Backpacker's Journey: A Reporter's Walk on the Wild Side of Life

Whether you are a true adventurer yourself, or someone who enjoys reading about and vicariously enjoying adventures from the safety of an armchair, A Backpacker's Journey is the book you never knew you needed to read. Filled with true, exciting, quirky, nostalgic, and often extraordinary stories, this book is a reminder to us all from author Tom Barrett that "we should not sleepwalk through life." Originally written for a blog, this collection follows the author's experiences as he hitchhiked across North America in the 1970s, covered national and international stories as a reporter for the Edmonton Journal, and trekked across dozens of countries, including Uganda, Bhutan, India, Peru, Malawi, Italy, and Nepal.

Told with humour and humility, Barrett shares stories about meeting stoned fellow hippies and Deadheads, Hell's Angels, gay female strippers, a horny truck driver, and even Muammar Ghaddafi. A mix of intriguing glimpses of other cultures and locales, some 1970s and 1980s nostalgia, interesting behind-the-story insights from a well-travelled news reporter, and some personal escapades, A Backpacker's Journey celebrates the uniqueness of the many people, places, and circumstances that weave together our own personal stories.