Customer Reviews

12,000 Miles in the Nick of Time: A Semi-Dysfunctional Family Circumnavigates the Globe (An Evergreen book)

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i really enjoyed this book, mark jacobson is down to earth and funny. reading about his experiences with his children felt very open and honest, i really felt the intensity of emotions when he described how his relationship changed with his older daughter. i have two daughters and i can see how bittersweet their growing up has been and will continue to be. this was a funny account of his trip and also an emotional ride about being a parent, i loved this book.

My family is planning a trip to Thailand and India next year. Although my eldest daughter has traveled to India 4 times, I still wanted to get an idea about what to expect while traveling with 3 children to southeast Asia. I really loved Jacobson's style of writing. I think I also enjoyed this book because Jacobson sees the world so much like I do. (It's always nice to feel validated.) In fact if he wasn't married I'd look him up and ask him for a date!
I had read two other family travel books and didn't laugh as much nor did I feel as satisfied. This travel book is not just about the Jacobson families 3 month journey. It is also about Mark Jacobson's life journey and life memories and his struggle with his teenage daughter. His daughter also writes brief chapters which I found very well written and interesting.

I liked the idea of this book -- take your kids around the world and reconnect as a family, while opening everyone's eyes to the world around them. I liked the book, but not for the reasons I expected to.

The Jacobson parents decide to take the three kids on a round-the-world trip for three months when the kids are in their teens. The kids resist, but end up going. The family does seem stronger after the trip.

The trip consisted of places the parents had visited in the past, when they were earnest counterculture humanities students. Lots of third world, poverty-stricken, overpopulated cities. I can't say how much the kids got out of places like that, but it certainly made them stick close together for safety. And they were really glad to get back home.

The best parts of 12,000 Miles were the chapters written by the daughter, Rae. Even though she was going through some rough times as a teenager in New York, she still seemed more together than her father. And I'll bet twenty years from now, she doesn't drag her kids through filth-infested streets trying to save them from the horrors of television.

I am half-way through 12,000 miles in the Nick of Time and have lost a lot of my drive to finish the book. I purchased this story because I had recently returned from Nepal, and while there visited several of the sites Mark Jacobson describes. I expected more of a description of the cultural sites and less family history. Perhaps this is of interest to some but it was uninteresting to me and has gone on ad nauseum. I believe Jacobson over sensationalizes or exaggerates the description of his surroundings. Granted sensations are in the mind of the beholder, but I think this book is for people that have not traveled extensively and are easily caught up in hyperbole.

Also as a resident of South Dakota and an employee of the Federal Government, I'd like to know where in the SD Badlands he and his family dug for fossils. This is against the law on USFS and NPS land. He also needs to review or research a little more the definitions of place names. For example Ghorapani, Nepal means "Horse Water" not "Cold Water".