How to Barter for Paradise

Most people like to travel in comfort, but Michael Wigge isn’t like most people. After traveling the world without money for 150 days, he faces his next big challenge: turning an apple into a house in Hawaii.

Wigge visits fourteen countries and six continents exchanging goods for more valuable ones, and he meets an array of good-humored people who take his deals. Taking on his Barterman persona, he trades the apple for sixteen cigarettes in Germany; a couple of trades later in India, he fixes up a motorized rickshaw and trades it for silk; in Australia, a millionaire amuses himself by offering him an art piece for the silk if Wigge feeds a wild crocodile. Finally, he arrives in Hawaii armed with two bicycles, a surfboard, Portuguese porcelain, three solid-gold coins, a Porsche wristwatch, a record by musician Coati Mundi and an accompanying contract for 25 percent of the proceeds from his next single, a voucher for a twonight stay in a mansion in Los Angeles, and a piece of original artwork by painter Alex Stenzel—now he just has to find someone to give him a house in exchange.

On the two hundred–day journey around the world, Wigge makes forty-two trades and meets strange, kind, funny, friendly, eccentric, and good-natured people who help him in his quest. It’s a journey you won’t want to miss!