Why am I passionate about this?
The first time I left home, at 21, I ran out of money after three months, but I was so dead set on staying abroad that I pushed on. I ended up being gone for 18 months and traveled through 40 countries. Before I turned 30, I completed 10 six-month trips abroad, each with a long overland journey built-in, and hit close to 100 countries. Most of my travel was in the last decade before cell phones and the internet. I’ve been a member of The Explorers Club for twenty+ years and chair its Southwest Chapter.
Robert's book list on travel for those who want to feel the road
Why did Robert love this book?
Maybe the best way to feel the road is through the eyes of someone deprived of his/her freedom. I’ve never been in a foreign prison, but I have sat in a few jails, and the prospects of long-term confinement always terrified me.
In the early 1930s, Henri Charriere was sentenced to life imprisonment in the brutal penal colony of French Guiana for a crime he didn’t commit.
In this memoir, I yearned for blue skies and open roads as I followed Henri’s desperate escape attempts and refusal to accept confinement. I’ve never wanted someone to get away so badly.
7 authors picked Papillon as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
An immediate sensation upon its publication in 1969, Papillon is a vivid memoir of brutal penal colonies, daring prison breaks and heroic adventure on shark-infested seas.
Condemned for a murder he did not commit, Henri Charriere, nicknamed Papillon, was sent to the penal colony of French Guiana. Forty-two days after his arrival he made his first break for freedom, travelling a thousand gruelling miles in an open boat. He was recaptured and put into solitary confinement but his spirit remained untamed: over thirteen years he made nine incredible escapes, including from the notorious penal colony on Devil's Island.
This edition…