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365 Dates of Travel: The first six months

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A mad romp around the world by a quirky data collecting redhead!


A book for those who love Peter Moore. If you love Bill Bryson read this!




Fran has a travel story for all 365 dates of the year, from Thanksgiving in New York, Christmas in Bethlehem, to New Year's Day in Cairo. Travel mishaps and adventures include broken bank cards in Jerusalem, arguments in Libya, and Wacky Races in Mauritania.




Fran left Australia in 1992 as a naive 18-year-old with no money, no credit card, and before e-mail and the internet were invented. She's a woman traveler, often a solo traveler, who travels by train, car, overland vehicle, bus, Uber, plane, lifts with strangers and the occasional group tour, through Africa, Europe, Middle East, USA and Australia. There's travel humor aplenty, including tales of her "trusty pink umbrella". She's a self proclaimed bad redhead and meets "red-hair-freaks" along the way.




Data is collected on money spent; steps taken; wrinkled-ness of clothes; and hilarious diet details due to a fear of eating alone in restaurants and in speaking foreign languages.

320 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 23, 2023

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About the author

Fran Heap

8 books22 followers
Fran currently lives in Melbourne, Australia. She has travelled to 61 countries but aims to visit over 190. Her life is travelling and caring for babies as a Nanny and Neonatal Nurse. By her own admission she's a terrible redhead with a penchant for quirky data collecting. Her favourite motto being "Curiosity killed the cat, but INFORMATION brought him back." She loves ancient ruins and drains, hates dusting, loves going behind the scenes, can't smile in photos and detests selfie sticks. In her younger days she wanted to be an actress, an astronaut, a youth hostel owner, a department store owner, and a writer. When she was ten she wrote in her diary, "Tonight I vow I will get a story published at some stage before I die." She has now fulfilled this vow.

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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
Profile Image for Sheila.
2,964 reviews112 followers
June 10, 2023
I received a free copy of, 365 Dates of Travel, by Fran Heap, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Fran has traveled all over the world, this book is her journal of traveling, short and sweet. This was an interesting book, about one women's travel around the world.
Profile Image for Poppy Marlowe.
563 reviews21 followers
March 27, 2023
Synopsis: (from Netgalley, the provider of the book for me to review)
************************************************************
A mad romp around the world with a quirky data-collecting redhead!

Fran has a travel story for all 365 dates of the year, from Thanksgiving in New York, Christmas in Bethlehem, to New Year's Day in Cairo. Travel mishaps and adventures include broken bank cards in Jerusalem, arguments in Libya, and Wacky Races in Mauritania. Read travel mishaps and adventures from Albuquerque to Aleppo, Cairo to Copenhagen, Lebanon to Libya, Morocco to Mauritania, Poland to Portugal and more!

Fran left Australia in 1992 as a naive 18-year-old with no money, no credit card, and before e-mail and the internet were invented. She's a woman solo traveller, who travels by train, car, overland vehicle, bus, Uber, plane, lifts with strangers and the occasional group tour, through Africa, Europe, the Middle East, the USA and Australia. There's travel humour aplenty, including tales of her "trusty pink umbrella". She's a self-proclaimed bad redhead and meets "red-hair-freaks" along the way.

Data is collected on money spent; steps are taken; wrinkled-ness of clothes; and hilarious diet details due to a fear of eating alone in restaurants and speaking foreign languages. Will the car make it? Where's Fran's passport? Will she buy the dust-able souvenir?

This is a really ODD book - I think that I enjoyed the synopsis more than the book which to me was very disjointed, a verbal scrapbook of six months of travel and what things she kept…tickets, receipts, etc. over and over, but maybe that was just me….not sure if I want to know what happened the other six months of this year. And it’s not the same year…it skips all over the place from 1992 to 2019 in the blink of an eye. And from country to country. Confusing.

If you love to travel (and I do ... well, I enjoy it once I get there....) you will enjoy this book. Not sure if I will get it for our library, but it is one to read if you love to travel the world without a care in that world besides saving receipts and souvenirs.
Profile Image for Maria.
2,897 reviews95 followers
May 1, 2023
This was not what I wanted it to be. It could have been a fun travel memoir filled with wonderful stories and colorful characters. Instead, it’s an excerpt from her diary and then the explanation. It feels almost like sitting with someone with an old photo album and they tell you about the pictures but instead of telling you about the fun they had, they explain the receipt that they got at the gift shop rather than the souvenir. It was difficult to follow and even more difficult to decipher. This was not for me.

I received a copy from #NetGalley for an honest review.
Profile Image for Holly Astle.
17 reviews4 followers
October 9, 2024
I received a copy of this book from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was really excited to dive into 365 Dates of Travel: The First 6 Months. The concept sounded amazing—daily travel stories capturing adventures from all over the world—but sadly, the book didn’t live up to my expectations.

While there was clear potential for fun, engaging tales from each day, the structure felt dull and un-captivating. Instead of being drawn into the stories, I found it difficult to follow, and it lacked the flow needed to keep me hooked. What should have been an exciting, wanderlust-inspiring read turned into a bit of a slog. There are glimpses of interesting experiences, but overall, it just didn’t work for me.
2,934 reviews261 followers
July 9, 2023
I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This wasn't really a travel memoir in the traditional sense. Heap shares stories over time about travel on different days for every day of the year. So January 11 may be a story from the 70s about Australia but January 12 may be a story from 2010 about Thailand and there's not really anything tying them together. A lot of the anecdotes are also very short - some as few as a few lines. There's not a lot of depth or actual experience presented in a cohesive collection. It's a nice idea that I could see sharing short stories about old experiences with family and friends, but it wasn't for me.
Profile Image for Belle.
764 reviews8 followers
May 27, 2024
2.5 ⭐

A unique but disorienting format.

The 182 days of travel begin on 7 Nov 92 - 10 Nov 92 in the USA.
Then we jump to 2019 for 11 Nov in Lebanon because nothing of note happens in the USA trip on that day (staying at a friend's house)
Then we jump back to 13 Nov 1992 to continue the USA trip.
Then 14 Nov is set in 2010 (Syria)

As said, this is definitely disorienting and not my favourite unfortunately.

My actual favourite thing about this book was the reference to scrapbook tickets and diary entries.
Profile Image for Sabrina.
90 reviews13 followers
October 10, 2023
I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I just reviewed 365 Dates of Travel by Fran Heap. #365DatesofTravel #NetGalley I wanted to love this book but I feel it fell short. This isn't an exact memoir of exact day to day travel. Different trips were explained on each day. There really was no rhyme or reason.
132 reviews
October 15, 2023
365 Dates of Travel is a great premise but falls flat. Instead of getting interesting stories from Fran Heap, you get random notes from diary pages. No doubt she’s extremely well travelled but her notes on Syria talk about the smuggled egg sandwich she had instead of anything of substance about the country.
Profile Image for Suzie.
535 reviews7 followers
June 3, 2023
As an avid traveler myself, I appreciate the remarkable memory (and record keeping) to tell stories going back decades! The one striking thing is how much travel has changed over these years. She is a great storyteller. Looking forward to the second six months!
945 reviews4 followers
October 30, 2023
I loved the idea of this book, bit it fell short for me as it wasn’t as good as I was expecting.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews

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