Customer Reviews

Marco Polo Didn't Go There: Stories and Revelations from One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer (Travelers' Tales Guides)

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Rolf Potts is one of the many travel writers to begin his career via the
Internet via Salon, and the book is a collection of his earliest from Salon.com to his recent works from magazines and literary journals. Most of his stories are available elsewhere, so the true draw of this book is the commentaries, which add humor, insight, and occasionally share his frustrations on both the topics and people in the stories, as well as the craft of professional travel writing. The essays themselves run from the humorous ("Storming the Beach") to the painful ("Death of an Adventure Traveler"). The stories explore both sights and sounds of his wanderings and the nature of travel itself, such as the comparison of travelers versus tourists and the business of travel and people's expectations therein. Armchair wanders will love the book, and those who dream of writing about travel for a living will find the book very useful as well as entertaining.

Rolf's other book, Vagabonding, is a must-have guide for anyone interested in travel, regardless of age, intended destination, length of trip, or particular travel philosophy. It's been like a travel bible to me, passing it on to friends and family young and old to help explain why it is I enjoy travel so much, and hoping they catch the bug too.

So it was with great interest I picked up Rolf's second book, Marco Polo Didn't Go There. First, this book is different from Vagabonding -- it's not really a practical travel guide. It's a collection of stories from Rolf's career as a travel writer. I had read many of them before, as they appeared in popular travel magazines and websites in the past, but what makes this book unique is his end notes on each story. They act as a portal into the life of a travel writer, filling in the gaps between the paragraphs, and telling the stories that didn't fit into the story.

If you have any interest in travel, becoming a travel writer yourself, or maybe even just learning how a travel writer travels and writes, pick up this book. It's funny, enlightening, and highly entertaining.

Already one of my favourite books! The stories are great in and of themselves, but the unique commentary feature really makes this book standout! Well done again Rolf!!!

For the past ten years author Rolf Potts has taken his travel passion to the corners of the earth. This collects his funniest and most dramatic stories, from being stranded without water in the Libyan Desert to learning about Tantric sex in an Indian ashram and investigating the 'real' Australia. An outstanding set of vivid travel stories from a world gypsy traveler makes for exceptional armchair reading recommended for any general lending library.

Good book. Stories about traveling off the beaten path, avoiding tourist traps and planned & canned experiences. If you have traveled alone, you'll understand this book. If you only take well planned and led tours, you'll see what you are missing.

This is a really great book, both for those wanting to write travel stories, or those who just want to lose themselves in a good story of a far away place.

Rolf Potts is a very talented writer, and in this book he writes a little bit about how he does it, and a lot about his journeys.

I really wish he had written more on the "how-to" aspects of the writing, but the parts he did include were very valuable.

If you have not hear about Rolf Potts, this is a good place to start. His other book "Vagabonding" is also a very nice read for those who have caught the travel bug! Both books are highly recommended by me to all my friends.!

After having read Vagabonding, Potts first book, I was very happy to hear that he was coming out with a second that detailed some of the very adventures that he discussed in his first book. With that being said, many of his adventures were not as.....adventuresome..... as one would be led to believe after his first book. Don't get me wrong, he has had his fair share of trials and tribulations that are very entertaining to read about, but when the author claims that he is going to storm the set of Leonardo DiCaprio's latest movie, you want to hear more than, we got stopped by a police boat and had to turn back, that's just a major let down. Still a very interesting read that I would recommend for anyone interested in world travel.

I can't recall enjoying a book more in a long time. Detractors could point out that this book is just a bunch of his short stories, previously published in travel magazines, thrown together with a few comments. My response would be that this makes it a great book. The original stories were very good, and the commentary pulls away the veil to reveal how things really worked out, the rest of the story, if you will. The short story format makes this a great travel companion, because you can read a chapter during a flight, and put the book down for a day or two without losing a plot thread. When you put all the stories together, you realize that the book is actually about the art of travel and finding joy in life, making it much more than a group of unrelated travel tales.

There's been a rash of so-called memoirs lately being revealed as partially if not fully fiction. One of the hallmarks of the genre is that the author writes himself in as a hero. Rolf, however, exposes himself as just an ordinary guy who likes to travel and see the world. He tells us how the facts would get mangled or trimmed down in order to fit the travel magazine format. He admits to being the victim of thieves, or that several versions of Shangri-La were not as nice in reality as they were in anticipation.

People don't get halos and places don't get gold-plated in this book. Rolf hates to write negatives, but if he didn't enjoy a country or a place, he is straight up about it and explains why. Whether writing about the good, bad, or ugly, it's all told with a dry sense of humor and self-deprecation.

You can't go wrong with this book or his other titles.

Wordly and wise at a young age, Potts leads the armchair traveler on
many interesting adventures to exotic corners of the world. He is
insightful and thoughtful about his role as a writer, observer and
actor whether he is in Thailand, Lebanon, Honduras, Greece, Egypt,
Grenada or Australia.

There are many peeks into the craft of travel writing in the endnotes
of each essay in the book, where Potts fleshes out how he came to
develop the themes for his pieces, his funding sources and their
editorial viewpoints, and more hilarious bits about his unusual
adventures. Potts deftly balances wit and compassion in this book and
I admire his skill in finding the unusual in everyday experiences with
the locals who befriend (and harangue) him in his travels.

Just the other week, I dropped a copy of Rolf Pott's new book, "Marco Polo Didn't Go There," into my Amazon cart, and it arrived in time to be devoured before Thanksgiving. Like any work of art, there is both dark meat and light meat; whatever your preference. It includes essays he posted on [...] like "Storming the Beach," about crashing the set of a Leonardo di Caprio movie in Thailand, and pieces from other magazines, like [...]. One of the best stories, "The Art of Writing a Story About Walking across Andorra," is both a travel essay and writing tutorial. (Rolf teaches each summer in Paris). Witty, urbane, and philosophical, Potts pops up everywhere these days and pens down elegiac pieces. No wonder he is considered the Jack Kerouac of the Internet Cafe Age.

John M. Edwards