We Came, We Saw, We Left: A Family Gap Year
We Came, We Saw, We Left: A Family Gap Year book cover

We Came, We Saw, We Left: A Family Gap Year

Hardcover – January 26, 2021

by
Price
$10.47
Format
Hardcover
Pages
288
Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0393633955
Dimensions
6.3 x 1.1 x 9.3 inches
Weight
1 pounds

Description

"A swift and refreshing escape during these isolated, isolating times…[I]t's often the utter normalcy of the Wheelan family that makes this travelogue so endearing." ― Carson Vaughan, NPR "Wheelan is a lucid and likable storyteller, and his antic family dialogues are spot-on…[A]n upbeat story." ― Amity Gaige, New York Times Book Review "Engaging, insightful, and downright pleasant." ― Nathan Deuel, Los Angeles Time "A sprightly account of an unusual family vacation." ― Curt Schleier, Star Tribune "Engaging stories of a family bonding over the unusual challenges and opportunities presented by budget-minded globetrotting." ― John Young, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Makes a strong case for extended travel as a means of establishing a tighter bond as a family." ― Michael Patrick Brady, WBUR News "The family’s offbeat experiment in global immersion is a triumph of cultural connection, a celebration of humanity’s similarities and differences, presented with a winning blend of humor and humility. For those suffering from pandemic cabin fever, Wheelan’s exuberant travelogue will provide a welcome vicarious getaway." ― Carol Haggas, Booklist "This rip-roaring adventure will especially appeal to those whose passports are collecting dust thanks to the pandemic." ― Publishers Weekly "A vivid chronicle of a family's intrepid sojourn...Wheelan offers an entertaining, upbeat account of the trip, often astonishingly beautiful and sometimes harrowing. A charming celebration of discovery." ― Kirkus Reviews "A complete and utter delight of a book, from start to finish. Charlie Wheelan and his remarkable family deliver not only a page-turning travelogue, but also a blueprint for restoring a long-lost sense of adventure into our lives." ― Dan Coyle, author of The Culture Code and The Talent Code Charles Wheelan is the author of the best-selling Naked Statistics and Naked Economics and is a former correspondent for the Economist . He teaches public policy at Dartmouth College and lives in Hanover, New Hampshire, with his family.

Features & Highlights

  • Charlie Wheelan and his family do what others dream of: They take a year off to travel the world. This is their story.
  • What would happen if you quit your life for a year? In a pre–COVID-19 world, the Wheelan family decided to find out; leaving behind work, school, and even the family dogs to travel the world on a modest budget. Equal parts "how-to" and "how-not-to"―and with an eye toward a world emerging from a pandemic―
  • We Came, We Saw, We Left
  • is the insightful and often hilarious account of one family’s gap-year experiment.
  • Wheelan paints a picture of adventure and connectivity, juggling themes of local politics, global economics, and family dynamics while exploring answers to questions like: How do you sneak out of a Peruvian town that has been barricaded by the local army? And where can you get treatment for a flesh-eating bacteria your daughter picked up two continents ago? From Colombia to Cambodia,
  • We Came, We Saw, We Left
  • chronicles nine months across six continents with three teenagers. What could go wrong?
  • 19 black-and-white maps and 17 photographs

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(119)
★★★★
25%
(99)
★★★
15%
(59)
★★
7%
(28)
★
23%
(91)

Most Helpful Reviews

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One of the most boring books I’ve ever read

Wheelan goes through such detail with mundane daily issues he forgets the book is supposed to be about traveling. The risks they take with their children makes me think thy aren’t all there. Not for me
6 people found this helpful
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Loved, loved, loved this book!

I saw this book recommended in the NYT. I downloaded it from the library after a few weeks of waiting. From about page 10 I knew this would be one of my all time favorite books. It's a great read and helps you plot out your next travels as soon as the world conquers the pandemic. This family gap year is something I wish I would have done with my daughters, so since I didn't, I bought them the book and I told them I hope it inspired them to do this type of travel with their families. I also bought the hard copy for myself so I can plan trips to some of the same places soon!
5 people found this helpful
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Loved this book! Great travel tales

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, mainly because I liked the writing style of Charles Wheelan. Of course the trip is wonderful and a great experience, but I liked the humor and great attitude of the parents. I like to travel this same way (not over-planned) and his children will remember it forever. I admire the parents who chose to do this marvelous adventure with teenagers and with a budget. The author did a great job describing the different personalities and included the downs as well as the many ups of international travel. The story reminds me of the famous words, "An adventure is an inconvenience well considered." Congrats to the Wheelans for sharing this wonderful trip to wonderful places and the life that happens along the way.
5 people found this helpful
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A charming story, but.......

While I enjoyed the book and getting to "know" the family, I was uncomfortable with the decisions (or lack thereof) of the parents, especially the father. How could he, for example, let his daughter get on a train that he wasn't on without any money or knowing what stop to use? While I understand the family not wanting to spend a lot of money (and this trip was not cheap by any means), taking 20 hour bus trips, sleeping with no heat, etc., seems unsafe and unconscionable. I believe the three children will have great stories to tell. However, the youngest, who was my favorite family member, appeared to be the butt of jokes and not treated with the same respect as the other two. Also, who lets a teenager decide about completing school work? Who lets an 18 year old with a flesh eating disease, go off to Germany by herself, even if she wanted to? There were too many issues with the family dynamics that made this fairy tale story totally plausible. With it all, I did enjoy the adventure by putting aside each of the issues I had as they arose in Wheelan's telling of the family gap year.
4 people found this helpful
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Great book, TERRIBLE audiobook narrator.

Great book. Really interesting idea and easy to follow. However, the audiobook version is atrocious. I only listened for about ten minutes and couldn’t handle the narrators voice any longer. It’s a mix between sounding robotic and nasally irritating male voice sped up to 1.5 speed. Like I said though, the book was interesting. Enough so that I have it a go analog style even though the audiobook was so off putting.
1 people found this helpful
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Honest Travel Memoir

This book highlighted a family's 9-month trip around the world (in 2016) through South America, Asia, Africa, and eastern-Europe. Told by the father, the book reflects on their travels while providing information about how they made this trip possible as they navigated finances, schooling, etc. I loved the insight provided as he recounts the great experiences the family had traveling together while also sharing the experiences gone-wrong that required flexibility and sometimes led to complete family meltdowns! As a traveler, I found myself laughing quite a bit as I remembered my own travels that have been filled of both joyous, life-changing moments and frustrating, tear-filled disasters. Reading this makes me excited to explore more of the world after COVID!
1 people found this helpful
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Perfect gift

Excellent condition and price.
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A Lighthearted and Fun Read

An enjoyable tale of an American family exploring the world on the cheap. Two parents and three teenagers take leave of their middle-class lives and spend 9 months riding overnight buses, eating street food and staying at hostels in South America, SE Asia, Africa and the Caucasus.

What makes this book particularly endearing is it's humility. The frequent arrogance of back-roads travel writers -- their seeming desire to emphasize their insights and resourcefulness -- is refreshingly missing from this book. Instead, we have the author inadvertently telling a policeman that his children are "perritos" (puppy dogs) when trying to convey that they are "perdidos" (lost). Happily, the policeman understands and the children turn up on their own.

All in all, an enjoyable read. Not a book for piercing analyses, but one that I found very worthwhile.
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Interesting and well written

What makes this travel memoir so enjoyable is that the author is not someone who had an adventure and then wrote about it. He is a writer who had an adventure.... huge difference in the quality of the writing. The pace was perfect, as was the balance between descriptions of locations\travel and details about family interactions.
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Take the road less traveled with the Wheelan clan

The story of the Wheelan family trip reads like the literary equivelant of a family vacation photo album. I don’t mean that in a bad way. In WCWSWL, we’re here for the family adventure and on that level it’s pretty fun to tag along with the endearing Wheelan crew as they visit off-the-beaten-path regions, deal with familial and local problems, and juggle the logistics of spending nine months on the road.

Wheelan does a nice job describing his family dynamics while sprinkling in amusing misadventures as the clan travels from one exotic locale to another (seriously, how many travelers vacation in Bhutan, Bolivia, and Tanzania?) And while he touches on some history here or indulges in some cultural reflections there, it’s mainly a brief musing before the family packs up and heads off for further adventures in the next city you've never heard of.

At the very least this book should spark a sense of wanderlust in readers and, if it serves its purpose, will push a few of us to get off the couch and out of our daily routines armed only with a desire for new experiences.

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