Gullible's Travels: The Adventures of a Bad Taste Tourist [Paperback]

Cash Peters (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2003

Fans of Cash Peters' "Bad Taste Tours" on public radio will hail this outrageously funny collection of essays about his experiences traveling to and reporting on the most bizarre and tacky tourist attractions across the United States.

Editorial Reviews

Review

From listener email:

"You had me in stitches. Great job! Now I guess I'll have to buy one of your books." --N.D.

"I worship you. I love your radio features. . . . but I do't understand how you can simultaneously be a handwriting analyst." --LS

"I have decided that you really must marry me . . .It became reasonably clear tht I must propose after the Bad Taste Tour you delivered from The Precious Moments Museum." --R.L. of Indiana

From the Back Cover

For years, British journalist Cash Peters trekked around Europe and America for the BBC and for his hilarious and hugely popular public radio series The Bad Taste Tours.
But a guy can only take so much, and now - enough. It's over. He's done.
As he prepares to leave his travel-reporting days behind forever - good-bye, Kansas Barbed Wire Museum; au revoir, Paris sewer system; auf wiedersehen, Sound of Music locations tour - he meets an old flame in Amsterdam. Over lunch she suggests he put his experiences and observations in a book. No, he says. She persists. He refuses. She tries again. He won't budge. Then someone offers money...
The result is Gullible's Travels, a chronicle of some of Cash's wilder, more ridiculous journeys as he makes his way, often wearily and always on a shoestring budget, across the United States.
Gullible's Travels is an outrageous behind-the-scenes look at the frustrations of being a travel reporter on the road. But not just any old travel reporter - a not-very-good one. Marvel at Cash's battle with PR people, cringe at his fights with men dressed in foam costumes, pour scorn on the crummy hotels he often has to stay in, and gloat because you don't have to visit The Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast, the Museum of Bad Art, Graceland, The Museum of Feet or the Precious Moments Chapel, and he does.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Globe Pequot; 1st edition (June 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0762727144
• ISBN-13: 978-0762727148
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #772,225 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Constantly, consistently hilarious, April 11, 2005

By 

Catherine S. Vodrey (East Liverpool, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gullible's Travels: The Adventures of a Bad Taste Tourist (Paperback)

I had never heard of Cash Peters before having read a rave review of "Gullible's Travels: The Adventures of a Bad Taste Tourist," but after having bought it, read it, read funny bits aloud to anyone nearby who would listen, and having read it yet a second time, I now count myself among his most ardent fans.

Peters' book is all about his last fling as a "bad taste tourist" being paid (not enough, he assures us) to visit tourist oddities all over the world. Among these are the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast; museums devoted variously to dirt, barbed wire, and feet; a hotel which makes a tremendous show of its resident ducks getting into and out of water; a tour of Parisian sewers; a funeral home miniature golf course; and, of course, Graceland. Peters is unfailingly sarcastic, which makes for terrific reading since his hosts are generally unfailingly sincere and enthusiastic about their chosen oddity.

One of the chapters is entitled "The Old Woman with an Armchair Glued to Her Ass." The subtitles on this chapter alone include: "Mr. Moussef asks for a fork - Joseph, Mary, and the teddy-bear Jesus - a touch of unpleasantness in a Boston library - a sticky breakfast confrontation." So you can imagine what the rest of the text is like . . . well, heck, here are just a very few highlights:

"In 1773, the British Parliament passed a wicked piece of legislation called The Tea Act, imposing a tax on all tea imported into the Colonies. The locals were in an uproar. 'Ye infernal bounders! Forsooth, 'tis intolerable what ye do'; or however they spoke back then."

"Boston Common is the oldest park in America. In fact, I think it may even date as far back as Historical Times."

"Nobody in Salem [Massachusetts] is able to mention the witch trials, not even in passing, without also telling you the date of them--1692. It's fun to begin with, and then you wish they'd stop."

On slogans for cities: "Salem's is 'The Bewitching Seaport,' which isn't bad. There's also Minneapolis: 'The Coolest Place on Earth' (though, having been there, I realize that this is more of a stern warning than a slogan); Albuquerque: 'It's a Trip!' and of course Boston's slogan: 'How DARE you Come Here!' "

A sample conversation with a drama student dressed in historically accurate clothes:

ME: Excuse me, which way to the bathroom?
STUDENT: Insolent coxswain! Begone, knave, lest I begroddle thy swank with my jerkin.

The footnotes alone are a scream, so you can imagine what the actual text is like. HIGHLY recommended for anyone who loves to travel and enjoys a good (read: bad) travel story.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gullible's Travels, June 25, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Gullible's Travels: The Adventures of a Bad Taste Tourist (Paperback)

Well-written, erudite travel books, especially with outrageous humor, are almost impossible to find. This one is a doozie! Living in the hinterlands, I've never heard Mr. Peters on the radio, so I can only hope that this book is just the first of many more to come. I'm a great fan of Bill Bryson, and I'm happy to report that Cash Peters is every bit as good and in some respects better. Mr. Peters may be gullible, but his insights are rapier sharp. This is a book to confirm your sanity in a world that often seems dreadfully askew. Great writer, great book. More please.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "A real hoot!" as my midwest friends would say..., July 8, 2003

By 

Charles S. Osborne (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gullible's Travels: The Adventures of a Bad Taste Tourist (Paperback)

...but since I'm from New York, I can't say that.

I will say that I laughed so hard and so often that my overweight dog got off the bed and left the room. I telephoned a friend in Worcester, MASS and read a small passage about the Museum of Sanitary Plumbing. Her response was the same as the next line in the book. When I read the address from the next line in the book, her response was again, verbatim from the book, including exclamation points. (This will make sense AFTER you read the story.)

Buy this book, but do NOT have food or beverage in your mouth while reading: you have been warned!