All Over the Place: Adventures in Travel, True Love, and Petty Theft

by Geraldine DeRuiter

Overview

Some people are meant to travel the globe, to unwrap its secrets and share them with the world. And some people have no sense of direction, are terrified of pigeons, and get motion sickness from tying their shoes. These people are meant to stay home and eat nachos.

Geraldine DeRuiter is the latter. But she won't let that stop her.

Hilarious, irreverent, and heartfelt, All Over the Place chronicles the years Geraldine spent traveling the world after getting laid off from a job she loved. Those years taught her a great number of things, though the ability to read a map was not one of them. She has only a vague idea of where Russia is, but she now understands her Russian father better than ever before. She learned that what she thought was her mother's functional insanity was actually an equally incurable condition called "being Italian." She learned what it's like to travel the world with someone you already know and love -- how that person can help you make sense of things and make far-off places feel like home. She learned about unemployment and brain tumors, lost luggage and lost opportunities, and just getting lost in countless terminals and cabs and hotel lobbies across the globe. And she learned that sometimes you can find yourself exactly where you need to be -- even if you aren't quite sure where you are.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610397643
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	05/02/2017
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	663,094
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

After getting laid off from her copywriting job, Geraldine DeRuiter hit the road and began chronicling her travel adventures on her blog, The Everywhereist. Seven years and many, many posts later, The Everywhereist has racked up thousands of fans, millions of page views, and plenty of buzz: it was named one of Time magazine's Top 25 Blogs of the Year, one of Forbes magazine's Top 10 Lifestyle Websites for Women for three consecutive years, the Independent's 50 Best Travel Websites, and the Huffington Post's Top Travel Blogs. Whether it's eating roasted guinea pig in Peru, yelling at locals in Rome, or struggling to decipher the behavior of her fellow passengers ("Why would you use an airplane lavatory without shoes on?"), DeRuiter tackles travel with an equal mix of snark and heart as she hops around the globe with her husband, Rand Fishkin.

Table of Contents

A Disclaimer 1

Chapter 1 Gelato Is an Excellent Substance in Which to Drown Your Sorrows 7

Chapter 2 Sometimes You Run Screaming from the Person You're Madly in Love With 23

Chapter 3 The Contents of My Mother's Carry-On Look Like Evidence from a Prison Riot 39

Chapter 4 In Which I Am Surprised to Learn That Getting Lost Doesn't Bring About the Apocalypse 59

Chapter 5 Life Lessons from a Three-Hundred-Year-Old Dead Guy and His Boring Clock 75

Chapter 6 You Take the Grenade My Mom Brought to Dinner; I'll Book Our Flight-Finding Balance in Relationships 97

Chapter 7 Marry Someone Who Will Help You Deal with Your Shit 119

Chapter 8 Listen to Your Heart, Even If It Tells You to Steal Things 133

Chapter 9 Home Is Where Your MRI Is 147

Chapter 10 It's Always Easier to Leave for a Trip Than to Be Left Behind 155

Chapter 11 Bucket Lists Are Just Plain Greedy 169

Chapter 12 Is There a Gaelic Word for "I'm Freaked Out About Our Marriage"? 183

Chapter 13 Salvation Looks a Lot Like Wisconsin 197

Chapter 14 Turns Out, Things Aren't Always What They Seem 209

Chapter 15 Munich-Land of Sausages and Epiphanies 229

Chapter 16 Where There's a Fiat, There's a Way 245

Chapter 17 Just Go 267

Acknowledgments 271

Editorial Reviews

01/09/2017
Getting laid off from a job she adored opened the door to the blogosphere for DeRuiter, as she explains this irreverent, yet warm-hearted memoir. Readers of her blog the Everywhereist will be familiar with the author’s style of using her personality quirks and health issues as the foundation for her conversation with the reader and revelations on life. “I hail from a long, nervous line of hypochondriacs,” DeRuiter explains. Being afraid of travel and lacking a sense of direction haven’t hindered her but rather helped her explore the world. “So, if there is any advice I could dispense, it would be this: it’s absolutely incredible the things you can learn from not having a clue about where you’re going.” Her intimate memoir chronicles her adventures during the seven years she spent crisscrossing the globe, learning to understand and accept quirky family members. The author delves into her relationship with a workaholic-but-loving husband and a serious health crisis. DeRuiter’s memoir is a light-hearted look at travel and learning to live life to the fullest each day, even if you not quite sure where you are going. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"Geraldine DeRuiter's All Over the Place is a travel memoir of sorts, but I'd enjoy reading pretty much any topic she wanted to cover. Her voice is funny, witty and warm, and her stories sparkle. This book is a travel companion you'll be happy you brought along."—Lauren Graham, star of Gilmore Girls and New York Times bestselling author of Talking as Fast as I Can

"I laughed so hard during the book's 'disclaimer' that I woke up my baby, and then actively ignored him to continue reading. Geraldine is at turns laugh-out-loud hilarious and grab-me-some-tissues tender, and all I could think of after reading this was 'can we take a trip together please?'"
—Nora McInerny Purmort, author of It's Okay to Laugh (Crying Is Cool Too)

"DeRuiter's funny, honest portrayal of life's small and large adventures will convince any hesitant would-be traveler that you don't need bravery or even an above average sense of direction to venture out into the world-all you need is a plane ticket and a sense of humor (and maybe a plunger)."
—Rachel Friedman, author of The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost

"All Over the Place is a hilarious, authentic travel guide through the most mysterious and wonderful territory of all: the human heart."—Martha Brockenbrough, author of the award-winning novel The Game of Love and Death

"Getting laid off from a job she adored opened the door to the blogosphere for DeRuiter, as she explains this irreverent, yet warm-hearted memoir. Readers of her blog the Everywhereist will be familiar with the author's style of using her personality quirks and health issues as the foundation for her conversation with the reader and revelations on life. "I hail from a long, nervous line of hypochondriacs," DeRuiter explains. Being afraid of travel and lacking a sense of direction haven't hindered her but rather helped her explore the world. "So, if there is any advice I could dispense, it would be this: it's absolutely incredible the things you can learn from not having a clue about where you're going." Her intimate memoir chronicles her adventures during the seven years she spent crisscrossing the globe, learning to understand and accept quirky family members. The author delves into her relationship with a workaholic-but-loving husband and a serious health crisis. DeRuiter's memoir is a light-hearted look at travel and learning to live life to the fullest each day, even if you not quite sure where you are going."
—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

2017-02-06
A travel memoir from the author of a popular blog.Upon losing her comfortable job at a small board game company when the company went out of business, DeRuiter floundered for a while. It was 2008, the global economy was in recession, and she wasn't sure what to do next. At her husband's suggestion, the author started a travel blog, and the Everywhereist became immensely popular, eventually receiving mentions on several top-blog lists. DeRuiter's first book recounts the circumstances that led to the blog, as well as stories about her eccentric parents, her life with her husband, Rand, and various exploits from their travels together. True to its title, the book wanders all over the place, and the result can be off-putting. The author's observations rarely make it past surface level, and the witticisms for which she is known can be less-than-charming. In fact, without more substantive material to back them up, they grow tiresome. "That's what's incredible about love," she notes at one point. "It's nothing like the movies. It happens to mere mortals, manifesting while they're standing in line for groceries or getting a dental check-up or renewing their license at the DMV." Unfortunately, DeRuiter often delivers aphorisms that are less insightful than trite (i.e., love can happen to regular people), and the self-deprecating doubling-back doesn't help: "I'm lying about that last one," she continues in this particular passage. "Love has never, ever thrived at the DMV. That place is where love goes to die. But I'm pretty sure those other examples are sound." Readers who are charmed by this sort of thing might find a lot to like here, but many will be exasperated by DeRuiter, who describes in gory detail an episode involving a clogged toilet but barely describes the places she actually visited. Despite her strenuous attempts to be funny, more often than not, the author falls flat.

Kirkus Reviews