Carl Hoffman has driven the Baja 1000, ridden reindeer in Siberia, sailed an open dinghy 250 miles, and traveled to 65 countries. When he's able to stay put for more than a few months at a time, he lives in Washington, D.C., where his three children make fun of him on a pretty constant basis. He is a contributing editor at National Geographic Traveler and Wired magazines, and his stories about travel and technology also appear in Outside, National Geographic Adventure, Men's Journal and Popular Mechanics.
“This book is fabulous. The lean description, the weave of old and
new perspective, the personalities, the real-people
wisdom, and that the danger is as real as we don't want to
think it is. The Lunatic Express is refreshing, liberating,
and a paean to true Travel. Hoffman opened my eyes to the
off-the-grid traveler, clearly most of the world, and made me cry.
The last pages struck home; the duality of escape and harbor are
the blessing and curse of life.” -- Keith Bellows, Editor-in-Chief
of National Geographic Traveler
“Reinvented the travel log as the supreme theater of paradox…a
search for an unholy grail—something freakish; something dangerous;
something authentic… Take this ride.” -Richard Bangs, Producer/Host
of the Public Television series, Adventures with Purpose
"There are two possibilities: we move through the world, or the
world moves through us. Carl Hoffman's clever, funny, fearsome book
does both. It takes us into the frantic fear and pitiless
extinctions that punctuate the simple struggle to get from home to
anywhere, for so many of the world's people. But it also takes us
into the heart of the writer: and that journey, with its beauty and
compassion, its conscience and courage, is so thrilling that we
hope the ride never ends." -- Gregory David Roberts, author of
SHANTARAM
“Carl Hoffman, a courageous and interestingly untroubled man from
Washington, D.C., has done a great service by reminding us, in The
Lunatic Express, of this abiding truism: that the world’s ordinary
traveler is compelled to endure all too much while undertaking the
grim necessities of modern movement…Mr. Hoffman spent a fascinating
year going around the world precisely as most of the world's
plainest people do—not on JetBlue or United or American or
Trailways, modes of transport that look positively heavenly by
comparison, but in the threadbare conveyances of the planet's
billions….He learns along the way a great deal about the habits of
the world's peripatetic poor, and he writes about both the process
and the people with verve and charity, making this book both
extraordinary and extraordinarily valuable….It is a wise and clever
book too, funny, warm and filled with astonishing characters. But
it also represents an important exercise, casting an Argus-eye on a
largely invisible but un-ignorable world. It is thus a book that
deserves to be read widely. Perhaps in some airport in a blinding
rainstorm in the Midwest, while waiting for yet another infernally
delayed American plane.” – Simon Winchester, Wall Street Journal
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