Take Me With You: A Round-The-World Journey to Invite a Stranger Home (Travelers' Tales Footsteps: The Soul of Travel)

by Brad Newsham

Release Date: 30 September, 2000

Edition: Hardcover

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Classic

Excellent. This is a Classic Travel Book. I've read quite a few over time. Brad Newsham is first and foremost a seasoned experienced traveler, who spread out his trips over periods of years in his lifetime. Many Travelers have written books about their experiences. Newsham however, in addition to being a great traveler, is a great writer, who has keen insight into the people, physical environment, and intangible benefits that travel brings to the individual.

Vivid descriptions, recollections of his conversations, and providing backgrounds of the local and traveling folks he came across make you want to grab your small bag, and hop on the next plane out.

His goal of finding a person to bring to the U.S. that otherwise would never be able to, makes many of us want to do the same thing. In the end we find out who the person is Brad will invite to our country.

I first heard about the this book while Newsham was on a radio talk show, while I was driving from Key West, FL to Seattle. I was driving north through Oregon, and took my small notebook and pen and scribbled down the title. Classic book.

One of the best books I've ever read!

I haven't read a book this engrossing since I finished the James Herriot series 10 years ago! Like Herriot, Newsham humbly shares the people he met, elevating them with great respect and human dignity along the way. I simply HATED to reach the end, but was compelled to read "just this next chapter" until the journey finally ended. Brad so deftly describes the exact emotions one feels while traveling. I found myself aching to pack a bag myself and hop on a plane to places I never knew I wanted to go.

As I read about each person he met, I found myself wishing that "this one" will be the person Brad invites, each one for their own reasons. I even wished for people who didn't make it on his list! By the end of the book, however, I was thoroughly convinced that it didn't really matter if anyone was left out, because I had such appreciation for the world they already lived in. This book really moved me. It was so refreshing to travel with such a humble, appreciative guy like Brad Newsham. I hope someday when I am in San Francisco to find myself in the back of his cab (if he's still driving), and ask HIM "what is the best thing that ever happened to you?"

I have recommended this book to everyone I've talked to, and am sending it to my mother, who recently told me, "Sometimes a good book is almost as good as a vacation." This is one book that definitely is.