Book Review “The Naked Traveler”: The Farther We Go, The More We Love Our Country

While electronic radiation made my continuous headache even worse and it was impossible to sleep more, a book – not an ebook – was my savior. I chose the seemed light book, The Naked Traveler. The book is about travel notes of an Indonesian lady backpacker who loved to travel around Indonesia and the world in her spare time around 1980s-2000s.

Trinity the author – I like her name and hope it’s her real name- wrote the travel experience lightly, honestly and entertainingly. I could laugh couple times. While it is not a guide for traveling at all, the book told us about world culture diversity and many absurd traveling packages. Can we imagine that even a banana tree could be a tourist object? Well, it happened in Puerto Rico everybody! I think it was as ridiculous as my friend found a buffalo in the Singapore zoo, ha-ha.

The book also told us how common backpackers traveling culture is. If you are young, limited in budget but passionate to travel, European countries are heaven to travel. The younger you are, the more discounts you will get for housing and meal. If you are not very young backpacker as the most Indonesian backpackers are, there are two things you could do. First, blame these European countries as discriminated, write complains in a newspaper or at least in your own blog. Second one; you could be a real shameless Indonesian. Meaning, you take two seats of one price seat in train compartment and pretend sleeping while others have to find seats somewhere else, ha-ha.

The book, nevertheless, did not inspire me to be a backpacker at all but again it told us that every country, every district has its own culture, the good and the bad ones. As the natives proud to be themselves, we should be proud to be Indonesians too. However, after we visit many countries, at the end, the farther we go, the more we love our country. I like the book.

Tags: the naked traveler