This is the inspiring story of an ordinary guy who achieved two great goals that others had told him were impossible. First, he set a record for the longest automobile journey ever made around the world, during the course of which he blasted his way out of minefields, survived a breakdown atop the Peak of Death, came within seconds of being lynched in Pakistan, and lost three of the five men who started with him, two to disease, one to the Vietcong.


After that—although it took him forty-seven more years—Albert Podell set another record by going to every country on Earth. He achieved this by surviving riots, civil wars, trigger-happy child soldiers, voodoo priests, robbers, corrupt cops, and Cape buffalo. He went around, under, or through every kind of natural disaster. He ate everything from old camel meat and rats to dung beetles and the brain of a live monkey. And he overcame attacks by crocodiles, hippos, anacondas, giant leeches, flying crabs—and several beautiful girlfriends who insisted that he stop this nonsense and marry them.