A Ride Across America

Simon Parker has cycled in this election year across the whole of America, from the northwest coast of Washington state, all the way to the most south easterly tip of Florida. He's written a book about it. 
Music: Barney & Izzi Hardy

Transcript

Peter: Welcome to our travel podcast. We're specialist travel writers, and we've spent half a lifetime exploring every corner of the world.

Felice So we want to share with you some of our extraordinary experiences and the amazing people we've met along the way.

Peter This week, we're talking to Simon Parker, who has cycled in this election year across the whole of America, from the northwest coast of Washington state all the way to the most south-easterly tip of Florida. And he's written a book about it. A Ride Across America is a fascinating account, not just of the hazards of long-distance biking, but of the people he met there. Simon, welcome to the show. Now, you reveal early on in your book that you've actually biked across the USA not once, but twice. You sound like a glutton for punishment. How did this all come about?

Simon So I work as a travel writer or a foreign correspondent and in 2016, I got my biggest-ever commission working for the Telegraph and the BBC World Service. They commissioned me to sail and cycle halfway around the world. So, sailing across the Pacific, cycling across the United States, sailing across the Atlantic, and then a final 1,000-mile bike ride through Europe, which basically was 133 days by land and sea halfway around the world.

I absolutely hated the time that I spent at sea. Sailing is not my bag; I was not cut out for being at sea. But I cycled across the United States in spring and early summer of 2016, and it just became something of a eureka moment for me, really, both professionally but also personally, about the sort of travel I wanted to do, the sort of slow and considered travel that I wanted to do, and I ended up travelling 3,500 miles across America, meeting hundreds of fascinating people.

I think the worst thing, the mistake I made, was that I was trying to do it too quickly. I was making a documentary all about human endurance, and I kind of missed the point. And in the five or six years after that journey, it really started to play on my mind. I thought, ‘Well, I'd love to get back there and go a bit slower and actually record hundreds of these interviews and perhaps turn it into a book.’ And that is the premise, essentially, of my new book, A Ride Across America. It's about travelling across the United States for a second time, on my bicycle, and doing it in the lead-up to this November's presidential election, and interviewing hundreds of people along the way to try and tell slightly different stories to what most newspapers and broadcasters usually do.

Felice Was your bike a special bike, or an ordinary one?

Simon Nothing particularly special about it. When I cycled across the United States in 2016, all I could afford was a £400 or £500 bike that I used to cycle around London on, and I attached a trailer to it. I had a sleeping bag and a tent, and I basically just took off on this journey because, you know, eight or nine years ago, I was really still trying to find a place for myself in the industry. As you'll know, travel writing is filled with a...how do I put this...kind of an old guard of travel writers who naturally don't want to give up their place. I found it very hard to wrestle a part of that industry. But what I found was almost a niche of going on these quite bumpy and adventurous expeditions, which perhaps more established writers were not willing to go on.

So, at the time, I only had about £700 and a bicycle and basically this silly idea of hitchhiking with the round-the-world yacht race and then cycling across America. I set off and did it basically, and it kind of allowed me to sort of find my feet in this industry. Fast forward eight or nine years to me now, and thankfully I do get given nice bikes by very generous bicycle manufacturers. So on this ride across America, I did it on a titanium bicycle by a manufacturer called Van Nicolas, and this thing is pretty much indestructible. I got a few flat tires, a few of the components had a bit of wear and tear, but in terms of the frame – this thing will last for hundreds, if not thousands of years, I think.

Felice I love your quote. I think it's on page 18. 'Travel writing has afforded us some mind-boggling holidays, five-star hotels, helicopter rides, safaris – albeit with barely a pension between us.' It's exactly what we do; it's exactly the same. It really resonated with us.

Simon You'll know how it is. I've spent 15, 20 years living the life of a billionaire, essentially, albeit one who wants to go off and also do these crazy adventures. But flying business class, staying in five-star hotels, eating in Michelin-starred restaurants is great, but often you're on a bit of a junket, and travel writing is abysmally paid. Yes, it's always been a sort of a toss-up, really. Now I've started a family, my decision-making processes is a lot more commercial, I'd say. Whereas ten years ago, when I was single, wasn't married, didn't have kids to think about, I could afford to spend 40 weeks a year on the road. But yes, it has afforded us some incredible opportunities.

Felice But your bike ride across America, you did not stay in five-star hotels, did you? It was very different.

Simon Yes. I stayed in some very rough motels. So, whereas in 2016, I essentially just wild camped across America, because like I said, I really didn't have much money. I stayed on the side of the road. I camped in national parks. Very often people would just give me a place to stay, in their backyards. I didn't really want to do that sort of eight, seven, eight years later, I've probably got a bit softer, if I'm honest. And I'm also travelling with an expensive bicycle. I've got cameras, microphones, laptops. I've got all of these things that I need to do my job as a journalist, or I wouldn't have all the content, which I can then turn into a book and a YouTube series and take around touring the country, doing a live theatre show.

So I need to carry those things. But the decision I made was that I was going to stay in cheap motels, basically, so sort of $50 a night. The way I saw it was that a rubbish motel is still better than a good tent. At least I have four walls around me. But actually, hopefully, I think in terms of creating and writing good copy, some of those really ropey motels provided quite a good opportunity to just talk about how disgusting they were. I wouldn't change that, I don't think. I often get asked by people in their early 20s about going off and doing these adventures, and just grab a tent and a bicycle and just head off and do it. But now that I'm 37, I would say I'm getting a bit softer.

Felice You sometimes stayed with people you met along the way, didn't you?

Simon. Yes, so I didn't want to lose that aspect of this journey. So hopefully something which comes through in this book is a level of generosity and hospitality that you especially get in the United States, and especially if you're British as well. There is something very timeless, that connection between America and Britain where most Americans are fascinated with Britain, British people.

Peter Where did you start from? From the west coast to Florida?

Simon So originally in 2016, I cycled from Seattle to New York. So I like the idea of doing a similar journey. But I also wanted to do something which had more of a geographical ring to it. So I started looking at Seattle and realised that Seattle is actually about 150 miles inland, to the east of Puget Sound from the Pacific Ocean. When you look at America from a distance on one of those big maps, Seattle looks like it's on the Pacific coast, where it's not really.

I started zooming in on these maps and realised there was a place called Cape Flattery. I found this place, and I started looking at it on Google Maps and thought, 'Wow, that's a fascinating place.' It really is the northwesternmost point of the contiguous United States, which is the lower 48. And when I started thinking about Cape Flattery, the northwesternmost point of the contiguous United States, as a glutton for punishment, I naturally started thinking, ‘Well, what's the southeasternmost point of the United States?' And just dreamt up this mad idea. I looked at it and thought, well, that's about 4,500 miles. That has the makings of a two-and-a-half, three-month journey. And yes, I passed through 11 states, took 10 weeks, and I think my total mileage was 4,373 miles from Cape Flattery to Key West, Florida.

Peter It's a long way. What about your health? Was it ok all the way? Did you have any illnesses?

Simon You know what, I actually stayed relatively fit and healthy on this. For my first book, I cycled around the coast of Britain, a book called Riding Out. And during that trip, in particular, I remember surviving on rubbish food. It was a different time of year, it wasn't so warm, and I did fall quite sick on that one because you are putting your body through hell, essentially. You're cycling day after day, you're surviving on whatever you can find in convenience stores or gas stations.

But on this trip across America, although I was really pushing my body, even though I was going a bit slower than the journey I did in 2016. I looked after myself, to be honest. Whereas in contrast to previous journeys where I'd been on, where I wouldn't normally buy too much into things like electrolytes or protein shakes or vitamin supplements, I actually carried quite a lot of that on this journey across America, because what I have felt is, as I'm now starting to get a bit older. Yes, I'm only 37, although it feels quite old at the moment, I've realised that I need to look after myself a bit better, especially at the end of the day. I need to have a protein shake, I need to drink plenty of water, I need those electrolytes, and I managed to stave off any serious injury, thank goodness.

Peter Your diet, your day-to-day diet inevitably was not particularly nutritious.

Simon No. So in the middle of America, in particular, in the Midwest, there are food deserts, and there are roughly about 75 counties in the United States which don't have access to fresh food. And these are people living in counties and they can't go and get a fresh apple. You can't get a lettuce, you can't get a tomato. And people are living off convenience food and highly processed food. And this meant that I had to as well. So for example, if I was spending two or three days crossing a particular county, I was having to eat things like noodles, burgers and fries, fried chicken, because I physically couldn't get anything else. Unfortunately, when you're moving slowly and propelling yourself across a country, you just have to eat what's available.

I always said to myself, ‘You know, this isn't ideal, but it's not lasting forever.’ And some food is better than no food, basically. You can, at times, turn your nose up to it, but you realise that you are a machine, essentially. I'm burning in excess of 5,000 calories a day, and you just have to keep getting it in you, or you'll hit a wall, basically.

I don't usually a huge amount of fast food at home. So I would say like the first two or three McDonald's that I had, felt like a bit of a guilty pleasure because I hadn't eaten that sort of food for about 20 years, since I was a teenager. But after that honeymoon period wore off, you realise that you're putting this bad fuel into a racing car, basically, and it starts to catch up on you.

Felice You talk about beige food, monosodium glutamate mountains, in your book, and then you say that the average American eats 3,868 calories a day.

Simon One thing I talk about in the book is how a lot of this food actually gets wasted. There's this culture in the United States of enormous portions and then takeout, essentially doggie bags. So what was happening very often was the portions were massive. People were overeating to start with, and then that food would be taken away to be eaten at another time. America isn't cheap. I was starting to wish that it could just be a slightly cheaper and half the size and make it a bit better, basically, but that doesn't seem to be the American way. It's very much a case of bigger is better. Pile stuff onto the plates irrespective of the quality.

Felice When we've been skiing in America, I remember once being with our children, having pizzas at lunchtime, and we couldn't eat even a fraction of them, and they gave us these boxes to take away and we were going skiing up the mountain. I don't know what we were meant to do with them. We had to just throw them away. But yes, the portions are enormous, aren't they?

Simon Yes, absolutely.

Peter What about safety? You set off on your own, on your bike into quite a strange world, Middle America in particular. Did you feel scared?

Simon I am naturally apprehensive, as I am at the beginning of any of these journeys. I've done so many crazy adventures I guess my niche area of travel writing is adventure travel writing. When I was 19, I bought a one-way ticket to New Zealand and spent a year hitchhiking around Australia and New Zealand with a tent and a sleeping bag. Now I've backpacked all around South America, I've driven a rickshaw the length of India, I've cycled across Europe. I've done a lot of these things, so I'm probably a little bit more weathered to the risk than perhaps most people. I like to take on considered risks. I wouldn't just base jump or throw myself out of a plane.

It is potentially quite dangerous, but at the same time, it's also potentially very, very rewarding. I've realised that by taking life on and grabbing life by the scruff of the neck and going off and having these adventures...on balance, yes, there is risk, but also the rewards are unbelievable. This is about writing a book, I'm a journalist and I have to create content to pay the bills; that's what I do, this is my career. But actually this boils down to more than that. This is just wanting to get the most out of my life. I want to go off and feel that amazing thrill of not really knowing what's around the next corner, who I'm going to meet, and what they might say. So that kind of keeps me going.

Naturally, America is dangerous in terms of the reliance upon cars, so cycling infrastructure in most places is almost non-existent. So I had a couple of very close calls with cars that were trying to pass me and almost knocked me off my bike. But the real problem I had, the biggest problem I had was with dogs. Angry, ferocious guard dogs in the Midwest in particular, which I was being chased by, four or five different packs of dogs a day, and I had to rely upon bear spray and pepper spray. I even considered buying a gun at one point. Crazy thought process to go through, especially as a British person who has no concept of a culture, which is so gun-centric.

But yes, I wouldn't say I'm never really scared going into these things, but I don't over-plan them. But at the same time, I give myself plenty of time to think through the potential risks, the ramifications. And by the time you begin these things, hopefully you've thought some of those things out. So if something really goes wrong, you have that first port of call for dealing with it.

Peter So what surprised you most? The gun culture – was that a shock? The extent of it...

Simon Would say, yes, the gun culture in the United States is something which many of us are aware of. However, actually being there, random Americans telling me that they wouldn't be doing the journey I was doing if they didn't have a weapon, or wanting to give or sell me a gun. I lost count of the amount of times people were trying to give me a gun because they felt that this journey I was undertaking was reckless and a bit silly, because I think maybe there's just that perception of America being a dangerous place by many Americans, because they seem to have gone so far down this path of gun ownership that I think even many Americans who are against guns would probably concede to the fact that there are tens of millions of these guns in circulation. Therefore, you can't just stop America's gun culture. That just isn't really going to happen. They are already there.

Most Americans, which I would agree with, are not gun-toting lunatics. But they've been backed into such a corner that other people have guns, therefore they feel like the only equaliser, that whole concept of checks and balances, which Americans talk about so often, the only way of them equalising a potentially deadly situation is by carrying a weapon themselves. So I would say that is quite stark to actually see and hear about firsthand.

Simon I guess one of the most surprising things that I learned as well was that so many people feel like they live in the most divided America for a generation, perhaps ever. People were comparing it to the Vietnam War and how divided America felt back then. But actually several people even cited the American Civil War and spoke about those really, big divides in American culture, those so-called culture wars, which you have to have an opinion on.

Lots of people told me that they'd almost given up talking about politics with their friends and family, which is a very worrying trend for democracy, that people have lost the ability to talk to their friends and family about things that they're not going to agree on. Maybe as a journalist, I've always been indoctrinated by a sense of balance and this idea that I can sit and have a decent conversation with someone I don't agree with, and that's absolutely fine. Whereas in America, people continually told me that they just didn't have those conversations with their family members or with their friends for fear of conflict. And that's been going for about ten years, probably since the quite toxic nature of the 2016 election and how that spilled over into the rest of culture.

Felice Hopefully we're not going to see it again, but we probably will. We've got a bit of that here, with Brexit we had that where people couldn't talk to family members and friends and fell out with them. We know several people.

Simon As you know, the thing about travel, especially beyond perhaps going to a resort and sitting on a sun lounger for a week where you want to be in a bubble and you want to have a break from life, travelling anywhere you notice politics is all around us. Basically, every single thing we do shapes the world that we live in. There are political ramifications associated with that.

I could have just cycled across America, and I could have not really spoken to people about this, but the whole premise of this book was to try and be something more than just a bloke on a bike ride. That's kind of what I'm always up against.

It's kind of also, to a certain extent, why I'm moving into longer form content as well, writing books. I want to make, documentaries, I want to do things that are just meatier, because I feel like the majority of commercial travel writing these days, especially in the papers, it's holiday journalism and that's fine. But I feel like often these things make quite broad brush strokes. And actually, why shouldn't we be going to different locations and talking about the really meaty, hard-hitting subjects?

That's the background I come from as a journalist, and that's the sort of stuff I want to tackle. I think actually, that's the sort of thing that resonates across 350 pages in a book. If it was just me on a bike ride talking about how extreme it was and how many miles I cycled that day, or how tall the mountain was. Personally, I find that sort of thing really boring, and if I'm finding that sort of thing really boring, then the reader is going to as well.

So I think right from the beginning and I with the journalism, I'm going to continue to make, I want that to be my thing. These are not just about some guy on a bike ride, or some guy on a big hike or whatever it happens to be. It's about solid journalism, and hopefully that comes across in the book, is that although the bike ride and the journey is the hook for some people, I'm hoping that the actual journalism, the verbatim, the conversations with myriad fascinating people stands up on its own as being something which is interesting, rather than it just being about some guy on a bike ride.

Felice We definitely thought that when we were reading it. It was a riveting book and I loved reading about the different people more than the actual cycling.

Peter Yes, definitely. I think the people is the important bit of the whole thing. When I hitchhiked across America a very long time ago, what stunned me perhaps most was the extraordinary level of hospitality I received almost everywhere. Ok, so being a Brit with a British accent helps a lot...but just complete strangers...untold kindnesses.

Felice Which you found as well.

Simon Absolutely. I started to think about this, about why that might be. I still, without making huge generalisations, think that there is something about the American psyche. It still has that quite adventurous spirit. But most Americans, they might only be sixth or seventh generation from a quite adventurous type of European who left Europe and decided to head out to America to start a new life. I think that that vibe still exists. There is something about being a traveller and that sense of freedom, Americans love to talk about freedom. In the book, I start to ponder what that really means.

Although a lot of Americans couldn't comprehend that I was doing this journey and I was on my bicycle, and it was ridiculous and very, very hard for people to get their heads around. Almost unanimously, people agreed that it was a great idea. Yes, it might not be for them, but they love the idea that I was doing it. That, I think, is really quite an American trait, that actually is the land of opportunity. Providing you don't negatively impact how someone else in America is living their life, go off and do it and live your life to the fullest.

To a certain extent that boils down to that whole idea of the American dream, the American dream can really be what you want it to be. It's such an enormous country that you can drift around, you can set up a business, you can get an education, whatever it may be. Don't feel shackled. You can go off and you can do these things. So I think there was just something about seeing this bloke on a bicycle with my panniers and then hearing my accent.

But, not a single person said they didn't want to talk to me. That is unique in the grand scheme of things I've travelled and reported to about 120, 130 countries for the BBC, The Telegraph, etcetera. In a lot of countries you go to, you don't get that. You need to really warm people up before they give you good content. There is a sort of...and I think I describe it at the beginning of the book as sort of foreplay. If you're in Asia or Africa, there is there is an element of standing on ceremony. There is a process, there is a formality which goes into speaking to someone and conversing with someone before they give you the really good stuff. Whereas in America, I think often people just are primed to just speak honestly. Again, that boils down to this whole American idea of freedom of speech and the Second Amendment and pride in the American Constitution – that you can say what you want, and that's brilliant.

Felice Does that mean you were never lonely?

Simon I did start to feel loneliness occasionally, but I've done enough of these journeys now that I know that there you're only a few miles from the next fascinating person, basically. Like I say, I think it because of that sense of generosity, it comes across as being very genuine and it is very genuine. You can tell when you meet new people if it's genuine or not. And I love Americans and I love travelling in America because it is very, very genuine and it's very heartfelt.

Peter And you did have a visitor along the way, well, several times. Your wife, who we should explain was pregnant before you started out on this trip, she came to visit you despite her advancing pregnancy.

Simon So my wife came out twice. And that boils back down to a kind of prenuptial agreement that we made with each other, that we would never go more than three-ish weeks without seeing each other. Because one thing I talk about in this book, which I think is so often ignored in books like these, is that the realities of doing this for a job and having these really itchy feet and this great wanderlust, and how that fits in with all the other things that we all want to achieve in life, like maintain a healthy family life.

I don't try and shy away from that because I actually think it's really interesting, and hopefully, again, it separates it from the sort of brave adventurer macho sort of thing, because I am a traveller. But at the same time, I am also a husband now and a father. So yes, I basically spent the advance for my book on flying my wife out for a week in Montana and then a week in Alabama, and that was just through an agreement that we made with each other. Because me going away for ten weeks is not very good for my family life, I have a responsibility to her, and now I have a responsibility to my daughter to be a father. So whatever comes next, I'll always try and try and incorporate those little family breaks into it.

Peter It's a good idea.

Felice Any funny stories? Anything funny that happened to you?

Simon Not ha-ha funny, but I got myself in lots of quite funny situations. So again, it boils down to this idea of just being looked after by complete strangers. I ended up at the rodeo in Ritzville on the Labor Day weekend, and it was really quite amusing. I stood out like a sore thumb. I was the only person in about a sea of about a thousand people, all wearing jeans and cowboy hats and red checkered shirts, wearing shorts and flip flops. And I looked like such a fish out of water, to such an extent I had people were walking up to me and were just like, ‘Who the hell are you? And what on earth are you doing here?’

Then I would start talking to them and then they would buy me loads of drinks. I wobbled out of there at about, I don't know, 11pm at night, having had about 12 cans of beer. But again, it was just one of those awesome experiences about just feeling consumed by a place but also feeling very comfortable there. You can have in life, and as a traveller, you can have these wonderful experiences, but you also feel quite disconnected from where you are. There is something about the United States because it is so similar. I do feel at my most comfortable there.

Felice What about favourite places? Did you have a favourite place you went through?

Simon I love being in the West. Once you get free of Seattle, you've got about a thousand miles of Rocky Mountains and the so-called Wild West. I loved being out there. Those long expanses of road where you don't see anyone for dozens and dozens of miles.

For anyone interested in this book, I would also check out my YouTube channel, which I've got loads of films on the YouTube channel. I did a film a week basically, and some of the footage I've got of the West are incredible. Montana and Wyoming. You feel very, very small when you're on those big, long roads, and that's where I'm at my happiest, I think, when I'm on my own with no one around, no cars, and you just feel that huge expanse of wilderness around you.

Peter You did mention that you nearly got run over several times, but one time in particular.

Simon Yes, I did. I was in Kansas and there was a car behind me. I just assumed that he'd seen me. But this thing got closer and closer, I had a little mirror on my handlebars, and I looked behind me, and thought to myself, 'That's strange, that the pickup that was following me is disappeared.' And this was straight into my blind spot. And then very quickly, I had to swerve out of the way to avoid being killed by a vehicle and ended up in a ditch. Again, it's one of those strange moments where you've just got to react, and things could have changed very quickly in that instant.

Felice It’s beautifully written, your book. There's some great lines in it. I love ‘The greasy road shimmered and smelled like a wet Labrador.’ We used to have Labradors, so that really resonated with us.

Peter What about the cold and the heat? The heat was really quite a problem, wasn't it?

Simon At times, yes. When I hit the Midwest, definitely Kansas, Oklahoma, I was cycling in afternoon temperatures in excess of 40°c with no shade whatsoever. So you really are exposed. I was going to set off like an hour before dawn. I'd get up at about five, half five, and then get on the road by about six. And that meant I at least had two or three hours before it got searingly hot. Then that meant when the temperatures in the afternoon really got to those extreme temperatures, I could take a pit stop for a couple of hours or even just call it a day, knowing that I've done 50 or 60 miles.

But then at other times when I had the wind behind me, especially in Nebraska, I was flying. It was warm, and when you're creating your own breeze, if you're flying at 20mph, it doesn't matter how hot it is because you're creating that breeze yourself you just have to bring your sleeves down, roll your collar up, cover yourself in factor 50 and know that you're getting a real helping hand. But when that turns into a headwind, that's when things get quite full-on and you start really cursing the day you ever came up with this silly idea. 

Peter Taking enough liquid on board must be difficult because water weighs a lot.

Simon A litre of water weighs roughly a kilogram. So on those long days, in stretches where it was hot and there also wasn't a town en route, I was having to carry eight or nine extra kilograms in water.  Then what I was doing was also I was going into convenience stores and I was filling up a bag with ice. Within a couple of hours, this water was 50°, it was turning into sort of bath water, and it was just gross. I was buying loads of Gatorade, and fizzy drinks and stuff just to try and replenish all those salts and those sugars. Again, that's why I took electrolyte tablets with me, because when you're sweating that amount you also need to be taking in electrolytes. That is how you end up getting really bad heatstroke is that if you're not replenishing those salts, which I've had a couple of times before, where I felt very, very unwell through just drinking water. So you really need to take on those extra those sugars and salts.

Felice Was there ever a point where you felt like giving up?

Simon I probably felt at my lowest when I was about two weeks in and I was in the Rocky Mountains. Let's say I'd gone three weeks from home and you're in a strange sort of limbo period at that moment in a journey like this, because you don't quite have the thrill and the buzz of having just begun, and you're not quite in the routine of it being your new reality as well. It's also after about two or three weeks that I really start to miss home and my family. So thank goodness, that's another reason why my wife came out to see me.

I wouldn't say I felt like giving up because actually the reality is that I had a book commissioned, like most authors, I'd spent most of the advance already, and actually the fear of giving up on these things haunts me more than the sometimes hellish nature of the journeys. I've only ever had to properly cancel one major trip, and that was when I tried to cycle the US-Mexico border. That's when I almost died of heat stroke, and I felt quite ashamed that I didn't have the physical strength to finish that one, and I felt a little bit embarrassed by it. And that's just, I guess, a male ego thing more than anything.

But I would say, yes, when I was in the west on this journey, I had like 3,000 miles ahead of me, over 3,000 miles, and it felt overwhelmingly massive knowing that I had all that distance. However, what my wife reminded myself of is a sort of a mantra that I always try and keep in my mind all the time, and that's just trusting the process. I knew that all I had to do was cycle 70 or 80 miles a day, which when you get going, is very straightforward and they would just add up, basically. The weeks would tick away, the months would tick away, and by the end it would be fine. But it's hard to tell yourself that when you've still got the 40 or 50 days of cycling ahead of you.

Peter Simon, it's been fascinating talking to you, and we wish you the very best of luck with the next journey and the next book.

Felice Now, can you tell us what your book is called? Remind our listeners, and tell us where they can buy it.

Simon So my new book is called A Ride Across America: a 4,000 mile adventure through the small towns and big issues of the USA. It is currently available in all good bookshops around the UK. You can buy it from Amazon or Waterstones, or I would probably highly recommend your local independent bookshop because, if you're anything like me, I've got a couple of independent bookshops in my local town and they are amazing assets for us to have on our high street. So wander in, tell them you've listened to this and ask them to get you in a copy. And I'm also currently this autumn doing a UK theatre tour, so I'm speaking at theatres and literary festivals all over the country. So go to my website, SimonWParker.co.uk and you'll be able to see all the tour dates and come armed with questions. Thank you very much for having me on; I really appreciate it.

Also read about and listen to Cycle From Antarctic to Arctic, Travels With The Hungry Cyclist, Cycling to Australia With a Cricket Bat.

© Action Packed Travel