Customer Reviews

The Unsavvy Traveler: Women's Comic Tales of Catastrophe

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This exceptionall well written, hilarious travel book should be in every travelers Christmas stocking, male or female. It makes you want to take off on adventuresome journeys, rids you of mundane travel plans, and gives you the heart to try new adventures daily.

this book is a must read for all you adventure seeking divas out there, or anyone afflicted with wanderlust. it makes a great gift (i gave a few to my friends for the holidays and they inspired several adventures around the globe). i myself am on a long bike trip through central america and everytime i come across some wacko in a small town or get past yet another embarrasing touristy moment, i am reminded of this excellent collection of essays from around the globe... i give it a full thumbs up, two times.

this book is not only hilarious and well written, it's also a smorgasbord of many countries and varieties of 'disasters'. read it and weep, this will inspire any intrepid adventurer to go out and make those mistakes, make them big!! what fun!

freaking' hilarious, mate. Made me itch for the 34d class local from calcutta to delhi, sipping chai from a clay cutp. this is the real deal, no hot tub, no mint on the pillow. I howled. Thiss should be a mandatory purchase for anyone who's picking up a Lonely Planet guide to anywhere!

This book is collection of travel disasters of all types. The reasons for the disasters range from tales of simple bad luck (like finding oneself on a family cruise with no clothes because the luggage was lost), or bad planning (signing up for an economy safari), or bad judgment (crossing the country in a van with a serious, untreated injury along with a pair of drug addicts who eat out of the same dishes as their dogs). The stories cover the globe, from the US to Mexico, Central and South America, Europe, India, China, Japan, and the South Pacific. Some of the tales are quite funny (after the fact), some are quite harrowing, and some provide some food for thought about intercultural conflict and personal growth.

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of writing of these stories. Unlike many other anthologies of this type, the writing in this volume is uniformly good and sometimes even great. While each author has her own style of description and observation, the prose is clear and uncluttered with irrelevancies or cryptic comments. According to the short bios provided at the end of the book of each author, some of the writers are well-known published authors, while for others, this is the first time their work appears in print.

At the end of the book is a short list of Websites with useful information for travelers (although after reading this book, you might not want to leave home after all!). For some odd reason, I decided to take this book with me on a recent vacation for light reading on the plane. As I read through one disaster after another, a sense of doom seemed to grow, and sure enough, the morning's little snow storm turned into the biggest storm of the year. When the plane finally got off the ground, we managed to circle the airport at JFK, but were never able to land there and finally had to return again to our home airport. After a full day of waiting for conditions to improve, our flight was ultimately canceled, and we had to rebook for the following day. I'm not ordinarily superstitious, but I became convinced that this little book of travel disasters had jinxed our trip. The next day when we returned to the airport for another try, I left the book behind, and sure enough, our flight and connections went without a hitch. The book eventually made for great reading- -at home- -but I'm not sure it's the best choice to take along on a trip, if only for the reminders it provides of everything that can go wrong.

Whether you're a backpack-totting purist, an armchair vagabond or something in between, you'll laugh, wince and let out an occasional yelp of disbelief when you take in The Unsavvy Traveler. It's a lively collection of travelers' travails that, taken together, will either make you itch to catch the next plane or, perhaps, be just as content to play it safe in that armchair.

I laughed out loud at some of the short stories found in this collection of "Comic Tales of Catastrophe." Ingrid Wendt's poetry reading in An American in Venice debacle; Julie Gerk's story, El Jolote Loco, the crazied turkey whose feathers seemed to erupt he was so agitated and Lucy Bledsoe's tale, On Being at Sea, in a leaky boat were truly funny.

Other tales of ill advised hikes into mountainous jungles, a good bear story and eating unsavory food in a foreign country are among some of the memorable contributions these 28 women made to make a book I read from cover to cover. I highly recommend this book as one that will lift your spirits, but will also give you a thrill and some great surprises.

This collection offers the funniest, most self-effacing travel stories I've ever heard, let alone read. Everyone has (or should have) a desperate travel story of their own--read this and weep at your own and others' foolishness, ill-preparation, and bad decision-making. Even the cover is sassy!

I highly recommend this book. I read a lot of books in the travel anecdotes genre (The Travelers Tales series being a favorite), and this book has to be one of the very best I've read. The writing is excellent, and best of all, full of humor. I laughed a lot reading this book. Oftentimes in a collection of essays like this there will be a few essays that just don't grab you or resonate. Not so here. I enjoyed every single one immensely. A big shout out to the sisters here for their great writing! Enjoy!

I am not impressed. About a third of these are genuine and great fun. Another third are average (your friends probably have just as good stories) and the other third are lousy and/or irritating. I have a hard time with a story about someone who makes dumb choices from the outset and expects everyone to laugh along with them. It makes women look dumb when they make bad choices. Not recommended; I left it behind in a hotel in Napoli.