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    Jupiter's Travels
    Jupiter's Travels
    Jupiter's Travels
    Audiobook16 hours

    Jupiter's Travels

    Written by Ted Simon

    Narrated by Ted Simon and Rupert Degas

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    On October 6, 1973, Ted Simon knew there was no going back. He loaded up his 500cc Triumph Tiger in the pouring rain and said good-bye to London.

    Over four years he rode 64,000 miles round the world. Breakdowns, revolutions, war, a spell in prison, and a Californian commune were all part of his experience, which was colored variously by utter despair and unimaginable joy. He was treated as a spy, a god, a welcome stranger, and a curiosity. The extraordinary trip became a journey into his own soul, and for many others—including the bikers Charley Boorman and Ewan McGregor—it is a pure inspiration. Rupert Degas, "the most versatile of narrators" (The Times), captures all the thrills and spills of Simon's experience and the timeless charm.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateOct 15, 2015
    ISBN9781843799917
    Jupiter's Travels

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    Reviews for Jupiter's Travels

    4.5/5

    180 ratings15 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Wonderfully written. Rich with prose and imagination inducing delight! Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      I ride and will be planning a several small adventures. This book and the small glimpse in other peoples lives made me look inward as the book rolled on.
    • 5/5
      A superbly written personal reflection of four years away, for me it lacked detail of the expedition but probably has more general appeal as a result.
    • 5/5
      The book is really, really good. He audio is engaging and Ted has a wonderful way with words that keep you mesmerised throughout his adventure
    • 3/5
      I guess I thought the book would be more of a outward experience, rather than an inward.
    • 5/5
      Fantastic. Deserves its reputation as one of the classic travel books.
    • 5/5
      The most fascinating travel journal I have ever read! I highly recommend it to everyone, not just to motorcyclists.
    • 3/5
      Interesting and the author is the pioneer of hundreds of bike travel books to follow!
    • 3/5
      Prettay, pretty, pretty good. And he is a good writer, no doubt. But the book didn't inspire me towards motorcycle travel for the simple reason that it felt like he spent most of his time concentrating on the road in front. So for me, motorcycle travel as a means of long distance travel, seems to create less opportunity for taking in the sights and local interaction. He seemed to travel so fast that he couldn't possibly take much in. Many of his tales were of conversations with the hotel owners, which is a bit limited. Still a great travel read.
    • 5/5
      It was a very nice read quite hair raising at times
    • 4/5
      I bought this book about 10 years ago while looking through the stacks at my local bookstore. I moved before I had the chance to finish it. I found it on this app and decided to give it another try. It's a good travelogue. It's a recommendation for anyone who wished to travel the world.
    • 5/5
      So much more than just a story about a man on a motorcycle ride.
    • 4/5
      I heard about this book, as I’m sure many people did, from Long Way Round. Ted Simon’s epic four-year motorcycle trip around the world in the 1970s was the inspiration for Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman to take off on their own trip, although Simon did it with considerably less experience and equipment and no support crew. He left London in 1973, rode across six continents and fifty-one countries, and returned home in 1977.Simon had always been a writer and a journalist, not a rider (in fact, he had neither bike nor license when he decided to ride around the world) and this motorcycle adventure is considerably more verbose and ruminating than Ewan and Charley’s Eurasian jaunt. Long Way Round felt like hearing stories at the pub; Jupiter’s Travels is unmistakeably a traditional travelogue, full of deep reflections about cultures and societies and religion and politics. This makes it a more difficult book to read, which is not a bad thing; Simon seems to come up with genuinely interesting and truthful observations more often than most travel writers, who get caught up in the exoticism of it all and act as though every sunset, conversation and moment of reflection is a grand epiphany (although Simon is not always immune to this either).Spanning a four-year voyage but with less than four hundred pages, Jupiter’s Travels shows some days in close detail, while at other times granting entire nations only a sentence or two (most countries in Central America) or skipping over them entirely (Afghanistan, Iran). This stands out at times, but for the most part Simon handles it fairly well, never giving anything of importance short shrift. His arrival in Brazil, where he is arrested on suspicion of being a spy and undergoes a terrible imprisonment, is given nearly fifty pages, and is one of the most interesting parts of the book.One of the disappointing parts of the book was Simon’s arrival in India, where he comes up with an odd philosophy comparing himself to the Roman god Jupiter. I don’t know what it is about India, but no place on Earth seems less appealing to me, and whether in fiction or non-fiction, I detest reading about it. I met plenty of hippies in South-East Asia who enjoyed telling me about what an amazing, spiritual place it was, but to my eyes (and from the accounts of more ordinary travellers) it looks like the filthiest place on Earth. And as an atheist, I really couldn’t care less about all the gods. But then, that’s my problem, not Ted Simon’s.Jupiter’s Travels is, overall, a solid piece of travel fiction, though I suspect Simon’s more traditional style of travel writing might put off readers who came directly from the simple meat-and-potatoes ghostwriter of Long Way Round.
    • 2/5
      Enjoyed the way that Ted Simon didn't just relay the mechanics of travelling the globe, but revealed his thoughts about how the adventure was changing him.

      A journey of self discovery that is fascinating. If that sounds a little fliimsy, it's firmly rooted in his experiences, but they are then thoroughly examined.

    • 4/5
      The original 'Journey is the Destination' motorcycle story. Simon inspired many people to explore the world on their bikes, most recently McGregor and Boorman. Unlike the latter though, this journey was literally one man and his bike. No backup crew packed into 4x4's in tow.Ted and his Tiger explore a rich variety of relationships in his contact with mankind of the continents and he soon adopts a philosophy of the hardship of the journey becoming the whole point.A good read, every time. Particularly the homecoming.