Around the World in 50 Years: My Adventure to Every Country on Earth

by Albert Podell

Overview

The New York Times Best Seller

“Amazing . . . the most original travel narrative ever written.” —CounterPunch

Around the World in 50 Years is the inspiring story of an ordinary guy who achieved two great goals that others had told him were impossible. First, he set a record for the longest automobile journey ever made around the world, during which he blasted his way out of minefields, survived a serious accident atop the Peak of Death, came within seconds of being lynched, and lost three of the five men who started with him: two to disease, one to the Vietcong.

After that, Albert Podell set another record by going to every country on earth. He survived riots, revolutions, civil wars, trigger-happy child soldiers, voodoo priests, jihadists, robbers, corrupt cops, and Cape buffalo. He traveled through every kind of earthquake, cyclone, tsunami, volcanic eruption, snowstorm, and sandstorm that nature threw at him. He ate everything from old camel meat and African field rats to dung beetles and the brain of a live monkey. And he overcame encounters with crocodiles, hippos, anacondas, giant leeches, flying crabs—and several beautiful women who insisted that he stop this nonsense and marry them.

Around the World in 50 Years is a remarkable and meaningful tale packed with some of the most memorable, frightening, and hilarious adventure stories you have ever read.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250094223
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/19/2016
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	1,055,484
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

ALBERT PODELL has had successful careers as a magazine editor, director of photography, advertising executive, freelance writer, adventurer, author, attorney, theatrical investor and producer, and philanthropist. He recently became the oldest person to visit every country in the world and one of the very few people to ever achieve this feat. He is a graduate of Cornell University, was a graduate fellow in international relations at the University of Chicago, and holds a J.D. from NYU.

Table of Contents

Foreword Harold Stephens 1

1 Between a Croc and a Hard Place 5

2 A Late Start 10

3 The Land of a Thousand Horrors 16

4 Weighed Down in Egypt's Land 42

5 Into the Teeth of the Tiger 60

6 Changing Goals 75

7 Making a Splash 80

8 "Just Call Me God" 98

9 So, When Is a Country Not a Country? HO

10 Doing God's Work 117

11 Travels in SPAM Land 128

12 Hanging Chad 140

13 "Do Not Kidnap Anyone Today!" 162

14 Your Man in Havana 169

15 You Are What You Eat 177

16 Snow Beneath the Southern Cross 184

17 A Poke in a Pig 193

18 No Countries for Old Men 199

19 Into the Indian Ocean 210

20 On the Whims of the Dragoons 221

21 Murphy Moves to Tomorrow Land 225

22 To the Land of the Great Leader 239

23 In the Steppes of Genghis Khan 250

24 On the Wings of the Dragon 260

25 A Tropical Depression 275

26 Second Thoughts 286

27 My Meddle in the Muddle East 293

28 Guerrillas and Gorillas 305

29 Plan X and the Gray-Blue Eyes 337

30 …And One More for the Road 342

Countries Visited: In Chronological Order 347

I Gratefully Thank 351

Editorial Reviews

Part travel adventure tale and part madcap farcical comedy, where Hunter S. Thompson meets Anthony Bourdain.” —Chicago Tribune

“His writing is breathtaking. . . . This is substantially more than a travel book. It is one man’s nearly lifelong, worldwide adventure.” —Booklist

“The author’s tales are unquestionably entertaining. . . . There is never a dull moment.” —Kirkus Reviews

“It’s like Crocodile Dundee produced by Monty Python and directed by Woody Allen.” —Tony Wheeler, founder of Lonely Planet

From the Publisher

01/12/2015
Podell first set his mind on traveling the world in 1964, when he quit his job at Argosy magazine and gave up his life as a bachelor in NYC, in an effort to break the record for the longest land journey around the world. Invigorated by all the sights, experiences, and drama, Podell set his sights higher: to visit every country in the world before he dies. In this lively travelogue, Podell proves himself a worthy raconteur as he recounts his adventures nearly drowning in Costa Rica, diving with penguins in the Galápagos, eating ice cream in the Sahara Desert, panning for gold in Senegal, and eating all manner of local dishes—including monkey brains in Hong Kong. He interacts with his fair share of corrupt officials and soldiers, falls into a manhole full of raw sewage in Africa, and visits the Pacific island of Tuvalu, a major arsenal during WWII that is all but abandoned and “will be the first country to disappear under the waves of the rising ocean.” Rounded out with the author’s frank advice for fellow travellers (he develops a toilet-rating system by country and includes a list of reasons not to visit Haiti) as well as his solemn observations that climate change is very real and that “if the work ethic I observed in the Western world continues to weaken... we are history,” this book is an informative and sobering look at the world’s many cultures and the importance of travel. 31 b&w photos. Agent: Tony Outhwaite, JCA Literary Agency. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

01/01/2015
Even the most jaded armchair traveler will enjoy these breezy anecdotal vignettes from Podell's 50 years of journeying. His goal: to visit every country on Earth. He accomplished this with good cheer and buckets full of stamina during hundreds of trips by car, jeep, minivan, camel, elephant—you name it. This is absolutely not a travel guide but rather a shout-out to those who crave adventure from someone who persists with good luck and no fear of the unknown. From his work as an editor and writer at Playboy and national outdoor magazines, Podell knows how to keep the reader's attention. Photographs are sprinkled throughout the book, perhaps to assure skeptical readers that some events, improbable at best, actually took place. There is no attempt here to be high-minded or to give much social commentary, only to communicate the joys and frustrations of adventure travel. The only thing missing is a good index to guide the reader quickly to places visited. VERDICT Definitely exciting reading for would-be travelers and those who share the author's delight in unusual and strange travel adventures.—Olga Wise, formerly with Compaq Computers Inc., Austin, TX

Library Journal

Albert Podell embarked upon an ambitious and unlikely undertaking: to visit every country on the planet, arriving at a total of 196 countries over the course of 50 years. Tom Perkins's narration is clear, comfortably paced, and easy to follow, though perhaps not as colorful as one might imagine the author himself to be. His straightforward narration feels slightly at odds with the persona of Podell, who shows himself to be creative and crafty in achieving his challenging goal, though at times culturally judgmental and personally thorny. A bit more spice to the narration would have added a lot in portraying the type of person who would undertake an adventure such as this. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

JULY 2015 - AudioFile

2014-12-11
The globe-trotting adventures of former magazine editor Podell (co-author: Who Needs a Road?: The Story of the Longest and Last Motor Journey Around the World, 1967).Having traversed the world on an ambitious, fraught, 581-day Trans-World Record Expedition with Harold Stephens in 1965-1966, Brooklyn-born Podell renewed his vow in 2000 to try to reach all the countries in the world. At the time, he was "dimly aware there were between 190 and 200 countries." Juggling a New York law practice, he set out sporadically over the next decade, either in the company of a beautiful young woman ("a legacy from my previous post as an editor at Playboy") or stalwart male cohorts, to trek through some difficult and often politically explosive terrain. Chronicling his travels through South and Central America, West Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East, he offers entertaining highlights of evidently arduous yet well-planned trips. Figuring out what constituted a country—e.g., membership in the U.N. was not always a given (Taiwan, Vatican City and Kosovo)—and obtaining visas to certain dictatorial hot spots were nearly impossible. Although his "do-do list" gets tiresome, the author's tales are unquestionably entertaining. He trekked up Mount Vaea in Samoa to visit the grave of another "teller of tales," his idol Robert Louis Stevenson; gamely tried all manner of ghastly edibles, including still-pulsating monkey brain; and talked his way out of numerous dangerous scrapes. Though a well-hardened traveler, Podell occasionally shows his pampered Western roots, such as in ranking a country's comfort level by the quality of its toilet paper: the Podell Potty Paper Rating (PPPR—1 being "soft white," and 7 means "no public toilets at all"). While he writes warmly of kindly inhabitants and creatures, he is extremely critical of Haiti and parts of Africa where the education gap neglects to teach people "how to think"—like this canny American, at least. The book features occasionally salacious details, but there is never a dull moment.

Kirkus Reviews