TRAVEL

Explorer: The Quest for Adventure and the Great Unknown

by Benedict Allen
Canongate. Jun. 2022. 288p. ISBN 9781786896230. $28. TRAV
COPY ISBN
Explorer and adventurer Allen (Into the Abyss) looks back on more than 30 years of traveling solo to remote communities around the globe. During his trips to the Amazon and Papua New Guinea, he nearly died nine times and contracted malaria four times. On his latest trip, which was in conjunction with a BBC series, he revisited a community in Papua New Guinea, where he had lived for two years. The area was about to become a center for gold mining, and Allen wanted to document the lives of the people who lived there, look up some friends, and learn from the community. While on this expedition, he went missing for days and made international headlines that speculated about his fate. He compiled his narrative from memories and a combination of field notebooks and diaries.
VERDICT Readers who enjoy the travel writing of Paul Theroux and Tony Horwitz and fans of BBC travel programs will appreciate this entertaining account of Allen’s travels.
Reviewed by Susan Belsky , Jun 01, 2022
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