We Came, We Saw, We Left: A Family Gap Year (B&N Exclusive Edition)

We Came, We Saw, We Left: A Family Gap Year (B&N Exclusive Edition)

by Charles Wheelan
We Came, We Saw, We Left: A Family Gap Year (B&N Exclusive Edition)

We Came, We Saw, We Left: A Family Gap Year (B&N Exclusive Edition)

by Charles Wheelan

Paperback(B&N Exclusive Edition)

$16.95 
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Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Charles Wheelan, an economist, and Leah Wheelen, a math teacher, took a trip together around the world in their youth. Clearly this was an extraordinary experience, because they decided to re-create it, only this time with their three children. We Came, We Saw, We Left: A Family Gap Year is the result — a breezy, feel-good memoir of this nine-month adventure. The children are all distinctly colorful characters in their own right, and they endure, sometimes just barely, the trials of a life in motion. This is a delightfully entertaining homage to the classic road trip.

Charlie Wheelan and his family do what others dream of: They take a year off to travel the world. This is their story.

What would happen if you quit your life for a year? In a pre–COVID-19 world, the Wheelan family decided to find out; leaving behind work, school, and even the family dogs to travel the world on a modest budget. Equal parts "how-to" and "how-not-to"—and with an eye toward a world emerging from a pandemic—We Came, We Saw, We Left is the insightful and often hilarious account of one family’s gap-year experiment.

Wheelan paints a picture of adventure and connectivity, juggling themes of local politics, global economics, and family dynamics while exploring answers to questions like: How do you sneak out of a Peruvian town that has been barricaded by the local army? And where can you get treatment for a flesh-eating bacteria your daughter picked up two continents ago? From Colombia to Cambodia, We Came, We Saw, We Left chronicles nine months across six continents with three teenagers. What could go wrong?


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781324036906
Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date: 04/26/2022
Edition description: B&N Exclusive Edition
Pages: 304
Sales rank: 309,023
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Charles Wheelan is the author of the best-selling Naked Statistics and Naked Economics and is a former correspondent for the Economist. He teaches public policy and economics at Dartmouth College and lives in Hanover, New Hampshire, with his family.

Table of Contents

Trip Map xii

Chapter 1 Lost in Medellín 1

Chapter 2 What Were We Thinking? 19

Chapter 3 The Long Farewell 33

Chapter 4 If You Want Peace, You Won't Get Justice 47

Chapter 5 Into the Amazon 63

Chapter 6 Things Go South in South America 79

Chapter 7 Inspired by Real Events 92

Chapter 8 To the End of the Earth (Almost) 104

Chapter 9 Charlie's Choice 120

Chapter 10 The Left Side of the Road 137

Chapter 11 The Exploding Penis 154

Chapter 12 Do You Have What It Takes to Cross Four Lanes of Saigon Traffic? 167

Chapter 13 Indian Bureaucracy 2, Wheelan Family 1 183

Chapter 14 A Punjabi Shortcut 192

Chapter 15 One Afternoon in Tanzania 205

Chapter 16 Home Is Where Your Friends Are 224

Chapter 17 Heading to Hanover 237

Chapter 18 The Things We Learned 258

Epilogue: Where Are They Now? 267

Acknowledgments 271

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