Dan Holmes.com

For the longest time, since I was a kid, I’ve wanted to sail on the ocean to faraway and exotic islands. The more remote, the better. That dream has been on my mind a lot lately - the notion of “escape.” Paul Theroux is fortunate enough to be able to take those escapes for a living. The American travel writer has several bestsellers to his credit, including The Mosquito Coast, which was made into a movie.

I’ve been reading The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific, in which the author tells of his journey by kayak to the Cook Islands, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Vanuatu, Easter Island, and more exotic (or not so exotic) island locales. It’s brilliantly written.

When Theroux confronts a new culture on one of the islands, he doesn’t enter into it with a desire to change it, or make judgments. Instead, he embraces it and honors it through his respect for the land and the people he meets. Sometimes, the people he met meets are hostile, as when a group of islanders, all teenagers, mocked him and threatened him as he paddled to their shores. But his quiet and chilling confidence continutally led him out of harm’s way. Over and over again, he met islanders who changed his life and outlook on the world we live in.

Theroux has a wonderful way of finding stories among the people and places he blends into as he travels at the most basic level. This isn’t a travel guide for sight-seeing tourists, it’s a bible for the adventurer.

Be sure to browse other Books by Theroux from Amazon.com. He’s really the best of this genre of travel writing.