I Should Have Gone Home: Tripping Up Around the World
AUTHOR: Roger Rapoport
ISBN: 978-1-57143-107-3
Meet the Chicagoan who wins $1.25 million in Vegas, is comped to a $5,000-a-night suite and makes a buddy pick up the tab. Ride along with a mother driving through an East Coast blizzard with her kids to spend an unmerry Christmas with her grinchy sister. Join a boatload of cruise passengers dumped on a Nova Scotia dock when their luxury liner is seized by bank-ruptcy trustees in mid-voyage. Featuring winners from trouble travel contests held across the United States and Canada, this book is a perfect traveling companion and explains why people get rained out in their search for sunny days they thought would never end. Now that the airlines have stopped serving food, you'll have plenty of time to finish this book before your flight lands.
"Could anything be more gratifying than hearing of
someone else's dreadful vacation in an exotic locale? Of course not;
that's why this anthology of true stories has gone into its fifth
edition for its Berkeley publisher. A few of the stories here are
frightening: 'When I was stabbed during a robbery attempt on a visit to
Buyukada, an idyllic island off the Turkish coast, I thought my trip
had bottomed out,' writes Joe Kempkes. "I was wrong." Happily, most are
played for laughs, such as Pamela Alma Bass's hilariously clear-eyed
debunking of a neo-hippie Earthdance festival outside Santa Rosa. Now
if someone would only do the same for Burning Man."
- David Armstrong, San Francisco Chronicle
"This is the fifth in a series of books intended to titillate our taste
for travel schadenfreude. Here are 50-some tales of horrible
honeymoons, rental cars from hell, medical calamities, and an
international corps of con men and corrupt officials. Many of the
stories were winners of various "travel disaster" contests.... The
locations are geographically diverse, demonstrating that no country --
including this one -- has a monopoly on bad karma. The catalogue of
nasties ranges from traveler's tummy to the abundant (but previously
latent) neuroses of traveling companions to robbery and kidnapping. One
author blames his misfortunes, which included contracting a near-fatal
fungus called cryptococcus, on his agreeing to pose for a photo in a
mummy's sarcophagus."
- Jerry V. Haines, Washington Post
"In about four dozen stories travel survivors explain their scars,
including the trails of enterprising parasites; describe their
transport, including various machines and animals; and examine their
fellow travelers, including a fellow whose feet were eaten by rats. For
those not inclined to travel, the contributors offer an array of
reasons to never leave the recliner, but to those who are seasoned
trekkers seriously committed to making new friends across this wide
world, it all sound like fun."
- Book News