Would you buy the book ?

**ExploringRTW** · 26-01-09, 20:50

Hi Chaps,

We'd like to enlist your help and opinions again please.

MikeP and a few others on and off the site have kindly encouarged us to write a book about our adventures. Initially I have been wary, and still am, but John and I are very aware that our Threads are more of a chronological listing of events with primarily only the really highs and lows listed, in fact only a few of them compared to how many we really had. John recently said that he feels that "some of our earlier entries are more like Post cards" compared to what we were really going through.

So, our thoughts are that if we wrote a book we would want to re-write the whole account with much more 'mid-level' detail containing the more gritty and amazing personal sides of our journey so we can convey more of what it is really like living on the road for the 2-3 years that we did as ordinary blokes which was a valid point MikeP made.

To give you an example, the day we left the UK was absolutely crazy. We woke up in our respective houses with them primarliy furnished as we'd lived in them for the previous 4+ years. By 5pm, the contents had been packed away and removed into storage. We were standing in just bare shells of what had been our homes and it was odd. By 6:30 pm John arrived at my Mum's house with a Taxi to take us to Heathrow. We were to be living for two years on the road on the proceeds of our houses which still wern't sold. I lay awake on our last night in the UK at a Motel near Heathrow with my mind racing and I was panicking, and I mean really having to keep a lid on all my fears - Job, home, relationships, worries about pensions all left behind. I didn't know how much I had in my bank account, even to the nearest £3-4k ! and I wasn't rich either. I was woken by a 747 landing which sounded like it was going to crash right into our Motel-It summed up how I felt very well. And that was the first morning of our travels....which was then shortly followed by an intimidating interview with US customs in Dublin as we headed towards the States.

I think it would be fair to say that we don't think we put enough personal stuff in our threads which is something others noted when I asked for feedback in 2006, but something we thought was ok at the time. Oh, the benefit of hindsight !

The other issue which a few have asked us about is advice on various aspects of this sort of journey, e.g. how to budget etc ? / Central & South America Border crossings. Do you think it could be incorportated into one book or should be considered as two ?

Last but not least, assuming you would be interested, would you prefer to read about it as one massive jouriney around the world ?, or split into continents/countries ?

What we'd really like from you guys is wether you would find it interesting enough to go out and buy ?, bearing in mind that the journey finished mid-2008, and the book wouldn't be published until the end of this year at the earliest. It would take about a year to write hence one of the main reasons for our questions.

Thanks very much for reading and in anticipation of your responses.

Mike & John

**Monsieur** · 26-01-09, 21:03

Personally speaking I would read most travelogues, whether its on foot, boat, air, bike, cycle etc.
I enjoy the writing, the adventure, the stories within stories so, yes I'd buy it

**Sgt Bilco** · 26-01-09, 21:26

Guys

I`d be inclined write 2 books. One on the personal and another for the technical.

When I read a travel book, the personal ones are much better i.e Road to Gobblers Knob was superb but hardly mentioned bikes

I think Jupiters Travels is more of a personal log rather than a simple travel guide and much better for it

.

I`ve just started a personal account of my US trips. It`s tougher than you think.

Write the book, you`ll regret it otherwise

**chad** · 26-01-09, 21:34

Originally Posted by Monsieur

Personally speaking I would read most travelogues, whether its on foot, boat, air, bike, cycle etc.
I enjoy the writing, the adventure, the stories within stories so, yes I'd buy it

ditto

**Noiseboy** · 26-01-09, 21:37

Originally Posted by Monsieur

Personally speaking I would read most travelogues, whether its on foot, boat, air, bike, cycle etc.
I enjoy the writing, the adventure, the stories within stories so, yes I'd buy it

what he said

**the celt** · 26-01-09, 22:00

Hi Mike & John,
Why not ??? You both have done something that most
people only dream about, look you only live once and
you had the balls to do the adventure so why not tell
folks what it was like ....