Product Description

Jeff Randall and Mike Perrin have years of experience leading travelers deep into the wildest cities and most rugged backcountry of the Third World. In this book, they help you recognize and minimize the many risks that come with venturing way off the beaten path so that you can come home with stories the average tourist will never be able to tell. The authors' hard-earned secrets for staying healthy and happy in remote and dangerous places include researching your destination the right way before you depart; arriving in your host country safely and with all your gear intact; acquiring guides for forbidden travels without getting rebuffed or shot; bribing and smuggling as last-ditch survival tools; dealing with the many and varied temptations of city and nightlife; being safe and self-sufficient while journeying deep in the bush; and much more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #425148 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 280 pages

About the Author
Jeff Randall has made dozens of trips to nearly every country in Central and South America and has worked and traveled in China, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and many other countries. An acknowledged expert in wilderness survival skills and an accomplished designer of hard-core outdoor equipment, he is the proprietor of Randall's Adventure & Training.

Mike Perrin is a graduate of the Peruvian Air Force Jungle Operations and Survival School and a wilderness survival instructor specializing in tropical environments. He is a chief instructor for Randall's Adventure & Training.

Customer Reviews

Off the beaten path adventure travel.
The authors are not your typical backpackers. They have hands on experience leading groups into uninhabited parts of Third World countries.

They teach you how to research and prepare for your trip. How to get around and where to stay when you get there. How to deal with foreign governments, police and the military. How to enjoy a safe social life. And most of all, how to prepare for and travel in extreme environments where tourists don't go.

If you're a seasoned traveler, but have never been to a tropical country, then you may find that all your gear will be useless when you get there. I have researched all the gear the authors recommended and compared it against everything else out there, and found that they know exactly what they are talking about.

I noticed that some reviewers stated that you can find all the same information in this book online for free. I would disagree on that. In fact I spent a whole day trying to find the same stuff and could not. The unique thing about this book is that it is not only written for those who want to backpack around Third World countries, but also for those who want to travel off the beaten path and into the jungles and mountains where tourists have never set foot.

Those of you who want to mount major expeditions into the jungle or just travel from locale to locale, may tend to disagree with some of the things in this book. But even then, one should be able to pick up lots of tips on how to make their adventure safe, healthy, fun and fulfilling.

I Used This Book When I Was In The U.S. Marshals Service
Prior to my recent retirement from the above agency, I had frequent occasion to familiarize myself with the goings on in the more dangerous parts of the world. And not just to familiarize, but how to survive these parts. Although the U.S. State Department web site has some valuable information, NOBODY had the quality, reality based third world survival oriented information that Jeff Randall does. In fact I purchased one of these books for my office operation. Jeff Randall met an operational training team of mine in Colombia, and I gotta tell you that he made a more favorable impression on them than any of the many Spec Ops types they have met down there. He is truly the real deal.

if there were ANY other book on the topic, I'd never bother
This book is only of any value since nobody has any real alternative in finding this type of information elsewhere. The writing is quite poor, the text is disorganized and the authors often foolishly overgeneralize and at times hint at their ignorance of the host countries. Overall this book is a pretty pathetic attempt at a serious guide for travelers outside W.Europe and N.America, but, then again, there are almost no other books on the topic, so it looks like we're stuck with this.

Don't get me wrong, there are some useful tips, but the authors dance around going into detail on articulating a lot of very important points, especially with respect to staying out of trouble, establishing rapport with your hosts, etc, etc. Thus, unfortunately, a lot of the most important topics only receive cursory mention and/or little explanation. Some of the 'tips' aren't even well thought-out. One example comes to mind: "use dog tags on your luggage so you don't have to fill out an ID tag every time you fly. That'd be great if you were going to France or the UK, but if you're trying to get over the Colombian border or whatever, the LAST thing you want on your pack is a set of military dog tags.

If you're going to be traveling in the developing world, and you feel like you absolutely MUST have a book on the subject, you might want to buy this book...used if possible. Mostly though, this information could be gleaned from a couple hours spent on a good web search.

I give it two stars, one of which comes from authoring one of almost no books on the subject.