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Jupiters Travels: Four Years Around the World on a Triumph Paperback – March 22, 2005
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Enhance your purchase
- Print length456 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherJupitalia Productions
- Publication dateMarch 22, 2005
- Dimensions5.63 x 0.9 x 8.61 inches
- ISBN-100965478521
- ISBN-13978-0965478526
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Vivid description of driving under conditions that were often ferocious. (NY Times)
Extremely readable, full of keen observation, perceptive insight ? conveying action, drama, tension and danger. (Los Angeles Times)
The best motorcycle travel book ever written. (Motorcycle Sport)
By all means TAKE THE PLUNGE. (Rider Magazine)
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Jupitalia Productions; Revised ed. edition (March 22, 2005)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 456 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0965478521
- ISBN-13 : 978-0965478526
- Item Weight : 1.15 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.63 x 0.9 x 8.61 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #135,082 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #72 in Motor Sports (Books)
- #202 in Travel Writing Reference
- #382 in Travelogues & Travel Essays
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
I was born in 1931 and have a familiarity with events long before that so my personal world extends over more than a century of astonishing change. Although I am best known as an author of non-fiction travel/adventure my academic educations was principally scientific, before I fell somewhat by accident into journalism. In the RAF I created a magazine for recruits, called "Scramble" which got me into Fleet Street and the Daily Express in 1956. I worked in the Street for ten years, becoming Features Editor of the Sketch, as well as co-founding and editing a magazine called "King"
In 1967, feeling uncomfortable with newspapers as they were then I moved to a ruin in France, took up stone masonry and wine, and wrote a book about Formula One. I also worked occasionally as guest editor on the Observer magazine until I began my first motorcycle journey around the world in association with the Sunday Times.
Seven years later, following the success of Jupiter's Travels, I moved to a farm in Northern California with a wife and a son, and helped to pioneer a new wave in Organic Agriculture. Since then I have built three houses and written five more books of various kinds.
In 2001 to 2003 I rode around the world once more
I am now back in France and still ride a motorcycle
Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
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I just finished rereading it for the nth time and I was just as moved, amazed, and thrilled by the journey (and the good writing) as the first time I read it. I know how the story ends; but I just want to keep on reading and reading and reading.
I rode a bicycle around the world for over two years. Ted Simon captures the feelings of long-distance, long-time traveling like no one else I've ever read (although there are some other great books out there, see below). The thrill of departure, the shock of the new, the wariness of the unsupported traveler in a strange place, the difficulties of language and even alphabet, the fear, the exhaustion, the new-place fatigue, the need to just lie down sometimes, the misery of illness (though he was very lucky there), the numinous joy of the great places and views of the world (sometimes even the most ordinary places), the pleasure in seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting new things, the joy of finding your fellow humans all around the world to be very much like you and enjoyable to meet and know, the incredible education that travel gives you, the powerfully ambivalent feelings of the end of the journey and the return to home-place, never again able to see the world as you once had. The difficult re-birth into the old routines and requirements of your life. His story, especially his description of the end of the journey gives me goosebumps and re-awakens powerful memories of my own journey. As the cliche goes (it's a cliche because it's true) you can never step into the same river twice. The closest you can come is to take someone else to the river and watch them swim.
This book has lost nothing and it never will. It touches the universals of human experience found in travel. We evolved as wandering apes on the plain. It's basic to our bodily fiber.
Very little navel gazing in this book and what little there is is actually worth reading, unlike nearly all travel books I read that were written since Jupiter's Travels.
A true classic. And not the kind you feel obligated to read; but the kind you can't put down. One of the truest books I've ever read. Enjoy.
Some other excellent books about long-distance travel that I highly recommend:
Seven Years in Tibet
Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle
One Man Caravan ("Incredible Journeys" Books)
News from Tartary
Canoeing with the Cree
Sailing Alone Around the World
Two Years Before the Mast (Signet Classics)
Arabian Sands (Penguin Classics)
The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons (Penguin Classics)
It does make me want to ride more often, it does make me want to travel also, but most of all - it makes me want to read.
The information is good enough, but of-course dated. If your looking for a "how too" on adventure riding, skip this one and buy something more modern and level headed. If you are looking for a travel log of the road to insanity, maybe you should pick this one up.
Please don't get me wrong, it is a good book, and I see why he is considered the Father of adventure riding, however it seems that he lost the trail somewhere after California, and rode a flat tire (or maybe a broken heart?) the rest of the way.
Riding the world with a sense of humility, and awe is honorable, Riding the world with a sense of guilt and shame and letting it drive you mad, is delusional.
Just my .02, You may love it and you won't know until you ride it through to the end.
The book I think will also open your eyes to just how much there is to learn by getting out into the world and seeing and experiencing how others live, and how that might affect you personally.
The information in the book is dated in as far as the world has changed since his journey. But if you're considering any similar journey, I think this book is a definite read for you as it gives insight into just how many surprises you will probably face. What you will face today is different, but the character of his journey is still I think entirely relevant.
If you enjoy this, you will also enjoy the Long Way Round DVDs highlighting the trip that Ewan McGregor took (get the long version if you can find it). Both are not to be missed.
This is a great book to read sitting by the fire on a cold winter night when you can't ride and want to get away in your mind to some fantastic and far-away places.
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Always felt those who travel two up were cheating! lol Yeah this is really good especially sonsidering the 70's, really looking forward to reading the follow up which I believe he did in his 70's. \Im an avid reader and biker and this one well its special, for so long it was recommended to me but only recently did I read it.
His thoughts as he motors along are quite familiar to the solo biker, from poverty to "whats that fukn smell". A must read simple as that. A life worth living.


Feel free to check out my blog which can be found on my profile page.

Ted Simon is clearly a unique individual, taking life as he finds it. He navigates with his heart and writes clearly of it.
His work is well researched and interesting. He reveals only limited detail of his life outside the adventure which keeps the reader wanting more of him. A truly legendary work.On a similar origional adventure theme I would recommend the following.. Alone on the Blue NileDreaming Of Jupiter

I should have read it years ago, but I'm glad I only found it now. It seems all the more poignant for the displacement in time.