Naked in Budapest: travels with a passionate nomad

by Heather Hapeta

After 'running away from home' later than most, and travelling the world solo with no bookings, and then whether naked in Budapest, canoeing down the Zambesi, sailing the Great Barrier Reef, eating durian on a Malaysian beach, cooking in Athens, shaking hands with the King of Cambodia, watching bear cubs in Alaska, visiting Gracelands, or having a young lover, Heather says she feels most alive when on the road.
A slow traveler, Heather gets to know locals, eat their food, and learn something of their language, culture, and religion.

Genres: Travel

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 15, 2007

About the author

Heather was first published in 1998 .. a story about her canoeing trip down the Zambezi River. Since then she has had hundreds of travel articles printed in magazines & newspapers around the world.

She loves to interact with readers and especially values reviews on Amazon and Goodreads - thank you n advance!

Reviews

[Vicky Pilkington · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable travel memoir about a solo female traveller who prefers to go off the beaten path

[Jeanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book about a Woman's experiences travelling, the people she met, the places she visited. I picked up good tips for when I travel further abroad, but you don't need to be planning travel to enjoy this book

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well I am biased as I am the author and all the adventures in it are mine!

This travel memoir tells of my experiences as I travel the world for about 3 years, alone, and with no bookings - and on the very first night I'm on the streets of Seattle WA looking for a cheap bed .. I was sure the hostel would have one for me!

Oh, and by the way I was 50 years old when I put the backpack on and took off, travelling from my home in New Zealand, to Alaska and onto Zimbabwe with some 35 countries in between.

So I've done this, written this and yes, read this book ... when I get really old I will re-read it and know I have had many wonderful times.

To read others opinions, see my blog (www.kiwitravelwriter.wordpress.com) which has a page of their comments.

[Katelynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

At the beginning, I was drawn in because Heather Hapeta was exploring places I’ve also been to in both the U.S. and Europe. I enjoyed seeing familiar destinations through someone else’s eyes, and her passion for travel and storytelling came through clearly.

Unfortunately, the book quickly started to lose me. The writing felt surprisingly unpolished—full of typos, grammatical errors, and incomplete sentences. Considering Heather’s experience as a travel writer, I expected much more. At times, it almost read like it hadn’t been edited, which made it distracting to follow.

The second half of the book was harder still. The transitions between places were abrupt—one paragraph might describe one country, and the next would suddenly be about somewhere completely different with no explanation of how or why she moved on. The flow felt disjointed and sometimes unrealistic, which made it difficult to stay engaged.

Overall, it wasn’t a terrible read, but it was often difficult to get through and didn’t live up to its potential.

[Ashleigh · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got this book for free and I would still consider asking for a refund. DNF'd at 58% and the only reason I let myself get that far in is for the nostalgia of travel. It's not only badly written, badly edited it is unbelievably critical, judgmental of others and just annoying. One page the author is talking about being vegetarian then the next page is describing her evening meal with meat ..?! Travel is by no means perfect but I felt this book focused a lot on the negative parts and the author did not fully appreciate the chance she had.

I just didn't get a good feeling from this book and would not recommend to anyone.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very enjoyable and inspiring book, and I very much enjoyed vicariously traveling with the author to many different places throughout the world. I appreciated her love for each culture and her sharing some of the joys and challenges of being a 50 year old backbacker. I loved her sincere appreciation for the food, history, religion, and peoples, without any hint of ethnocentrism on her part--something I found refreshing. I would have given the book a 5 but there are numerous typos throughout the kindle edition, which would be rather easy to fix. Well written.

[Esther Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life of an Adventurer

As a globetrotter of 85 countries, I was so thrilled to read this book. The author is funny, witty, and I love how she sees adventure. Highly recommend this book!

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome

This book was great. I felt like was traveling with the author and it made me want to visit all the places she went.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Certainly a different travel book - lone female past the youthful backpacking stage.

[Debra · Rating 2 out of 5]

I find bad editing off-putting, and this did not pull me in. It's a little too self-absorbed and repetitive. Some good commentaries on travel locations.