How to Barter for Paradise: My Journey through 14 Countries, Trading Up from an Apple to a House in Hawaii

by Michael Wigge

Overview

Most people like to travel in comfort: they stay in fancy hotels, never leave tourist spots, and stay away from the locals. Michael Wigge isn’t like most people, though. After travelling the world without money for 150 days while writing How to Travel the World for Free, his next challenge: turn an apple into a house in Hawaii.

Wigge goes around fourteen countries and six continents exchanging goods for more valuable ones, and he meets an array of good-humored people who take his deals. Taking on his Barterman persona, he trades the apple for sixteen cigarettes in Germany; a couple of trades later in India, he fixes up a motorized rickshaw and trades it for silk; in Australia, a millionaire amuses himself by offering him an art piece for the silk if Wigge feeds a wild crocodile. Finally, he arrives in Hawaii armed with two bicycles, a surfboard, Portuguese porcelain, three solid-gold coins, a Porsche wristwatch, a record by musician Coati Mundi and accompanying contract for 25 percent of the proceeds from his next single, a voucher for a two-night stay in a mansion in L.A., and a piece of original artwork by painter Alex Stenzel—now he just has to find someone to give him a house in exchange.

On the 200-day journey around the world, Wigge makes forty-two trades and meets strange, kind, funny, friendly, eccentric, and good-natured people who help him in his quest. It’s a journey you won’t want to miss!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781628738797
Publisher:	Skyhorse
Publication date:	01/02/2014
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Michael Wigge is an author, filmmaker, and journalist. He began his career as an anchor on the German VIVA program London Calling, and the world has been his newsroom and playground ever since. From reporting for MTV from a prison, to entering the Buckingham Palace in England dressed as King Henry VIII, Wigge has always thrown himself into the most unusual situations, including riding a donkey for more than sixty hours in an effort to obtain a Guinness World Record. He has lived with the native Yanomami Indian tribe in the Amazon rainforest and fought sumo wrestlers in Japan. He is the author of How to Travel the world for Free. He lives in Berlin, Germany.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Hawaii, Here I Come! vii

1 Germany: Bitten by the Bug 1

2 Austria: My First No 17

3 Switzerland: Help, the Pleiadians Are Coming! 21

4 India: Sled Masala 27

5 Australia: Parasite Exchange 61

6 New Zealand: Help at the End of the World 75

7 Singapore: My First Billionaire Buddy 81

8 Thailand: The Great Trade-Out 85

9 Tanzania: Africa till You Drop 89

10 Kenya: A World-Class Runner among Peers 113

11 Germany: Home Sweet Home 121

12 Ukraine: Illusory Beauty 127

13 Portugal: Bartering by a Thread 141

14 Brazil: Lederhosen and Folk Music under the Palm Trees 145

15 USA: A Microcosm of the World 155

16 Hawaii: The Showdown 177

Epilogue 187

Editorial Reviews

02/01/2014
The latest work by Berlin-based journalist and filmmaker Wigge, assuming his "Barterman" persona, chronicles his 200-day, six-continent journey as he barters his way into his childhood dream of staying in a house in Hawaii. A project put together with outlandish humor and outrageous gall, the book details how he starts with an apple and ends up in the 50th state. "Barterman" finds good-natured and eccentric barterers in his journey, making 42 trades in a trip filled with adventure. He climbs Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, feeds wild crocodiles in Australia, races a former Olympic runner in Kenya, tours the prohibited zone of Chernobyl, and wanders the urban blight of Mumbai. VERDICT Once again, Wigge has produced a crazy journey made possible by his heartwarming antics that elicit the generosity, good-heartedness, and eccentricities of awestruck strangers and characters.—Melinda Stivers Leach, Wondervu, CO

Library Journal