was a surprisingly good read. So far I've read Ted's books, Elspeth's Beard's and now Millward's, all in the past month or so. I find it interesting that all three stories take the same turn towards the last quarter of the book. Each picks up the pace and makes a dash for home. The writing falls off and suddenly the author has passed through a grip of countries in just a few pages.

I can relate to that, when I was on my way home from my long-ish trip, simply getting up super early and doubling the daily mileage in Mexico until I landed back in the USA. It's probably why I wouldn't consider shipping my bike to Ushuaia and then riding back home to New England.

On a side note, I just started Walsh's book. 10 pages in and I can already tell that it's going to be good.

Not quite what you mean I suspect, but my parents put my wanderlust down to "Around the world with Ant and Bee"! That must have been embedded in my subconscious, but I was introduced to overlanding by a friend of my father who gave me his cherished "First Overland" by Tim Slessor when I was about 12. I subsequently spent 11 years driving overland trucks, eventually making the London - Singapore trip twice. He was very proud to have influenced me in this way, and my mother never forgave him!