The Year of Doing Nothing: Reflections from an overland trip from Hong Kong to Patagonia

Following years spent working in Hong Kong, the writer gives away all his belongings and sets about on a series of overland journeys - mostly train, bus and boat rides - across Asia, Europe and down the Americas. The intention was to travel slowly, avoid flying where possible - and to eventually reach land's end, in Ushuaia, located at the southernmost tip of Argentina. The year-long journey takes him to more than thirty countries, across 60,000 km; a distance equivalent to circumventing the globe one and a half times. This part travelogue, part collection of essays, is a reflection of the places, the lessons, the foods, the stories, and most of all, the people he encounters along the way. From delving into the economics of free walking tours, to receiving a marriage proposal on the Trans-Siberian Railways, to his attempts at tracking down the "world's poorest president", and many other chance encounters, he comes to realize that "the year of doing nothing" was anything but that.