Tripping 1975 Travel Book: A Journey of Love Across Countries - Perfect for Travel Enthusiasts & Romance Readers

Tripping ’75 was a sheer delight. Almost every page had me smiling, except when the author was clearly taking gratuitous pleasure reminding the poor reader how they climbed death-defying cliffs driving on one-lane dirt roads. Guardrails be damned for our intrepid travelers for they knew they were safely ensconced in an occasionally-functional camper which they affectionately dubbed “The Banana.”Tripping ’75 is a curated travel journal. The author is judicious enough to frequently meld days together to keep the story rolling, but it still reads like its happening in real-time. Chapters are just a few pages each and basically self-contained, so the reader can skip around to countries and the cities that interest therm. What makes it a treat for anyone who enjoys travel memoirs is the author’s comedic timing. But then again, I like dad jokes.For me personally, Tripping ’75 had a special appeal by bring back so many memories from my own time as a college student traveling in around Europe in the mid-‘70s. It’s a wonderful period-piece since travel has changed in so many ways over the past 50 years: low-cost air, GPS, cell phones, Airbnb, and social media, so it’s no substitute for Guidebooks and online research. Nor does Hockett try to pretend otherwise. If you are looking for the intricate history of a building or a historic district, you can find plenty of more-detailed descriptions—probably more than you want to know. What Hockett does instead is to talk about his observations, feelings and spiritual impressions—which was particularly apparent in his discussions about their travels around Israel.Hockett, however, doesn’t something you can’t find in any guidebook: the friends you make traveling can be as or more rewarding than the tourist attractions that brought you there in the first place. Aside from the value of friendship in general, theres simply no better way to learn about a foreign culture than experiencing first hand. It’s a gift to be invited to a the home of a local for dinner or staying over, and it doesn’t hurt that they can give you information about the local scene, whether it’s an exposition that’s about to end, or an event about to start.There are some touching moments, but it’s not a romance book, even though the subtitle describes it as “Falling in Love One Country at a Time.” Nope. Nobody in the right mind decides to spend a year in such tight quarters if they weren’t already in love. So this is actually a book about Staying in Love One Country at a time. Maybe couples cooped up that long and live to tell about it know just what true love means. But the topic does beg the question: Will they or won’t they? You’ll just have to read it and find out.Full Disclosure:I was the lucky recipient of a free autographed copy of this book by the author when I met him and his wife Debbie.I won’t say whether this is a new Debbie or the Debbie in the book since that could be a spoiler. He probably thought I forgot about it since it took me a year before but made its way to the top of the queue. So without the author’s knowledge or consent, I bought an electronic copy from Kindle--just to be able to shout out how much I loved it.