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Planet Backpacker -- Across Europe on a Mountain Bike & Backpacking on Through Egypt, India & Southeast Asia - Around the World | 
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| Creator: Robert Downes
Publisher: The Wandering Press
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $12.30
You Save: $1.65 (12%)
Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 803999
Media: Paperback
Edition: First
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 276
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5 x 0.6
ISBN: 0982134401
EAN: 9780982134405
ASIN: 0982134401
Publication Date: November 1, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
You'll find echoes of Jack Kerouac's On the Road in this exciting tale of traveling with a bicycle, a backpack and a guitar around the world. An unforgettable blend of laughs and wisdom, the book also offers a How To guide for backpackers. Author Robert Downes has backpacked through 45 countries, from the supercities of Asia to the heart of the American wilderness. He spent five months traveling around the world in 2007, bicycling across Europe on a 20-year-old mountain bike named Dulcinea and backpacking on through Egypt, India and South Asia. He says that Planet Backpacker refers to a parallel world of adventure that reveals itself to travelers, especially those who journey close to the edge of other cultures. It's not a Twilight Zone or a parallel dimension, but an actual world that escapes the notice of those who stay put, he says. Like beat writer Jack Kerouac, who bummed around America in the 1950s, Downes scribbled his daily reflections on a pocketful of scrap paper. But, in an upgrade for the cyber age, he also blogged his adventures at internet cafes along the way. The book was was written in more than 100 internet cafes located down the side streets and back alleys of the world, he says. Most of these places were dingy, dim holes with the sticky black gum of 10,000 fingers imbedded on the keyboards of their antique computers that looked like they were throwbacks to 1985. Downes' journey revealed that the developing world is strangely empty of American travelers -- especially those willing to travel 'close to the edge.' Why are Americans among the missing in the Third World? Planet Backpacker offers some answers, along with a rallying cry to take a trip to some of the most exotic and exciting places on earth, with tips on how you too can give it a go.
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| Customer Reviews:
 This isn't just for backpackers December 15, 2008
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 December 1, 2008
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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