What is this madness of pricing on books lately???
https://www.amazon.com/One-Caravan-I.../dp/1884313051

Amazon has never been a value option to look for old books.

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-sear...robert-edison/

Assume by your nick that you are from UK. Check out booktown Sedbergh:
https://www.sedbergh.org.uk/book-town/

__________________

World Understanding on Two Wheels - An Introduction to Overland Travel by Paul R Pratt. ISBN 0 9507353 0 2.

12 1/2 years RTW on a 650 Bonneville between 1966 and 1979.

Paul comes over as a pretty odd sort of a guy (he acted in Apocalypse Now, for instance...) but this is a great read, full of useful information, albeit slightly outdated, and some erudite observations.

Sparring With Charlie - Motorbiking Down The Ho Chi Minh Trail, by Christopher Hunt.

There are no good books about pleasant journeys. It is the job of the travel writer to have an awful time and Chris Hunt is an expert in his profession (PJ O'Rourke).

One of Hunt's skills was to be able to say 'my bike is a piece of Soviet shit and the clutch has just melted' in Vietnamese.

__________________
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.

If riding the world was a religion, Jupiter's Travels would be its bible

"These are the days that must happen to you" - Dan Walsh. A bit of a "marmite" book; but the guy is a very gifted writer. Probably the best overland biking book I have read. Not for everyone, but I found the honesty inspiring.

Strange that you should mention that as I have a copy of it somewhere that I bought years ago and was looking for it as a reread last week. I've still not managed to find it though. When I first started writing this stuff about 10yrs ago Dan's book was something I used for inspiration / insight into how to put a travel tale together, but I very quickly learned that for him the trip and the journey were two separate things. While I might be able to follow his journey, his trip - in all it's senses - went to places it wasn't in my nature to follow. Dan's thought processes are as densely and obscurely layered as the Walt Whitman poem (Song of the Open Road) the title comes from. It's a star that shines brightly, but inevitably, in the way of these things, briefly.

The travel books I've been reading (and re reading ad infinitum to get through Amazon's seemingly endless submission process) have been my own but for fear of invoking Grant's ire over breaking 'Da Rules' I won't mention the titles. Hopefully coming to a HUBB meeting near you at some point in the future though. If anyone else has picked up their pen and committed their experiences to paper I'd be interested to hear how it went for you. Given the amount of effort that goes into it (2-3yrs per book for me) and the somewhat meagre income they generate the self enrichment you get from the process certainly seems to be more for your soul than your bank balance. That may just be a reflection of my talent as a writer but they're fun to do.

Don't forget that there is more from Ted than Jupiter's Travel

* Riding High: More from the same trip as Jupiter's Travel
* Dreaming of Jupiter: from when he repeated the trip at the age of 69

I've been getting inspiration from Ted's output ever since Jupiter's Travels first hit the market. There's a copy of Dreaming of Jupiter right in front of me at the moment as I'm in the middle of doing something similar - revisiting a previous trip with the insights / 'wisdom' that a misspent adulthood brings.

Sadly the project is Covid delayed but in an homage to Ted's title, the fact that I knew nothing about 'foreign' travel before I left the UK, my original trip was mainly in Europe and the astronomical observation that Europa is a satellite of Jupiter, ever circling the giant of the planetary firmament (a bit like my literary efforts vs his) I've called it Dreaming of Europa. All I need to do now is reride the route and see what 50yrs of cynicism brings to it. In the meantime this is what my Photoshop meanderings have come up with so far:

The books of Lois Pryce are all great reads - especially "Red Tape and White Knuckles", which must be read after "Lois on the Loose" to get the real sense.

Not directly relevant, but a must read for any motorcycle nomad. "The art of maintaining a motorcycle" - more really about Zen Buddhism than motorcycle travel - but it is very unlikely that it will not have an impact on how you think about motorcycles, bikers, and motorcycle travel.

Emilio Scotto "The longest Ride" is a good read. Spending 10 years traversing every single country in the world on a gold wing - surely he must have something of value to convey?

Chris Scott was mentioned - and I agree.

There are of course lots of books which have nothing to do about motorcycles or travel directly, but which will give you cultural or geographical insights to be enjoyed massively when you get there, or after you have been there. If you plan to pass through Botswana for instance, then "The Women's Detective Agency" series will be very entertaining for sure!

I also recommend Lonely Planet (or the likes of it), for every country you plan to visit.

__________________
Blog: www.bamakobyvespa.no
My Youtube Channel