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Rating: 
Summary: An AWFUL Text
Review: A reality seeker long before it was cool, Craig Nelson is the ultimate travelling companion through the kind of forbidding destinations where "the airport wind sock really is a sock." Whether growling like a leopard with celebrity lookalike residents of Tanzania, good naturedly eating wet pine needles, or describing the symptoms of "tchotchke fatigue," Craig Nelson's singularly brilliant combination of wit and wanderlust is a camp classic. If Gogol collaborated with Indiana Jones, with a polish by John Waters, they might evoke Craig Nelson's LET'S GET LOST. Let's have more LET'S GET LOST--a series, a movie, a cookbook?
Rating:
Summary: Avoid this book !
Review: Although I haven't read every travel book that has been published, I would be stunned if there was a worse one than this. Nelson tries (vainly) to pass off his tourist sight-seeing as "adventures" and himself as some kind of intrepid, trail blazing pioneer. He prides himself on his ability to "survive" and yet he is never in any real danger (he books all of his "adventures" through American travel agencies and always seems to have a pre-booked hotel room or lodge and drivers, interpreters & guides at his disposal on his arrival. He never caters for himself nor makes his own arrangements - that's not "living on the edge" by anyone's definition !!) His "insights" are neither witty nor particularly interesting and he relies far too heavily on exaggeration & superlatives("biggest", "best" etc.) rather than attempting to properly describe what he is seeing.
His attitudes to people and their cultures are also alarmingly one-sided; throughout the book, you are left with the impression that all Europeans are evil and exploitative and that all other non-Europeans are noble and spiritual, and to be admired. However, he reserves his own particular racism for the British - never missing an opportunity to "inform" his readers just how much everybody else in the world hates the Brits.
This book flatters to deceive even before you open the cover; the text on the jacket gives you the impression that you are about to meet Indiana Jones crossed with Bill Bryson, the result is neither. His exploits are neither original nor exciting and the writing is crass and unfunny.
Before you consider buying this book, please read the "Library Journal" & "Kirkus Reviews" in Amazon's "Editorial Reviews" section !!
Rating:
Summary: Avoid this book !
Review: Although I haven't read every travel book that has been published, I would be stunned if there was a worse one than this. Nelson tries (vainly) to pass off his tourist sight-seeing as "adventures" and himself as some kind of intrepid, trail blazing pioneer. He prides himself on his ability to "survive" and yet he is never in any real danger (he books all of his "adventures" through American travel agencies and always seems to have a pre-booked hotel room or lodge and drivers, interpreters & guides at his disposal on his arrival. He never caters for himself nor makes his own arrangements - that's not "living on the edge" by anyone's definition !!) His "insights" are neither witty nor particularly interesting and he relies far too heavily on exaggeration & superlatives("biggest", "best" etc.) rather than attempting to properly describe what he is seeing.
His attitudes to people and their cultures are also alarmingly one-sided; throughout the book, you are left with the impression that all Europeans are evil and exploitative and that all other non-Europeans are noble and spiritual, and to be admired. However, he reserves his own particular racism for the British - never missing an opportunity to "inform" his readers just how much everybody else in the world hates the Brits.
This book flatters to deceive even before you open the cover; the text on the jacket gives you the impression that you are about to meet Indiana Jones crossed with Bill Bryson, the result is neither. His exploits are neither original nor exciting and the writing is crass and unfunny.
Before you consider buying this book, please read the "Library Journal" & "Kirkus Reviews" in Amazon's "Editorial Reviews" section !!
Rating: 
Summary: Laughing out loud
Review: For those of you who have all condemned Craig's book, do any of you have senses of humor? Why would you want to read a travel book in which the writer simply says everything is nice, clean, interesting, pleasant and he loves every single person he encounters? I think this would make for an absolute bore. Craig writes as if he is an old friend telling you funny and beautiful tales of his travels and he lets you into his private thoughts that many would be to afraid to share because they may not be very PC. It you want a candy coated travel experience, go to a travel agent. If you want the truth, (at least as he sees it), go to a real traveler.
Rating: 
Summary: great adventures
Review: this book is a man's story of his wild adventures of travel. Craig Nelson is an adventurer who likes to live on the edge. On his travels, he was threatened by orangutan in Borneo; taught dance steps to Stone-Age Cannibals in New Guinea; climbed a mountain to get a aerial view of Mauchu Picchi; taken psychoactive drugs with Juvaro Shaman in the middle of the Amazon; gone hunting with the last of the African Bush man; had a run in with the Peoples Liberation Army in Tiananmen Square; has seen the total eclipse of the sun from the roof of an eighteenth century Mughal Fort; sailed the south pacific in a nineteenth century brigantine; stalked gorillas through the Nontane forests of Ugana; been to Egypt when Arab terrorism was going on; went to Peru with the Shinning Path Gorillas, just to mention a few. Craig Nelson loves the wild life and loves to takes his readers with him. He has had so many more adventures and if you want to take that trip with him read the book!
Rating:
Summary: CRAP!CRAP!CRAP!CRAP!
Review: This book is absolute garbage on the highest level. Anyone who writes a good review for this is either related to nelson or spends most of thier time in cage swingin from a tyre throwing thier own excrement at the wall, or, most likely, both.
Rating:
Summary: An AWFUL Text
Review: This book is just God-Awful. I think a ten-year-old could have written a better travelouge than this yahoo. It is immature and ethnocentric and just plain all around boring. The author does a terrible of making his spoiled little touristy outings actually seem interesting and his sense of humor comes of as funny for about the first three pages and from then on sarcastic and trite for the rest. A huge waste of omey, avoid at all costs.
Rating:
Summary: Funny, informative: Who wouldn't want to travel with Nelson?
Review: This book is the perfect getaway trip for armchair travelers--all the insight and acute observations of Paul Theroux without the snottiness and superiority complex. (Plus Nelson is ten thousands times funnier.) And for all of us who long to do the Grand Tour but forgot to file for our IPOs, here's real-life travel (okay, he does seem to be able to take longer trips than the average working stiff adventurer) from a regular-salaried Everyman who helps you hit the high points but also clues you in to the byways with forgotten or hidden treasures the guidebooks won't tell you about. I don't understand the other reviewers; the "racist" slams are aimed at ill-mannered fellow tourists and local opportunists who deserve what they get--although most of the humor is pretty self-deprecating--and I give Nelson credit for his honesty in admitting his lust for un-PC souvenirs we'd all grab for for if we were lucky enough to have the chance. Nelson's a terrific writer; I've already read about a quarter of this out loud to my travel-crazed husband. Mr. Nelson, dump that Brenda babe and take me on your next jaunt.
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