Title: How To Travel The World For Free
Author: Michael Wigge
Genre: Non Fiction
Publisher: Self Published
Source: Netgalley
How to Travel the World for Free The unbelievable feat of traveling 25,000 miles—from Berlin to Antarctica—without any money! Join Michael Wigge as he immerses himself into fascinating subcultures, rides with Amish farmers in old-fashioned buggies, sleeps on the street with the homeless, and, with the help from alternative lifestylers, learns to nourish himself with flowers. Wigge had only 3 concerns during his travels: How do I get some food? How will I get to my next destination? Where can I sleep? …all without money! This unusual travel diary combines adventure with humor and contains surprising revelations about when money is really needed—and when it’s not. A must-read for every travel and adventure fan. (goodreads.)
I found this book by chance on Netgalley. It's one of the more interesting travel books I've ever read. What I enjoyed the most was that his descriptions of the places he went was so well I could visualize being there with him.
It seems like every time I come across someone who has traveled the world, they've saved a lot of money to do so. The author actually did it for free. There were times that he had to dumpster dive, and other times he had to swallow his pride and ask the people he was staying with for food or hope they got the hint. (some didn't.) I loved his stories about the people he met through couchsurfing.com. Some of them were great, others not so much.
He had the most trouble in Las Vegas, Bolivia and I am sad to say my home state of Ohio. Cleveland and Danville almost did him in, but was saved by some nice Amish people who helped him out. Fortunately the college kids at Ohio State redeemed the State and helped him out with a lot of free food. I was amazed that he was able to get across the country just on the generosity of people. He met a wide range of people-he got tips from a homeless guy he met on how to navigate one city, stayed with the Hare Krishna's and met someone who gave him a free trip to Hawaii-where he ate flowers for food.
The descriptions of South America though were my favorite, probably because it reminded me of traveling through Morocco when I lived there.
The ways he earned money were so inventive: he had people pay him to have pillow fights, was a human couch, a butler, and a porter. The porter story was awful-he did it so he could go to Machu Pichu, but fell behind his tour group and ended up not being able to get in.
I was just surprised at how engrossed in his story I got. I learned one thing from this book though: No matter how badly I want to travel the world, I couldn't do it for free like he did. :)
