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Bad Tourist: Misadventures in Love and Travel Paperback – October 1, 2020

by Suzanne Roberts (Author)

4.2 86 ratings

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2021 Independent Publisher Book Awards, Gold Medal Winner
2021 National Indie Excellent Awards Finalist
2020 Bronze Award for Travel Book or Guide from the North American Travel Journalists Association
2020 Bronze Winner for Travel in the Foreword INDIES

Both a memoir in travel essays and an anti-guidebook, Bad Tourist takes us across four continents to fifteen countries, showing us what not to do when traveling. A woman learning to claim her own desires and adventures, Suzanne Roberts encounters lightning and landslides, sharks and piranha-infested waters, a nightclub drugging, burning bodies, and brief affairs as she searches for the love of her life and finally herself.

Throughout her travels Roberts tries hard not to be a bad tourist, but owing to her cultural blind spots, things don’t always go as planned. Fearlessly confessional, shamelessly funny, and wholly unapologetic, Roberts offers a refreshingly honest account of the joys and absurdities of confronting new landscapes and cultures, as well as new versions of herself. Raw, bawdy, and self-effacing, Bad Tourist is a journey packed with delights and surprises—both of the greater world and of the mysterious workings of the heart.

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Editorial Reviews

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"In this collection of essays, Roberts recounts her adventures while traveling mostly solo to 15 countries... Each experience offers a chance to probe her inner "bad tourist," as she wrestles with issues of privilege, cultural blind spots, and her own insecurities on a journey to self-discovery. --National Geographic

"Replete with harrowing and laugh out loud accounts of misadventures at home and abroad, Suzanne Roberts's Bad Tourist collects entertaining stories from around the world. . . . Authentic, surprising, and irresistible, Bad Tourist is a travel text worth getting lost in."—Foreword Reviews

"Roberts has spent decades circling the globe, chasing experience, understanding, and identity. This book is the culmination of her young adulthood on the move."—Courtney Eathorne, Booklist

"This would be a good pick for anyone that loves travel, misses traveling in these days of quarantine, or would like something different. This is a collection of love stories to old friends, lovers, her mother, new friends from her travels, discovered lands and cultures, and to herself."—alissacmiles.com

"Named Next Great Travel Writer by National Geographic's Traveler, Roberts handily fits the distinction with memories, images, and insights that put readers in the seat beside her or hiking up a too-close-for-comfort volcanic slope—all the while providing a sort of anti-guidebook unapologetically illustrating what not to do."—Donna McCrohan Rosenthal, News Review

"I love travel, armchair and otherwise, so I knew it would be a pleasure letting Suzanne Roberts take me around the world on a shoestring, from India's Grand Elephant Festival, to the steppes of Mongolia on the trail of Genghis Khan, to the cool tiles of another one-star bathroom wondering if this would be the time she'd puke herself to death. Even more satisfying are her honesty, courage, and eventual clarity as she tackles her own understories—family dysfunction and alcoholism, internalized misogyny, and what the climate catastrophe means for the travel addicted among us—combining these essays into a thoroughly relatable journey of the heart."—Pam Houston, author of Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country

"If Michel de Montaigne and Chelsea Handler could get together in a bar in some far-flung part of the world and get good and drunk, they might dream up a book like this. This is not your parents' travel writing! If you're thirsting for a literary triple shot of sex, booze, and misadventures, Bad Tourist is your passport to a trip you won't want to come home from."—Michael P. Branch, author of Rants from the Hill and How to Cuss in Western

"Bad Tourist makes beautiful the absurdity and heartbreak accompanying us whenever we leave home. Roberts's intimate, fiercely honest narrative voice imbues these realities with grace and demonstrates just how much is to be gained by living a life in the present tense."—Kathryn Miles, author of Quakeland: On the Road to America's Next Devastating Earthquake

"These thoughtful, hilarious, lusty essays will either have you renewing your passport or blowtorching it for good. Suzanne Roberts may be a bad tourist, but she's one hell of a great writer."—Gayle Brandeis, author of The Art of Misdiagnosis

"Suzanne Roberts's journey—both inward and outward—is illuminated by eloquent portraits of countries, cultures, and compassionate insights into human nature. I love this book."—Ann Marie Brown, travel writer and guidebook author

About the Author

Suzanne Roberts is the author of Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail (Nebraska, 2012) and four collections of poetry. She was named the Next Great Travel Writer by National Geographic’s Traveler, and her work has been published in Best Women’s Travel Writing and listed as Notable in Best American Essays. She teaches for the low-residency MFA program in creative writing at Sierra Nevada University. Visit her website: suzanneroberts.net.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Nebraska Press (October 1, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1496222849
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1496222848
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 0.65 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,009,564 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #189 in General Scotland Travel Guides
- #1,380 in General Travel Reference
- #1,958 in Travel Writing Reference

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4.2 86 ratings

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Suzanne Roberts

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Suzanne Roberts' books include the collection of lyrical essays, Animal Bodies: On Death, Desire, and Other Difficulties (2022), the award-winning memoir in travel essays, Bad Tourist: Misadventures in Love and Travel (2020), the memoir, Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail (winner of the 2012 National Outdoor Book Award) and as well as the poetry collections Shameless, Nothing to You, Three Hours to Burn a Body: Poems on Travel, and Plotting Temporality. National Geographic's Traveler magazine named Roberts "The Next Great Travel Writer," and her work has appeared in The New York Times, CNN, Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, and elsewhere. She holds a doctorate in literature and the environment from the University of Nevada-Reno and teaches for the low residency MFA program in creative writing at Sierra Nevada University. More information may be found on her website: www.suzanneroberts.net or follow her on Instagram: @suzanneroberts28

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Kate A.

A quick, entertaining read

Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2021

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Bad Tourist is an entertaining travel memoir that takes readers on a global journey of self-discovery. I had fun accompanying Suzanne Roberts on her many adventures in South America, India, the UK, and Europe. I don’t usually read memoirs, but after being stuck at home for the past year due to Covid, I may pick up more travel memoirs to live vicariously through others until it’s safe to travel again. I found the author likable and brave for sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly in a world that's quick to judge. I recommend Bad Tourist for those looking for an entertaining escape.

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Emily Wortman-Wunder

Essays about the fun and danger of being a woman traveling alone

Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2021

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I read these personal essays about the author's global travels with interest, amusement, envy, and sometimes distaste; she lays it all out there--the fun, the freedom, and the dangers of traveling as a woman, both alone and in company. From Mongolia to Disneyland, India to Ecuador, the author takes us on a tour of nightclubs and seedy hotels, beautiful beaches and museums and homestays. I sometimes found myself gazing wistfully in the direction of what she wasn't talking about--modern American travel has a historical and environmental context, and this book barely touches on it. The essays do occasionally confront the sexual politics of tourism--but then we're back on the road, moving on to a new locale.

One person found this helpful

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Lena Muralt

Wonderful book!

Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2020

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I really loved "Bad Tourist". To me, it felt like I was sitting down with a best friend going through their photo album of travels. Flipping through the pages, we jump around in time and place and stories, but the through line is the same. In these vignettes, I see a woman coming into her own, learning self-worth, and understanding what it means to let go and the importance of change.
In "Bad Tourist" Roberts' stories go from slice of life, to gripping, to subtly heartbreaking and completely poignant, and I am one hundred percent here for it ;) Especially now, in the middle of a global pandemic, when I have wanderlust and really wish I could travel, this book was a wonderful escape.
I'm a woman who has also chosen an unconventional life by many people's standards, so I loved the honesty that Roberts infuses into her storytelling, and I saw much of myself in her life's journey. I'm very excited to read the rest of her work!

7 people found this helpful

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Anna

A different kind of travel writing.

Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2020

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Well-written. Most impressed by the structure, divisions.

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Oldink38

WORTH THE TRAVEL TIME

Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2020

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Bad Tourist is not your grandparents’ travel book. Suzanne Roberts updates the genre with fearless self-revelations, multi-continent risk-taking, and love, sex and lots of wine. That doesn’t mean that we don’t get insights into the various countries and their inhabitants that she makes her mission to experience and understand. She has toured for so many years to so many places that the regular meaning of the word “tourist” doesn’t apply. She is out to experience the real deal, both in terms of people and places, and this means she gets herself into a series of sometimes funny, sometimes hair-raising situations. Not that she blames other people. She is completely honest about her own personal and tourist shortcomings. Most of us would be on our 4th excuse while Suzanne immediately takes full responsibility for the fix she’s in. She knows a lot, but she knows she doesn’t know everything about the world and her own love life. That refreshingly honest approach to forging ahead is found in every chapter. Bad Tourist is definitely worth the travel time.

2 people found this helpful

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Zeljka

Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2020

Suzanne Roberts's descriptions of places in each story truly were beautiful and poetic, transporting me to them right there, not to mention I myself visited some of them and can testify to the veracity of her words! The book itself was also an intimate portrait of her exploration of her self-worth and self-esteem. Pity then that the stories were scattered all over and organized in the topics in a Lonely Planet guide-book way, instead of going for a linear progression. I have to note though that I was reading the ARC of the book (huge thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher!), so I am not sure if that remained so in the final edition of the book. It was a pity, because it would be otherwise a perfect read for everyone, especially for women who are in need to acknowledge their worth and their faults, not necessarily while on tour around the world (but it is not a bad idea too). I was so absorbed in her search for true happiness that the waste of time trying to connect the dots how is someone connected to her in which stories annoyed me a lot. I do wonder if I would have been as transfixed if the stories were indeed in the straight order, but it's pointless. As it was, it did diminish the experience.

I would give this book 4.5 stars if it was possible, and recommend it to all my girls who love stories about travel and who are not afraid of reading a bit of truth about themselves in them. Some choices Suzanne made were in my opinion odd (and she admitted them so freely), but they do not make her worth any lesser. On the contrary, the fact she got over and shared her sorrows and regrets in these stories make her a beautiful huggable human being whom is impossible to dislike and not want to be a friend with.

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RachelHollonJames

The perfect Netflix binge on the page!

Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2020

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Bad Tourist: Misadventures in Love and Travel is the memoir in essays you're looking for--pandemic or not, it will make you long for the kind of wisdom and misadventures that can only come through travel. Suzanne Roberts has managed to create the perfect Netflix binge on the page. Heart heavy, humor forward, her collection is an example of the power of authentic honesty and what it looks like when you're not afraid to see yourself in a new light, even a bad light, if it means getting closer to the truth. I dare you not to find some of yourself in her travels, and like all good vacations, to rediscover yourself and the world with a fresh perspective.

2 people found this helpful

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Allen Cook

Looking for a book on travel? Keep looking.

Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2022

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The author travels to exotic locations around the globe, but leaves behind precious little info regarding people, places, food, culture.
Lots of info about cat-and-mouse sexcapades.

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