The Vice Guide To Travel

by Jesse Pearson

Gritty and terrifying. These are the two adjective best describing the world that Vice’s Guide to Travel depicts. In the Vice Guide to Travel, which is presented as a series of seven short documentaries, ranging from five to 12 minutes, founders, editors and writers from the OG of DIY magazines travel to parts of the world CNN and Fox News pretend don’t exist in search of realities Rupert Murdoch wants kept hidden. What they discover is horrifying. In Bulgaria, co-founder Shane Smith locates a man who bought a “dirty bomb” on the black market and buried it in his mom’s garden. His purchase could eradiate New York City, killing hundreds of thousands and rendering the city unlivable. In Palestine, Smith listens as PLO boyscout leaders encourage their charges to sing songs about blowing up the “Israeli dogs”. In Pakistan, Vice’s other co-founder Suroosh Alvi travels to the world’s largest illegal arms market, where peasants make guns by the thousands with their bare hands. The extras are much of the same, consisting of short features ranging in subject matter from the Black Lips’ Cole dancing through a Ugandan jungle to subjects walking through a Bulgarian town, pointing out the lack of running water, electricity, and waste management.

Hardcover

Published January 1, 2006