Customer Reviews

Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I picked this book up because I love both traveling and reading about travel. The premise seemed excellent - "let's travel around the world without once setting foot on an airplane." As someone who flies a lot, I can understand the motivation.

At first I was intrigued by the nuances of alternative travel...how does one book passage on an ocean-going freighter??? These insights were interesting at first.

I didn't get a real sense of the wanderlust of the author and his mate, but rather got a sense that the motivation was...hey I have an idea for a book, let's use that as an excuse to travel.

No problem with that, until they get out on their adventure and set out to be the most anti-Will Rogers types I've come across in a long time. The author and his girlfirend set out to demonstrate that they never met a man (woman) they ever liked!

Much of the book is Mr. Stevenson attempting to demonstrate his humor and wit by denigrating everyone he meets. He & his mate make fun of the Russian girl announcing over the speaker on the Estonian ferry that a face-painting activity is about to begin - hilarious! Here's a fellow from the U.S., who more than likely doesn't speak Russian or Estonian, making fun of an employee offering a fun activity to children, and respite to their parents, in English. This is just the beginning, as he has insulting descriptions of everyone he meets...on Russian trains, on buses, on cruise ships ("assist me in ridiculing these fogeys" p.218 - even while accepting their hospitality). This author has a snarky attitude which I am certain he believes is clever and witty.

It's humorous to Google him and find him writing an article for Slate in 2006 discussing the "mean-spirited" Apple ad...Stevenson epitomizes mean-spiritedness in this book.

When reading the book you keep looking for adventure...but it never really comes. Basically his job was to circumnavigate the globe without flying, and he succeeded - even if he did leave his girlfriend behind so that he could catch a departing ship. What a swell guy, I guess we now know that her chance of accomplishing the circumnavigation was not a priority for him.

In many places they don't "have time" to stop and see anything...they are the worst sort of travelers in this book - "check it off, so we can say we did it."

Their travels ended with a whimper...back to their wonky D.C. worlds of writing for Slate (which I like) and working as an attorney.

This book is about nothing more than Stevenson saying "look at me, look at me...I can leave a perfectly safe & prosperous Gen Y life behind for a few months, complain about everyone I meet, insult them, write a book that other snarky people might enjoy, and hope for some more of those prestigious 'Lowell Thomas' awards."

If you want to read real travel writing - that sometimes is dark, but analytical and insightful, then save your money on Stevenson and read Paul Theroux.

If you want to read humorous travel writing - well written & inspired by a genuine delight in travel, adventure, and meeting people and making friends then read Bill Bryson.

The ultimate irony of this book offering...the title - Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World - could not be more misleading. I expected a a payoff of the potential of the double entendre in the title: a clever travel premise - circumnavigate without flying, and a "grounded" author sharing his adventures. Stevenson isn't grounded, he thinks he's better, smarter, and more clever than everyone he meets. Good luck to him.

I read this book while on a long-haul flight, and the author rambling along about why he dislikes modern air travel got me hooked. However, apart from the fact that a young couple without financial problems (locating the closest ATM seems to be the major thrill here) travels round the globe, there doesn't happen much. A pre-booked cycling tour of Vietnam, a ride on Japan's high speed train or a trip on a luxury cruiseship? Ordinary hotel rooms and a rent-a-car trip across Australia? I had expected a little more adventure!

Seth Stevenson and his wife Rebecca are horrendous travellers.

This may seem like a stern judgment, but when you write an entire hackneyed, vapid book about your empty sneering travels, around the globe without an airplane (gasp!) -- you pretty much write about yourself, and invite judgment, or about people, culture, art, conversation, the world, and invite wonder.

He made the wrong choice. One gets the sense, reading this book, that the author and his wife have exactly zero ability to engage in or record interesting conversations with people they meet. They do not elicit interaction. They chunk down their world tour in great bites of sitting in trains and ferries. They never move much beyond the quotidian, drinking with various other travelers. They offer no insights, no percipient commentary on the world.

On this journey, the star couple are bruited about like a couple of suitcases, moved along the longitudes of the world higgledy-piggledy. You get the sense that the author NEVER has an interesting conversation to offer fellow travelers, that he is sort of taciturn. You get an NPR sense of sneering self-satisfaction.

At one point he is proud to be mistaken for a native German, and to have avoided white socks and shorts, being seen as a north american. Yet he is oblivious to the fact that he cannot speak the language, and that his worldliness is a matter of dressing himself in the right costume.

At one point, he notes that there sure are a lot of containers moving on the container ships of the world.

At one point, in order to keep his lame "no airplanes" rule, he leaves his wife behind and forces her to take an airplane to catch up. Charming, IF you admire the goal and the man. Lame, and totally self-centered, if you find his trip less than compelling.

The author fails the key question asked of all travel writers: OK, you went there. So what?

He can be funny, in a sarky way, but he is never percipient, never engaged, lacks an eye for the key detail, the crucial dialogue. He is a boar and a bore, in an approved east-coast insular fashion. You would not want to travel with him, and nor do you want to read about his self-involved travels.

Read this? Hah!

The concept of this book is really interesting: a couple decided to travel around the world using only surface transportation, including cargo ships, the Trans-Siberian Railroad, bikes, bullet trains, and buses. Great idea, right? Just thinking about it makes me green with envy, which is why I was so disappointed when the book fell short. The singular focus of this book is *how* they made their journey, and it reflects almost zero insight about what they saw along the way.

I had expected that one of the factors in choosing this unusual method of world travel would be the opportunity to encounter people from other cultures at a slower, more reflective pace, and to get a more authentic picture of everyday life in those places. Ideally, ground travel would give you more time to learn about the history and culture of a place and a better opportunity to gather some perspectives about what's really special about a country or a region. As a reader, I was hoping for the vicarious thrill of hearing about the local people they met along the way, the foods they ate, the music they had never heard before, or the local holiday celebrations that they saw or participated in. And I expected some insights about the way that a more gentle pace of travel contributed to their ability to understand and appreciate those things.

Instead, the book was about an endurance exercise in continual motion and travel logistics. Even though they never took to the air, these two people were in a big rush, and it seemed like they barely experienced anything interesting or learned anything noteworthy in the course of their travels. It didn't even sound like they enjoyed large parts of the trip because of their relentless drive to continue moving. They arrived in Auckland, New Zealand in one ship right before their next ship departed, so they spent one hour in the city shopping for clothing appropriate for a cruise. They drove from the west coast of Australia to the east coast in four days, barely stopping for sleep and meals (although the author didn't miss the chance to say condescending things about the people who live in such a remote part of the Outback). They spent something like nine days at sea to reach Europe, and when they arrived in Belgium, they were gone in a matter of hours. In fact, the full extent of their efforts to experience anything in the city of their arrival was to pick up a free map at the tourist center, go to a fountain with a few sculptures, and proceed to ridicule it. Where they did stay in place for any length of time, they seemed to spend most of their time drunk with other travelers. While I have nothing against that, why would I be interested in reading about it?

In a world travel memoir, you'd presume that the travel logistics would be pretty much the least interesting element of the trip, and yet in this book, I read pages and pages of the author's grievances about air travel, their difficulties scheduling cargo ship departures, and why they hate American rail travel. Most of those grievances are legitimate, no question about it, but they overtake the book and don't delve any deeper into the subject that a typical gripe session in line at the ticket counter of an airport after one's flight has been cancelled.

I kept hoping that the book would improve, but it never did. I loved the idea of what they were trying to accomplish, but it just seemed as though these two people were too shallow to appreciate what a wonderful opportunity they let slip away. I still hope that somebody writes this book the way it should be written, and when they do, I can't wait to read it.

Thank the Lord he doesn't fly, I wouldn't want this drip sitting next to me for a 5 hour flight, that's for sure. This is a tale about a guy and his gal who circumnavigate the earth without the benefit of air travel. In doing so, he writes of how horrible the trains are, (except Japan), how horrible the ships are and how horrible the buses are. He thinks his smarmy put-downs of all people everywhere are funny but his supercilious observations brand him as a common day whiner-baby. He is the quintessential "Ugly American". I read the entire book hoping he would change. He didn't change a bit. The book wasn't worth the $1 I paid for it in a thrift store and I suggest you save your money and time before reading this Luddite screed. Want to see this type of travelogue properly treated, read 'Roughing It' by Mark Twain. 1873 or anything by Tristan Jones.

Although not an entirely bad read, it gets pretty boring pretty fast.

Not much depth.

This young couple sees the world, but don't really experience it much. They just continue to endlessly move on like they are on some race. They don't interact much at all with any locals and seem to always be in a hurry. Such a waste ! They miss out on seeing things and really experiencing and sharing with the residents of all these fascinating places.

If you like to travel or at least read travel books, you will like this ok, but it leaves you really feeling frustrated for these two travelers.

Such a shame !

Some people should never visit a foreign country
and Mr. Stevenson is one of them.
He has nothing interesting and nice to say about
any of the countries he visited nor their citizens.
Furthermore, I don,t buy a book to be constantly
told about his alcohol intake and hangovers.
It was the most boring travel book I ever read.

Where do I begin? I had high hopes before reading this book; I expected at least a few accounts of fun/interesting/meaningful experiences, sites worth seeing, insight about other cultures, etc. I realized that the traveler would need to be a bit of an optimist and have a sense of humor or joy to be able to truly appreciate the journey and relay a meaningful story of a trip like this.

Instead, we get a guy with a snarky - at times mean - sense of humor, a negative attitude about 'everything' (jeez, don't you ever have fun, Seth, or is every experience an opportunity for you to feel superior to others?), totally anal-retentive (if you live for the sterility, order and obligatory niceness of Japan then you're not exactly cut out to be a world traveler, or a travel writer) and he plods along on this trip until you get the sense that he's the kind of person that does something just so he can say that he did it...

It's about the journey, not the destination, dude (to put it in the writer's style).

This book is not worth the time nor the endless negativity you will feel while you're reading it.

This was a rather disappointing book. I had heard it reviewed on an NPR show that I respect and was therefore very surprised that I didn't find this book very good at all. I reads like a high schooler trying to prove he can use a thesaurus. Beyond that there is no real theme other than his own selfish need fulfillment. He constantly puts space between himself and the people around him with insulting putdowns. Besides that the only thing they do is ride in things other than airplanes and drink liquor. There seems to be no real sense of connecting with the place they are in. Issues like poverty seem to have no effect on these two travelers, who make no effort to see the world through eyes other than there own. The whole thing smacks of privilege, and disconnect.

These days, it seems that most travel narratives all rely upon some sort of gimmicky hook: following in the footsteps of a famous explorer, sharing some recipes, finding meaning after quitting your job/divorcing someone, or some kind of contrived route/mode of transportation. This book falls into the last two categories. Note to publishing executives: the best travel books are written by people who travel for the experience, not these contrived, gimmicky trips that are undertaken solely for the purpose of getting a book contract.

This dull and uninspiring book offers very few fresh observations about the people the travelers meet or the places they visit. Instead, it seems to be yet another self-indulgent- look what I did- pile of rubbish. How did this book get published? Seriously, I can only guess that the author has a lot of connections in the publishing world. He and his wife seemed to just blow through places without really being anywhere long enough to learn anything. For the author, it seemed as though all that mattered was completing his contrived quest and feeling superior about it, rather than actually experiencing anything. What a shame.