What do you think?
Rate this book
Jupiter's Travels in Camera: The photographic record of Ted Simon's celebrated round-the-world motorcycle journey
For four years during the 1970s Ted Simon rode a motorcycle around the world, something no-one had ever done before. He described his adventures first in regular bulletins for The Sunday Times and then, after his return, in Jupiter's Travels , a book that has become revered as a classic of travel writing. Published by Penguin, Jupiter's Travels has sold nearly a million copies in the intervening years and has remained in print throughout that time, remaining a strong seller even today. Ted Simon took a decent SLR camera on the trip, but only a handful of his several thousand color photographs were included in Jupiter's Travels . These are now included in the book published to coincide with the 40th anniversary of his ground breaking trip.
- GenresTravel
256 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2013
79 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 23, 2025
Stunning book, great photo’s! Now I want to going travelling again!
May 29, 2013
Book - okay. Layout & formatting - bloody terrible.
I have to assume the author took a PDF & ran it through Calibre to produce the MOBI/Kindle version of this. Sadly he didn't bother checking it afterwards as there are tons of broken lines, bad punctuation and broken sentances starts.
Far to many instances of T for 'I and as a journalist he should know better.
The book needs MASSIVE work on the proofing & equally massive amounts on the layout as some sections are just far too long. It needs to be split into either cohesive chapters or sections with actual dates on so it's easier to measure the passage of time instead a year here and a year there.
In places the author goes a bit mad with over describing where he is at that point in time which will lead to frequent skipping forward of at least 1 or 2 pages to get past. For a book that promises to be a photographic record and that is over 1 meg in size there are only 2 pictures in the e-version.
Numerous times during the journey I thought to myself 'Anyone with any common sense would have gotten the message and gone back home by now' so the author is either extremely persistant or a complete idiot, possibly a combination of the two.
It's not a terrible read but I certainly didn't enjoy it and I've read a couple of endurance driving books now, this isn't anywhere near as good considering the author is supposed to be a professional journalist - I'm not remotely surprised the Sunday Times wouldn't print any of his articles.
Avoid!
I have to assume the author took a PDF & ran it through Calibre to produce the MOBI/Kindle version of this. Sadly he didn't bother checking it afterwards as there are tons of broken lines, bad punctuation and broken sentances starts.
Far to many instances of T for 'I and as a journalist he should know better.
The book needs MASSIVE work on the proofing & equally massive amounts on the layout as some sections are just far too long. It needs to be split into either cohesive chapters or sections with actual dates on so it's easier to measure the passage of time instead a year here and a year there.
In places the author goes a bit mad with over describing where he is at that point in time which will lead to frequent skipping forward of at least 1 or 2 pages to get past. For a book that promises to be a photographic record and that is over 1 meg in size there are only 2 pictures in the e-version.
Numerous times during the journey I thought to myself 'Anyone with any common sense would have gotten the message and gone back home by now' so the author is either extremely persistant or a complete idiot, possibly a combination of the two.
It's not a terrible read but I certainly didn't enjoy it and I've read a couple of endurance driving books now, this isn't anywhere near as good considering the author is supposed to be a professional journalist - I'm not remotely surprised the Sunday Times wouldn't print any of his articles.
Avoid!
December 24, 2013
An excellent photo book to accompany the original book, I purchased this directly after finishing Jupiter's Travel's and it's fantastic to see so many of the places and people he met finally realised in enhanced, colour photo's.
Although the layout and formatting isn't that inspiring its the photo's you're here to see and they clearly take pride of place, with brief captions on the side giving them some background and neatly organised in order of his journey. The photo's themselves have been brilliantly enhanced and the double page shots look amazing.
Normally books like this I like to flick through and pick out specific chapters of interest to read but this I read cover to cover. A seriously essential item for any fan of Jupiter's Travel's.
Although the layout and formatting isn't that inspiring its the photo's you're here to see and they clearly take pride of place, with brief captions on the side giving them some background and neatly organised in order of his journey. The photo's themselves have been brilliantly enhanced and the double page shots look amazing.
Normally books like this I like to flick through and pick out specific chapters of interest to read but this I read cover to cover. A seriously essential item for any fan of Jupiter's Travel's.
January 5, 2016
This is a bit of a niche book. If you have read Jupiter's Travels by Ted Simon you will enjoy this book. It is also interesting for a photographer. Do not be expecting crisp, clear digital photos, however. One has to keep in mind that these photos were taken in the mid 70's on Kodachrome. Some of the film was not developed until years after the exposures were made. As I said before, this is a book for people that have already read Simon's previous work and would like a little more.
June 1, 2015
Great book! I had read Jupiter's Travels previously and this photo book was superb!! Made me want to read more by Ted Simon.
August 30, 2016
a nicely produced book with great pictures
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews