Category Archives: best travel books

My new book, Ten Years a Nomad, is out TODAY!

10 Years a Nomad by Matt Kepnes
Posted: 7/16/2019 | July 16th, 2019

IT’S HERE!

After eighteen months of writing and editing, my new book, Ten Years a Nomad: A Traveler’s Journey Home, is on sale now.

The book is a memoir about my ten years traveling and backpacking the world, philosophy on travel, and the lessons I learned that can help you travel better. It takes you on a trip around the world from start to finish: getting the bug, the planning, setting off, the highs, the lows, the friends, what happens when you come back — and the lessons and advice that come with all that.

It features lots of stories I’ve never told on this blog.

I poured my heart and soul into this book. It’s very personal. In fact, my friends have been really surprised at how personal I got (there’s going to be some awkward conversations after my family reads this book).

But this is not all about me.

This is about what I learned and how you can apply it to your travels. How you can get inspired, work through your fears, meet people, and become a better traveler. Unlike my previous books, this is not a “how to guide” but a collection of tips, advice, and stories from the road that can be used no matter where you are in the world or how long you’ll be away.

This book gets to the heart of wanderlust and what extended travel around the world can teach us about life, ourselves, and our place in the world. (Or at least tries to.)

In this book, you’ll find:

  • Crazy hostel stories
  • What it’s like to travel the world for ten years
  • My philosophy on travel
  • Lessons learned from the road
  • How to cope with travel burnout
  • How to make friends
  • Inspirational stories and insights

If you want to know what it’s like to travel the world and live out a backpack, this book will tell you. If you want to be inspired to travel and better understand how you can do it too, this book is for you.

If you just want a good travel book to read on the beach, this book is for you.

You can get the book online at the following places:

An amazon blue purchase button A blue Barnes and Noble purchase button
 

(Or walk into your local independent bookstore and pick up a copy!)
 

5 Early Reviews of the Book

So what are people saying of the book?

“In his heartfelt explanation and exploration, Matt runs through just why he’s been out there, backpacking the world for 10 years. By the end we’ve definitely realized, like Matt, how important travel is and how getting out there, on the road, can make you, me and the world a better place. It’s a great pity certain people at the very top of the world’s power pyramid never had just a little taste of the nomadic experience.” – Tony Wheeler, founder of Lonely Planet

“Throughout his ruminations on how travel affected him, Kepnes interweaves his tales of friends, girlfriends, and great loves discovered among exotic backdrops and how starting a blog (nomadicmatt.com) about his adventures altered the way he traveled. His story is one of heartbreak, self-discovery, and the constant travel itch he had to scratch in order to become the man he was supposed to be. An entertaining, quick read by a man who did what many of us only dream about.” – Kirkus Book Reviews

“Inspirational” – Cheryl Strayed

10 Years a Nomad book review


 

Buy a Copy, Get Free Stuff!!

If you order my book within the first week it’s out, you can get free copies of my other books, one-on-one travel planning advice, free attendance at TravelCon, blogging courses, free hostel stays and flights, and more!

The packages are listed below. All you need to do to claim your bonuses is email me a copy of your receipt at matt@nomadicmatt.com.

The Basic Package (cost: $18, value: $48)
Purchase one copy of the book and get:

  • How to Build a Travel Blog ebook (value: $9.99)
  • The Ultimate Guide to Travel Hacking ebook (value: $9.99)
  • 27 Ways to Be a Master Traveler PDF (value: $5)
  • 50 Inspiring Travel Books and Movies PDF (value: $5)

***BEST VALUE*** The Tenner (cost: $182, value: $594)
Buy 10 copies of my book and get ALL THE ABOVE plus:

  • My 12 city and country guides (value: $150)
  • A signed copy of my book How to Travel the World on $50 a Day (value: $15)
  • A 15-minute planning call with me (ask me anything)! (value: $100)
  • The Business of Blogging course (value: $99)

The Bullseye (cost: $900, value: $2,193)
Buy 50 copies of my book and get ALL THE ABOVE plus:

  • One ticket to TravelCon in New Orleans (value: $399)
  • A 30-minute planning call with me (ask me anything)! (value: $200)

Note: All digital bonuses will be sent when you send the receipt. Travel arrangements will be worked out between you and me and are valid for six months after purchase (i.e., you have to make a booking by then).
 

The “Ten Years a Nomad” Book Tour

I’m going on book tour! Come join me, talk travel, get a signed book, and hang out! Here are the dates:

July 16 New York, NY: The Strand Bookstore @ 7pm EVENT DETAILS
July 17 Boston, MA: The Harvard Coop @ 7pm EVENT DETAILS
July 18 Philadelphia, PA: Penn Book Center @ 6:30pm EVENT DETAILS
July 22 Washington DC: Politics and Prose at the Wharf @ 7pm EVENT DETAILS
July 23 Miami, FL: Books & Books @ 8pm EVENT DETAILS
July 24 Tampa, FL: Oxford Exchange @ 6:30pm EVENT DETAILS
July 30 Detroit, MI: Pages Bookshop @ 6:00pm EVENT DETAILS
July 31 Chicago, IL: City Lit Books @ 6:30pm EVENT DETAILS
August 1 Dallas, TX: Half Price Books (Flagship) @ 7:00pm EVENT DETAILS
August 5 Austin, TX: Book People @ 7pm EVENT DETAILS
August 6 Houston, TX: Brazos Bookstore @ 6:30pm EVENT DETAILS
August 7 Denver, CO: Tattered Cover – Historic Lodo @ 7pm EVENT DETAILS
August 8 San Diego, CA: Warwick’s @ 7:30pm EVENT DETAILS
August 12 Los Angeles, CA: The Last Bookstore @ 7:30pm EVENT DETAILS
August 14 Portland, OR: Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing @ 7:00pm EVENT DETAILS
August 15 San Francisco, CA: Book Passage at Corte Madera @ 7pm EVENT DETAILS
August 16 Seattle, WA: Third Place Books @ 6pm EVENT DETAILS
August 19 Vancouver, BC: Indigo (Robson) @ 7:00pm EVENT DETAILS
August 22 Calgary, AB: LOCATION TBD EVENT DETAILS
August 26 Toronto, ON: LOCATION TBD EVENT DETAILS
August 31 Montreal, QC: Indigo (Place Montreal) @ 1:00pm EVENT DETAILS

P.S. – There will be an afterparty in NYC after the initial book launch. It will be at Solas. Click here for details!
 

Want to Help Me Spread the Word About This Book?

I’m always looking for more opportunities to talk travel. Here’s how you can help me spread the word about the new book:

Want to interview me?
If you have a blog, podcast, vlog, or Instagram channel and want to interview me about the book and travel, let me know at matt@nomadicmatt.com using the subject line “Book Interview.” I’d love to talk with you!

Are you in the media and want to cover the book?
If you work for a major media outlet and want to interview me about the book or would like to review the book, let me know at matt@nomadicmatt.com using the subject line “Media Request.”

Know anyone that I should reach out to for promotion?
If you have suggestions on people who would love a copy of this book and would be a good fit for promoting the book, let me know in the comments, or feel to email me at matt@nomadicmatt.com with the subject line “Book Promotion Help.”

****

Thank you so much for your support and love over the years. I really hope you love this book. I wanted to write something that would appeal to a wider range of readers. Please help spread the word, get a copy, and I hope to see you on the book tour.

– Nomadic Matt

Once again, here are links to get the book today:

An amazon blue purchase button A blue Barnes and Noble purchase button
 

Book Your Trip: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight
Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation
You can book your hostel with Hostelworld as they have the largest inventory. If you want to stay somewhere other than a hostel, use Booking.com as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and cheap hotels. I use them all the time.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance
Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

Looking for the best companies to save money with?
Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all the ones I use to save money when I travel – and that will save you time and money too!

The post My new book, Ten Years a Nomad, is out TODAY! appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

Ten Years a Nomad: My Next Travel Book is Here!


Posted: 5/28/2019 | May 28th, 2019

Though I’ve alluded to it for months, it’s time to finally let the cat fully out of the bag:

I’m releasing a brand-new book!!!!

It took close to two years to write (and was the hardest thing I ever wrote). But, after a million edits, it’s done and ready for the world.

It’s called Ten Years a Nomad: A Traveler’s Journey Home.

And it comes out July 16th!

This isn’t another “how-to” money-saving guidebook.

Ten years a nomad book coverThe memoir is about my ten years traveling around the world, the lessons I learned, and my advice on being a better traveler. It features stories I’ve never told and goes deeper into my philosophy on travel than I ever have on this blog.

I wrote this to follow the emotional journey of a trip around the world: getting the bug, the planning, setting off, the highs, the lows, the friends, what happens when you come back — and the lessons and advice that come with all that.

Here’s an early review from Kirkus:

“Throughout his ruminations on how travel affected him, Kepnes interweaves his tales of friends, girlfriends, and great loves discovered among exotic backdrops and how starting a blog (nomadicmatt.com) about his adventures altered the way he traveled. His story is one of heartbreak, self-discovery, and the constant travel itch he had to scratch in order to become the man he was supposed to be. An entertaining, quick read by a man who did what many of us only dream about.”

This is my opus on travel.

And it’s available now for pre-order.

As with my previous books, I’m offering bundle packages for those people who purchase the book in advance! You’ll be able to get free copies of my other books, one-on-one travel planning advice, free attendance at TravelCon, blogging courses, free hostel stays and flights, and more!

The packages are listed below.

All you need to do to claim your bonuses is email me a copy of your receipt at matt@nomadicmatt.com.

The Basic Package (cost: $18, value: $48)
Purchase one copy of the book and get:

  • How to Build a Travel Blog ebook (value: $9.99)
  • The Ultimate Guide to Travel Hacking ebook (value: $9.99)
  • 27 Ways to Be a Master Traveler PDF (value: $5)
  • 50 Inspiring Travel Books and Movies PDF (value: $5)

***BEST VALUE*** The Tenner (cost: $182, value: $794)
Buy 10 copies of my book and get ALL THE ABOVE plus:

  • My 12 city and country guides (value: $150)
  • A signed copy of my book How to Travel the World on $50 a Day (value: $15)
  • A 15-minute planning call with me (ask me anything)! (value: $200)
  • The Business of Blogging course (value: $199)

The Bullseye (cost: $900, value: $2,493)
Buy 50 copies of my book and get ALL THE ABOVE plus:

  • One ticket to TravelCon in Boston (value: $399)
  • A 30-minute planning call with me (ask me anything)! (value: $400)

SUPER BONUS! The Centennial (cost: $1,800, value: $7,193)
Buy 100 copies of my book and get ALL THE ABOVE plus:

  • Lunch on me! I’ll come to your city and we’ll have lunch on me! (limited to those in the United States and Canada) (value: $2,000)
  • Round-trip airfare to TravelCon in Boston (from within the US and Canada) (value: $500)
  • One additional ticket to TravelCon in Boston (value: $399)

Conversely, if you’re not a blogger and don’t care about TravelCon, you’ll get four nights at any hostel in the United States and one round-trip domestic airfare.

SUPER BONUS! The Big Kahuna (cost: $4,500, value: $19,293)
Buy 250 copies of my book and get ALL THE ABOVE plus:

  • I’ll come to speak at your event for free! (value: $5,000)
  • You’ll be flown to NYC (from within the US and Canada) the book launch party, put up in a hotel for two nights, and get dinner with me! (value: $3,000)

Note: All digital bonuses will be sent when you send the receipt. Travel arrangements will be worked out between you and me and are valid for six months after purchase (i.e., you have to make a booking by then).

Order the book today, get your bonuses, and share your love of travel!

An amazon blue purchase button A blue Barnes and Noble purchase button

 

Want to Help Me Spread the Word About This Book?

I’ll be doing a huge book tour around the US and Canada to promote the book (details coming soon) but I’m always looking for more opportunities to talk travel. Here’s how you can help me spread the word about the new book:

Want to interview me?
If you have a blog, podcast, vlog, or Instagram channel and want to interview me about the book and travel, let me know at matt@nomadicmatt.com using the subject line “Book Interview.” I’d love to talk with you!

Are you in the media and want to cover the book?
If you work for a major media outlet and want to interview me about the book or would like to review the book, let me know at matt@nomadicmatt.com using the subject line “Media Request.”

Know anyone that I should reach out to for promotion?
If you have suggestions on people who would love a copy of this book and would be a good fit for promoting the book, let me know in the comments, or feel to email me at matt@nomadicmatt.com with the subject line “Book Promotion Help.”

Book Your Trip: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight
Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation
You can book your hostel with Hostelworld as they have the largest inventory. If you want to stay somewhere other than a hostel, use Booking.com as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and cheap hotels. I use them all the time.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance
Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

Looking for the best companies to save money with?
Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all the ones I use to save money when I travel – and that will save you time and money too!

The post Ten Years a Nomad: My Next Travel Book is Here! appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

Rediscovering the Lost Art of Travel

a man on a bicycle in Mezöberény
Posted: 5/16/2019 | May 16th, 2019

Seth Kugel is the former Frugal Traveler columnist for the New York Times and author of the new Rediscovering Travel: A Guide for the Globally Curious, from which this is adapted. I’ve known him for years and our travel philosophy dovetails a lot. I read his book last year and thought “If I were ever to write a book on the state of the travel industry, this is the book I would write!” It’s a great book and today, Seth excerpted part of the book for us!

Stenciled in white block letters on a dreary cement wall in Mezöberény, a tidy but fraying town of twelve thousand in the hyperbolically named Great Hungarian Plain, appeared the word:

SZESZFÖZDE

Hours earlier, in the overcast predawn hours of a nippy January day, I had stumbled off the Bucharest-to-Budapest train to see what it would be like to spend the weekend in the opposite of a tourist destination. Mezöberény was not just absent from guidebooks — it did not have a single restaurant, hotel, or activity listed on TripAdvisor, something that cannot be said for Mbabara, Uganda, or Dalanzadgad, Mongolia. I did have some info on the town, though, thanks to its municipal website: resident József Halász had recently celebrated his ninetieth birthday.

Or that’s what Google Translate told me. Hungarian is a Uralic language, more closely related to the output you might get falling asleep on a keyboard than to English or German or French. That makes even basic comprehension a challenge, as I found as soon as I rushed from the train to the station’s restrooms and faced the urgent need to choose between two doors: FÉRFI and NÖI. The authorities had apparently saved a few forints by not splurging on stick-figure signs.

The day had been born cold and gray and stayed that way as I walked through the town, slowly getting my bearings, intrigued by the pre-war, pre-Communist homes and the more than occasional bike rider — there were almost more bikes than cars — who waved hello. But then a winter drizzle took up, causing an abrupt decline in the number of cyclists even as the number of wandering American visitors held steady at one. To me, a travel day that turns rainy is like a piece of chocolate I’ve dropped on the floor: it’s significantly less appealing, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to throw it away.

It was in the first minutes of rain that I came across that stenciled sign on an otherwise residential street. Beyond the wall, down a cracking, now puddle-pocked driveway, were a dozen or so plastic barrels lined up like nuclear-waste drums. Beyond them, maybe a hundred feet from where I stood, was a one-story L-shaped building. What was this place? Well, SZESZFÖZDE, apparently. But what was that?

In the old days (say, 2009), I would have pulled out an English-Hungarian phrase book or pocket dictionary, but instead, I activated international roaming on my phone, carefully spelled out S-Z-E-S- Z-F-O-Z-D-E, and tapped Go.

Szeszföde distillery in Mezöberény, Hungary

The less-than-lightning speed of Great Hungarian Plain mobile service provided a dramatic pause. And then came my answer:

DISTILLERY.

You don’t say.

I would have guessed PRIVATE PROPERTY maybe, or DANGER—STAY OUT, or MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS, YOU MEDDLING FOREIGNER! But a distillery? A wave of adrenaline washed down my torso as my lips curled into a dumb-luck smile.

Two rather gruff-looking men emerged from the door, the older one smoking a cigarette and wearing a sweater and work-stained trousers that suggested Warsaw Pact 1986 more than modern-day European Union. I waved to them, pointed to the bulky Canon 7D hanging from my neck, and then to the building. Old-school Google Translate.

They waved me in and gave me a tour.

Inside the ancient but fully functioning distillery, the men let me take pictures as they gave me a vaguely intelligible lesson via pointing, expressive looks, and smartphone-translated Hungarian, on how pálinka — Hungarian fruit brandy — was made.

Those barrels I had seen outside, it turned out, were full of fermenting pear and grape and apple juices. Inside, it was distilled somehow through a looping and tangled system of pipes running out of tin tanks up and along the walls. It looked like the laboratory of a mad scientist with a penchant for tacky linoleum flooring.

As they led me around, I engaged in that most intrinsic of travel activities: trying to see the world from the vantage point of someone utterly different from me. What was their life like? Had they traveled? Who were their parents and grandparents? The language barrier that did not allow them to answer did not stop me from wondering.

After soaking in every rusty detail and every glint of pride in the men’s tired eyes, I typed, “Come visit me in New York” into Google Translate — laughs all around — then headed back onto the drizzly streets of Mezöberény, utterly elated.

What was so great about this moment? Sure, the szeszfözde was a neat little story for friends, and in my case, worth a few paragraphs in the newspaper. But wasn’t it just a grimy business making local hooch in a town that even most Hungarians would classify as the middle of nowhere?

a man smokes a cigarette at the Szeszföde distillery in Mezöberény, Hungary

It was a great moment because I discovered it. Not an earth-shattering discovery in the sense of a cure for AIDS or a previously unknown species of poison-spitting neon frog the size of a pinky nail. But it was 100 percent unexpected, 100 percent real, and 100 percent mine.

Discovery used to be the lifeblood of travel, at least for those of us who shun tour-bus groups and all-inclusive resorts. We used to leave home knowing relatively little about our destination — perhaps with some highlighted guidebook pages denoting major attractions and local tipping etiquette, a list of tips culled from well-traveled friends, or articles copied and pasted into a Word document. For the ambitious, maybe a notional feel for the local history or culture gleaned pre-trip from a historical novel.

Beyond that, we were on our own.

Paper guidebooks frozen in time helped us along, as did pamphlets and paper maps from tourist information booths and tips from a hotel concierge. Earlier this century, Google searches in internet cafés also lent a hand. But otherwise, there was no choice: You decided what to do with your own eyes and ears, by wandering, by initiating human-to-human contact. Tips came from hearing fellow travelers’ stories over hostel or (non-Air) B&B breakfasts, entering a shop to ask directions and ending up in a conversation with the owner, or catching a whiff of fresh bread or sizzling chilies and following your nose.

Of course, all that still happens today — but only if you really go out of your way to make it happen. Not only is nearly every place in the world documented to within an inch of its life but that documentation — which comes dressed as both fact and opinion — is overwhelmingly and immediately available, thanks to pervasive technology. That’s great for many things in life — medical information, how-to videos, shorter commutes. But don’t we travel to break our routine? To experience the unexpected? To let the world delight us?

If we do, we have a funny way of showing it. We pore over online reviews for weeks, plan days down to the half hour, and then let GPS and the collected wisdom of the unwise lead us blindly. We mean well — no one wants to have a romantic dinner go wrong or to get lost and miss out on a “must-see attraction” or to risk chaos by failing to keep the kids entertained for three minutes.

But isn’t that just a digital version of the old-fashioned group tour? Well, almost, except that on the bus tour, you actually get to meet the person whose advice you’re taking.

One of my most ironclad rules of travel is this: the number of visitors a place receives is inversely related to how nice locals are to those visitors. Mezöberény, as far as I knew, had received precisely no foreign tourists ever. It was the anti-Paris, and this distillery the anti-Louvre.

People who inhabit the still-plentiful tourist-free swaths of the planet tend to be not only just nicer but more curious. They say a bear in the wild is just as scared of you as you are of it. I say people in places where outsiders rarely go are just as curious about visitors as visitors are about them. The question is not why the distillery workers invited me — a camera-toting, gibberish-talking stranger — in for a tour, it’s why wouldn’t they? If it were me, I’d be thinking: “What is this odd foreigner doing outside our szeszfözde with a camera? Wait till I tell the kids! And by the way, isn’t it about time we took a break?”

More importantly, is it possible that stumbling upon a dank distillery might be just as thrilling as a tour of one of the world’s great monuments? Did the surge of emotion I felt when the word distillery popped onto my screen match what I felt when I first glanced up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?

Probably not, although I remember the distillery moment quite precisely and barely recall what I felt at the Sistine Chapel. Why? Because although Michelangelo’s prophets and sibyls and biblical re-creations are several trillion times lovelier than rusty pipes in a concrete building reeking of fermented fruit, I had seen them before in photos, heard professors talk about them, and read other travelers’ accounts as I sought the best times to avoid crowds.

That’s why I believe it is time we rediscover travel and recognize the value of what an overdocumented world has taken away: the delight of making things happen on your own.

***

Rediscovering Travel: A Guide for the Globally CuriousSeth is the former Frugal Traveler columnist for the New York Times and author of the new Rediscovering Travel: A Guide for the Globally Curious, from which this is adapted.

In this book, Kugel challenges the modern travel industry with a determination to reignite humanity’s age-old sense of adventure that has virtually been vanquished in this spontaneity-obliterating digital age. You can purchase the book at Amazon and give it a read.

Book Your Trip: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight
Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation
You can book your hostel with Hostelworld as they have the largest inventory. If you want to stay somewhere other than a hostel, use Booking.com as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and cheap hotels. I use them all the time.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance
Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

Looking for the best companies to save money with?
Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all the ones I use to save money when I travel – and that will save you time and money too!

The post Rediscovering the Lost Art of Travel appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.