Product Description

A year off from work. A meandering, serendipitous journey around the globe with the people you love most. No mortgage, no car payments, no pressure. Though it sounds like an impossible dream for most people, one day David Cohen and his family decide to make it a reality. With his wife and three children, Cohen sets off on a rollicking journey, full of laugh-out-loud mishaps, heart-pounding adventures, and unforeseen epiphanies. Readers join the Cohen family and trek up a Costa Rican volcano, roam the Burgundy canals by houseboat, traverse the vast Australian desert, and discover Istanbul by night. Through it all, the family gets the rare opportunity to get to know each other without the mundane distractions of television and video games, discovering the world through new eyes and gaining fresh perspective on life and priorities.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #182635 in Books
• Published on: 2001-06-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 312 pages

Amazon.com Review
On the one hand, you've got to like this book. When David Elliott Cohen turned 40, he freaked out, sold everything, swooped up his wife and three kids, and took a year off to travel around the world--from Costa Rica and Burgundy to Zimbabwe, Laos, and Sydney--with clan in tow. This gutsy dive into the non-antiseptic, non-Americanized world (a dream for some), offers an entertaining peek into family life on the road. Written in a personal, personable e-mail style, it's often hilarious.

On the other hand, you may think Cohen is nuts. His kids cause scenes, break bones, and are often bored with the international scenery. Their family travel budget is measly--$60 a day to cover food for parents, children, and babysitter in places like Paris and Zurich. You can't help wondering why Cohen didn't just go the luxe route with the wife and leave the kiddies (including the 2-year-old) at home. While Cohen seems quite likable, as does his wife, Devi, there are moments when you want to report them to a child protective agency. Why are they endangering the lives of their kids--disregarding warnings not to take children into the African game reserve where they are likely prey for hyenas, and trekking deep into nature to see waterfalls and volcanoes with a toddler--just because they're suffering from midlife crises? After reading a year's worth of mishaps and adventures--amusing though many are--you may feel like a grandparent, wishing Mr. Cohen and wife would just take their kids home. More a travelogue than a guide, this unusual book nonetheless is filled with many examples of what not to do if you feel inclined to drag your children abroad for a year. After reading this, however, you may not feel like going at all. --Melissa Rossi

From Publishers Weekly
Nostalgic for his adventurous youth, Cohen quit his job at age 40 and embarked on a year-long voyage with his wife, Devi, their eight-year-old daughter and two sons, aged seven and two. This account of their adventures consists of 23 humorous and gripping e-mails that Cohen (an editor of the coffee-table book series that includes A Day in the Life of America) sent to friends and relatives during their 1996 journey to 14 countries, including Costa Rica, Italy, Greece, France, India and Australia. Having the children along sometimes made the Cohens anxious for their safety, but watching them thrill at the sight of wild giraffes, elephants and hippos on an African safari, for example, offset their parental fears. Although the children did not share their parents' fondness for visiting museums and churches, they were delighted to live on a houseboat and see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. A trip to a Jain temple near Delhi (Devi's father is Indian) so enthralled the family that they got locked in after closing hours. Although this year-long vacation included some harrowing moments, such as when daughter Kara nearly drowned off the coast of Queensland, the author considers the rewards of this unconventional trip for himself and his family well worth any risks or inconveniences they encountered. Photos not seen by PW. Agent, Carol Mann. Author tour. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The man who created the "Day in the Life" series now gives us a year in his lifeAspecifically, the year he and his wife sold the house, closed shop, and took their kids around the world.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Is this all there is?
The idea behind David Cohen's One Year Off is either wildly appealling or profoundly horrifying; he and his family got rid of everything - house, cars, jobs, presumably even their dogs (something that irked me quite a bit) - packed up the husband, wife, three kids, and babysitter, and went around the world. My reaction to this endeavor was that, crazy or brilliant, it *had* to produce an interesting story. And reading One Year Off, you do get the feeling that that story is there. But Cohen doesn't tell it.

What Cohen gives readers instead is email. From various points in the trip, he sent email to his friends and family back home, and after he got back he collated them into One Year Off. And while I'm sure the updates were engaging and interesting to his email list - who wants to read a chapter-long email about someone else's adventures? - they just aren't sufficient for a book. Huge gaps are left in the tale (near the end of the book, nearly six months of the year off disappear, with no email updates or interpolation from Cohen) and lots of the details that stay-at-homes would find fascinating don't appear. The chatty, superficial style of the writing is fine for email, but it leaves readers with slightly less than half a story. The book even *looks* like an insufficient essay; the hardcover edition has wide leading and kerning and big margins and font - all the Freshman English Essay Extender tricks, but in book format.

Even more frustrating, Cohen doesn't appear to understand where his real story lies, in the family interactions and family experience of travel. The real hero of the book, it emerges from between the lines, is his wife, who copes heroically and competently with their adventures. (Devyani does most of the planning and takes most of the responsibility. Cohen makes most of the mistakes. When a kid gets damaged or lost, it always happens in Cohen's care. When someone has a breakdown or snaps, it's usually Cohen.) But we hear relatively little about Devyani, and not much about the kids, either. Instead, Cohen chooses to write about mostly his own reactions to fairly commonplace destinations - France, Italy, Australia - as though he were producing a Fodor's Guide instead of a travel memoir.

In short, the idea of the book is fascinating, so much so that it is well worth reading, even as it is. I love the idea of someone else packing up his family and going around the world - then telling me about it so I don't have to *do* it. I just wish that a different author had had that idea, had taken this trip. The book would've been marvelous in the hands of a writer who was a more careful observer, and who was willing to write a little more.

The best part was the kids...
I liked best the segments dealing with the Cohens children and how they responded to the various sights on their trip. They paid little attention to natural scenery, had to be "bribed" to see the Louvre, but loved the safari and the museum with the implements of torture. Reading of their escapades reminded me of my own childhood when my sibs (ages 7-10) traveled Europe (only) with our parents during a year living in Scotland.

I am sadly disappointed in Amazon for choosing a reviewer who apparently did not read the book through and through. The Cohens were NOT endangering their chidren. Kids get wild and scamper about -- and bones can get broken at home falling off a bicycle. The older two Cohen children will remember this trip all of their lives. (25 years since our year in Scotland, our memories are still vivid!) And we did things, too, that would put fear in a parents heart. Yes, kids can be heedless of danger, but is that any reason for them to stay at home?

The Cohens did not recklessly choose to go a game preserve -- that was their daughter Kara's request. And they explain in the epilogue why they didn't go the luxe route!

I admire the Cohens for doing what they did. And I heartily admire my own parents, too -- reading this book made me realize just how much my own parents had taken on, and we didn't do half the stuff the Cohens did.

More power to all of you intrepid parents traveling with your kids!

Fun, but Club Med-ish in its approach to the world
As a San Francisco resident planning to take a similar trip in five years, I was especially interested in David Cohen's story.

The book is extremely enjoyable, funny, and frustrating at the same time. The simplistic e-mail style of writing works well for a light read, but I often hoped the author would add deeper meaning or insight to an experience. At least he didn't pepper the text with LOLs and smilies, I suppose.

Traveling primarily by plane and car, instead of by trains and buses, the family has little chance to become immersed in the local culture; in some places, they seem to barricade themselves from the locals instead of trying to sort out just how fearful they need to be. And where are all the stories of the kids becoming friends with the local children?

So, although I thought the book was fun, and I will read it to my three, it was frustrating in its documentation of missed chances to really learn.