Jupiter’s Travels

Ted Simon recounts the four years he spent riding a Triumph motorcycle around the world in the 1970s. The trip took him through breakdowns, a spell in prison, war, revolutions and disasters, as well as a stay at a commune in California, and the people he met regarded him variously as a spy, a god or a welcome stranger. Simon, who grew up in England with a German mother and a Romanian father, had given up an early career in science for journalism. The book was the first of his works on motorcycle travel, and it later inspired the riders Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, whose Long Way Round it is credited with sparking.

Joan Boixados, founder of everydayCheck, recommended it as the story of a man who rode a motorbike around the world alone in the 1970s.