Sam Manicom’s fourth motorcycle adventure book tracks his and his partner Birgit travels through Mexico, the United States and Canada. While I have never toured the world like Sam but, he lays out the work involved while making it a fun read.
I say work because he is not reliant on sponsors or doing “viral” things to get attention and “followers”. He sells stories and does “odd jobs” while touring to have the money to move from point to point. He does rely on a network of friends and friends of friends to reduce his costs of traveling. The “work” part of global motorcycle touring comes out well in the book.
This book has been in my stack for a couple months and now I wish had moved it to the top when it came in. It is an easy, fun read that I can readily recommend.
I particularly enjoyed the sections on the border crossings. I found it funny how it seems that the crossing guards are pretty much the same just with different languages, overworked and underpaid and less then helpful. However, of all the places to cross into the US, Tijuana would be at the bottom of my list. But no one asked me LOL!
I was a bit surprised that after traveling through the many third-world countries that they travelled, that they were worried about travelling back into the first world. I understood the worries on cost of travel in the US/Canada but, as their trip unfolded, I like to think that the other worries were abated.
Full disclosure Sam wrote an unpaid article for this blog a few months ago and I paid for the book.
I liked this book enough that I am going to buy his other books! 4 Stars
I JUST WANT 2 RIDE!! 