I Should Have Gone Home: Tripped Up Around The World

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. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

In the essays collected here, the reader and potential traveler hear about the kind of traveling fiascoes that are rarely mentioned in travel guides. No, the authors of these pungent little pieces, each just a few pages long, recall predicaments that they got into--and, fortunately, out of--that for fainter hearts would result in a vow never to leave home again. Being hassled by Russian police, having a wheel simply pop off your van, having to face a drowned cell phone, enduring a bad case of bedbugs--these and more true-life "horror" stories await the apprehensive reader. One essay, "Hipstress in Manhattan," by Laura Deutsch, is a particularly amusing remembrance of staying--for a short while, that is, until she fled to less "cool" digs--at the Hudson, an uberchic Big Apple hotel. Very entertaining--and thought-provoking. George Cohen
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