A long time ago a friend of mine set up a celebration with his then-girlfriend (now wife) for their one year dating anniversary. He got a room at the Ritz Carlton, set up a big 12-course dinner, and really spent big. They had a great time, but after something like that how do you follow it up? What do you do for the first wedding anniversary?
I was thinking about this when I was reading the end of this book, as the 33-year old author finished his seven year adventure walking around the world. It is great to do something like this at such a young age, but I worry about what he can do to keep that sense of adventure in the future.
The end of the book has him considering this, and I think that once the experience of writing and promoting this book wraps up, it’ll be interesting to see where he ends up.
I love stories like this – just like Paul Theroux books where the “rules” of the journey are laid out in advance, we follow the travels and imagine what it’d be like if we were doing the same thing.
The author writes a great deal about his growth during the walk, which is natural especially at the age that he started. I found myself more interested in the logistics – how did he get from A to B and why did he choose that way? Why this country and not that country? There is a lot of fast forwarding and events skipped over – which is understandable because seven years is a long time. Still, I felt that there was more that could be told, and I hope that someday he writes a book with more details on the nitty gritty.
Things I really liked – the sheer freedom of walking and stopping when you want to. Sometimes he decides to stay for a week in a particular place that calls out to him, and I envy the ability to do that. In the seven year walk there are some interludes that have him hanging out in a place because he is waiting for something – a visa, COVID restrictions to lift, a border to open. Then he settles into a sort of almost-regular lifestyle, but without needing to work. Spending days learning languages or reading books at cafes sounded like heaven to me.
As I said, the author talks a lot about his growth during the journey. He attributes a lot of his growth to the meditation of walking and walking with nobody but his dog Savannah to talk to. Sometimes I felt like his thoughts on meditation felt sort of shoe-horned into the story, not naturally coming out. Maybe this is because it this is his first time writing a book – but to me it felt a little artificial.
Finally the story often came back to Savannah, his adopted dog and almost the main character of this book. It felt sometimes like the author was struggling to put himself back at the center, but my attention (and I think most people’s) was drawn back to how Savannah was growing up in such a unique situation. It must have been difficult to write this book balancing both stories in a satisfying way.
Overall I really enjoyed the book and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that there is something else coming from this author down the road – another adventure or a deeper dive into this one.
Next I am reading The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow.
