Is it possible for a book to be this boring?? I was expecting a terrific and informative book about Daniel Houghton's travels. Nope! Silly, wasteful book about a bunch of self made and smug rich, white men. I'll pass... He caught a great opportunity and totally blew this one.

This book was not as expected. Where I was hoping for some insight on what I thought would be an interested travel mind, the book does not take that route. I gained nothing from reading this book and would not recommend it to anyone. The format of the book is not something I enjoyed either.

I don't know what the definition of sustainable travel is for Mr. Houghton, but this book doesn't cover what I think it is. Neither is it 'mindful.' It is an autobiographical account of memorable foreign business trips of Mr. Houghton (even if there is nothing unique or outstanding about them for an average reader), coupled with school-boy-level interviews with many travel industry bigwigs - which sounded like a plug to me to make the book more marketable / saleable. Everyone mentioned in the book (including Mr. Houghton) travel for business all over the world anyways, so it isn't like they are picking a new spot for kicks or 'adventure' or to know a different place or to find inspiration.

There is nothing here for an average traveller (rich or on a budget), unlike Lonely Planet books (which are awesome). Even the tips seem mundane and oft-repeated mantras of many-a-blogger.

It would be great if Mr. Houghton could write a book on the 24-acre farm he resides in. Now that's a travel book I'd like to read!

P.S. It's sad that Mr. Houghton's father has cancer again, but he should stop moping and just spend as much time as he can with him, and his father should get the finances and other arrangements in order, because whether he realizes it or not, his father's days are numbered (and the timer started from the day he got cancer the first time around).

Wherever You Go is a great look at the travel industry. The first chapter I felt like the author was telling my personal story, being a child of parents in the Airline Industry. No one fully gets the joy and misery of free flights until you have experienced it. The book flips back and forth between author’s life and interviews of other prominent people in the industry. I found myself skipping over the interviews, because I cared more about the author’s story. It’s probably the only thing I’d change about the book. Otherwise I enjoyed the read.

A travel book unlike any other I have read, Wherever You Go looks at the experiences Houghton himself has had, as well as many notable people in the travel industry.
My expectations of this book and what it would be were quite different from the reality. While it was informative and I certainly enjoyed hearing about different peoples experiences, I had hoped for something a bit different and less interview style. I would have preferred more short story style and maybe each person focusing on a different aspect of travel. The title alone set my expectations: a guide to mindful, sustainable and life-changing travel. There is nothing wrong with the writing, the stories are interesting, it just did not meet my expectations based on the title. I wanted more on ideas to make travel a reality, ways of travelling in an environmentally friendly way (where my mind went when I read sustainable), and maybe how to start. I have been planning my first European adventure and other than not overplanning (which I agree with), I did not feel I came away with anything useful for my trip.
I would still recommend anyone interested in travel try this book as you may be looking for something different than I was!!!

#WhereverYouGo #Net
As a lover of travel I asked to review this book for NetGalley. It is written by Dan Houghton the former CEO of Lonely Planet. His job was to travel. This would be a dream job for me. In this book he talks about many of his adventures. He interviews many travel legends to reflect on the reasons they travel and how travel changes them. They share some of their worst adventures along with some of their best. The most dramatic story was about Kevan Chandler, a young man in a wheelchair who realized his dream of seeing Europe thanks to six friends who carried him around in a homemade backpack. (Chandler also has a short film and book of his own that are mentioned.) His story was proof that people are capable of accomplishing so much more than they ever know. Each of the interviews are a reminder of the power of travel to break down walls, build personal connections, help one to develop empathy and broaden their world view. The world travelers in these stories share the impact of travel on the economy and the environment. However despite my interest in the travels and travelers shared I was hoping for more. I was hoping for inspiration of new adventures to go on or new examples of how travel can transform the lives of travelers and the world in general.

I enjoyed this book but it's a little difficult to place it in a specific genre besides non-fiction. Part memoir, a peek into the travel industry, interviews, and a sprinkle of travel advice. Daniel Houghton doesn't go in depth enough, in any of those areas to really classify this volume. Not that that's all bad, it just means this is light reading without any deep focus. The interviews are enjoyable but not in depth-- even the responses are pedestrian.

I started traveling internationally about 6 years ago. I thought this book might shed some light on travel or turn me on to a country I haven't visited. I can't say I really experienced either of those, but I do appreciate Houghton's efforts. The writing is easy to follow, I just wish he had a more focused narrative.

I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

As a lover of travel myself I enjoyed this book. I hope that it will inspire non-travelers to take the leap and as for me it made me excited for my next trips and possibly look into a career in travel, although most people in the book just seemed to be at the right place at the right time when getting into their jobs. As a previous employee of a cruise ship it did make me sad that they were so looked down on by people in the book. Without my travel and work experience on a cruise ship, I would not be the avid traveler and thanks to them I’ve seen over 50 countries and have found places I want to go back to in the future for longer vacations. The format felt a little strange going between the author’s story and the interviews, but I appreciated the different interviews as they were people with a variety of jobs in the travel industry. I do feel however that they are all well known and high ranking people and maybe dare I say a more normal person would have been an interesting interview to have in between them. For example, I loved hearing the story of the Delta flight attendant. I’m not sure this is a book for everyone, but I would recommend it to someone who is in a travel funk or is interested in travelling having rarely or never done it before.

As an avid traveler, I love any book with a map. This was an interesting story, though kind of slow.

I didn’t finish. I would like your story not others people story. I was deceived by the book. Not what I thought it would be.

Honestly, I couldn’t have been more disappointed in Wherever You Go if I tried.

I was so excited to dig into this book. I’ve recently made travel a bigger priority in my life and was thrilled for the chance to read this. This book comes off as judgmental and entitled and just a bunch of interviews of people bragging about places they’ve gone. To me, that’s not travel. Travel is in the stories and experiences—something that is sadly lacking in this book.

The book infers the hardest part of travel is deciding to go on extravagant trips to other countries and fails to highlight the amazing adventures that can be had a state or city over. It fails to note that travel and adventure are accessible to everyone, not just those that can afford to leave $500+ in their accounts for leisure.

The interview format seems clunky and doesn’t flow well.

I did appreciate the travel tips in the back, and wish there were more of these interspersed with more stories of travel, cultural exchange, and learning.

I received a copy of Wherever You Go from NetGalley in exchange for an honest and fair review.

I had to go back and check if this is memoir or nonfiction. This book was not at all what I thought it was.

I think the marketing on this book could use some work. The title itself on the cover says alludes to a whole book on travel. The reality is this book is about the author's history with his job. Halfway through, the only mention of travelling revolved around work done for Lonely Planet.

Additionally, the inclusion of interviews confused me. I didn't understand why we were talking to these people and why they were relevant to begin with.

Ultimately, I question who the audience is for this book. I know many people who would love to read about first hand experiences of cultures around the world. The business aspects of this company? I don't know too many people would pick that up.

I am giving this feedback to the publisher, but will not post this online since I do not think it is beneficial to the author or the book, especially when others have gone over these topics in their reviews.

Wherever You Go was tough for me to get through. I was pretty excited to start it as I have used Lonely Planet many times for trips through the US as well as abroad. By far, they are my favorite resource to turn to when planning trips.

You can imagine how disappointed I was in reading this then. Aside from numerous grammatical errors, this book just made me uncomfortable. Like, something didn’t sit right. Houghton earned the amazing opportunity to travel frequently for his job and yet the stories of what he experienced on his travels—how beautiful different cultures are, etc.—are few and far between. We learn about his rise to CEO-dom at LP as if he wants his readers to praise him for being a boy wonder. He interviews ‘power players’ in travel who don’t seem to be doing anything other than tooting their own horns. The choppiness between Houghton’s own memoir portions and the interviews is very disconcerting—no transition at all, let alone smooth ones.

I was super excited about this book --I love to travel, I have lived aboard, and have used Lonely Planet. But this book misses that mark by ten foiled. Like really, what is this?!?
The interviews break up the flow of the book so badly and just no. It feels like he is like look how cool I am I know these other rich and famous people.....no.
Also, its not really a memoir at all its just...I don't even know.
Also, how in the hell did he get the CEO job if he couldn't read a P & L?!?!?!?!
I really feel like this is white rich boy wants to write a book so people let him and then publish it when it shouldn't of made it even to this stage.
Do over!

So I am seriously annoyed by this book. This book was supposed to be a memoir of the former CEO of Lonely Planet, Daniel Houghton that showed how travel changed his life and how it impacts everyone around you. Instead, we have Houghton dancing around what sounds like troublesome parts of his life (somewhere in there he got divorced) and just interviewing the rich and famous in traveler circles. Reading about how Houghton was treated as he took over the reigns of Lonely Planet is also really boring. I don't care how your coworkers were not that confident in you when they first met you (how did this person not know what a P&L report was??) or the hazing (maybe?) he supposedly experienced when he went to Beijing. The book even focuses at him trying to get their office digs ready for the BBC to come and discuss with the owner of Houghton's company about them taking over Lonely Planet.

I always say a mark of a good memoir is how open the author is with the readers. Great memoirs are hard to do. Great memoirs about a particular event, theme, etc. are really hard to do. I would have loved a book about travel actually being about travel, not him just talking about how many miles he traveled in a year. I wanted to hear about the countries/cities he visited, not how fast he had to run through an airport. I wanted to hear about the people he met, not how he became friendly with a cab driver in London who still picks him up free of charge. This whole book felt off.

The writing also was not that that great. Houghton mostly focuses on working at Lonely Planet and then provides one to two interviews in between "peeks" at his job. So the whole book is just a very short chapter about him, then pages of interviews in between each chapter. Also can I say that reading interviews of the rich and famous and how travel impacts them was just tone-deaf as hell. One guy he interviewed drove 1920s Aston Martin's through some of the "stan" countries over a period of months. What regular travel can do that?

The flow of the book was off from beginning to end. I think that this book maybe could have been punched up a bit if Houghton eventually includes pictures of something in the finished version of this book. For a supposedly great photographer, I can't imagine that the finished product has zero images.

As an American currently living in Europe I am enthralled by all things travel related. I mean, I am in Europe. I must take advantage of all the traveling. As I read this book I related so much to the wanderlust of David Houghton. I enjoyed learning the snippets of back story about his airline employee parents instilling that love.
I did struggle with the flow of the book. I didnt find the transition from interviews and then back to David's own story to be smooth. There were also some additional spots as a reader that I would would recommend be tended to such as grammar, and perhaps some odd phrases.
Overall, learning about David's success with his business and the joy he finds in his personal travel was great. I learned quite a few travel trips, like always having a plus one. I especially enjoyed the added travel tips to the epilogue.