{"id":2643,"date":"2017-04-16T20:27:32","date_gmt":"2017-04-16T20:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/charlottamiles.com\/blog\/?p=2643"},"modified":"2024-08-16T22:13:05","modified_gmt":"2024-08-16T22:13:05","slug":"charlottamiles-south-and-north-new-book-announcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/charlottamiles.com\/blog\/2017\/04\/16\/charlottamiles-south-and-north-new-book-announcement\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlottamiles South and North – New Book Announcement"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Everyone!
\nWelcome to all of you who are new to our blog!
\nNed and Kat (and Charlotte!) are happy to announce the publication of our second book, Charlottamiles South and North, Nevada to Argentina to Alaska \u2013 A Circuitous Sojourn in a VW Syncro. As most of you know, in December 2013, we took off in Charlotte, our 4\u00d74 VW Vanagon, and spent fourteen months driving to the southern tip of South America. Then in 2016, we racked up another two months on the road, making it to the top of the continent, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. This book is a compilation of our entire blog (which we posted along the way) and has been formatted into an enormous eBook! It is 2,187 pages and has 2,300 color photos. It is so large that our publisher said we could only offer it through Amazon Kindle or Apple iBooks. Apologies to those of you who still love paper books, but we really are thrilled to offer the blog in a much easier to read format. There are so many large posts that it has been difficult to navigate the blog site! We had a lot of fun reliving the adventures as we went through the publishing process, and for any of you who would like to do the same, just click here for Kindle <\/a>and here for iBooks.<\/a>
\nBoth of us feel strongly blessed to be in a position to travel and would love to share our adventures with as many people as are interested in riding along. Please help us \u201cpay it forward\u201d by sharing and writing online reviews.<\/p>\n

Below is the published book description:<\/p>\n

Follow Ned, Kat and Charlotte (an intrepid 1987 Volkswagen 4\u00d74 Vanagon) as they wander the Americas, turning the 10,000 crow-fly miles from Ushuaia, Argentina to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska into 40,000 circuitous ones. With no route planning, no internet research and a penchant for bush camping and remote, dirt tracks, Ned and Kat\u2019s experiences and unexpected encounters while living on the road will leave you breathless. With 2,300 fascinating photos and plenty of exciting, unpredictable and electrifying stories, you will find yourself along for the ride of a lifetime.
\n\u201cAt 6am, December 21st, right on schedule, Ned and I looked at each other in the pre-dawn dark of the bus, gulped a couple of times and said goodbye to all the comforts of home. The future was now an immense unknown. I felt this crazy fluctuation of feelings bouncing around somewhere between the anticipation of elated excitement and the apprehension of sheer terror. But how incredibly fortunate we were; the road ahead was not so much a black hole as a blank canvas.\u201d Excerpt from Charlottamiles South and North
\nFrom the vivid color and vibrancy of Mexico, to the jungles of Central America and the soaring elevations of the Andes, Ned and Kat delve into a rich diversity of people, culture and food with honesty, humor and insight.
\n\u201cFollowing Charlotte and her human counterparts, Ned and Kat Bacon, through the Americas is to live a vicarious adventure. Their plan was to \u201chave no plan at all;\u201d simply travel south until they reached land\u2019s-end. During this multi-year trek the trio navigates, in a zigzag kind of way, a gauntlet of third-world challenges with the prowess of a kayaker through Class-V rapids. They seek out the roads less traveled, immerse themselves in foreign cultures, and savor the aroma of street food cuisine. I am inspired by those who step away from the norm, take adventure into their own hands, and let the trip take them in the direction that the wind blows.\u201d Chris Collard, Editor-in-Chief, Overland Journal<\/p>\n

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While we are shamelessly promoting our books\u2026don\u2019t forget our first one, Saving Charlotte, Fumbling Across America with a Reluctant VW Bus, the story of how we found Charlotte in Hartford, CT and brought her home. This book is more widely available at booksellers like Amazon<\/a> in both paper and eBook formats and is shorter, but a lot of fun. Below is the published description:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe drove away in an unlicensed car that we did not legally own, complete with a bashed in front end, a badly cracked windshield, and a headlight propped in with duct tape, a tree branch and a piece of foam found lying on the ground. It was not an encouraging way to start our 3,000 mile journey!\u201d
\nEver dream of buying a one-way airline ticket to purchase a sight-unseen, salvage titled automobile and drive it across the country? Join Kat and Ned as they \u201crescue\u201d Charlotte, an unlicensed, reluctant, but endearing VW Syncro bus who drags her wheels at first, but eventually really gets rolling. Kat and Ned had a vision of building up a Syncro into a cool, capable overland adventure vehicle, dreaming of the advantages of \u201cbus living.\u201d But would the dream turn into a nightmare?
\nThe adventures and mis-adventures are hilarious, turning a four day drive from Connecticut to Nevada into a two week escapade of mysterious mechanical issues, cop-dodging, heat waves, torrential thunderstorms, missing credit cards, and Mississippi mud baths.
\nCan\u2019t get out of Hartford\u2026Can\u2019t get out of Buffalo\u2026Can\u2019t get out of Elkhart\u2026you can\u2019t imagine what can go wrong on a trip like this! Charlotte balks, spits, sputters and lurches but never stalls, while Kat and Ned persevere, finding that, in spite of her VW idiosyncrasies, Charlotte has a truly endearing soul. They also find that their dream of \u201cbus living\u201d has become an addictive reality.
\n\u201cOnly in a VW Bus would somebody attempt something like this\u2026and get away with it! What a great story! A must-read not only for the VW Bus crowd\u2014but for the wanna- be\u2019s too!\u201d
\nS. Lucas Valdes \u2013 GoWesty Campers<\/p>\n

Happy trails for now! Stay tuned for more adventures!
\nNed and Kat<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Everyone! Welcome to all of you who are new to our blog! Ned and Kat (and Charlotte!) are happy to announce the publication of our second book, Charlottamiles South and North, Nevada to Argentina to Alaska \u2013 A Circuitous … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/charlottamiles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/charlottamiles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/charlottamiles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charlottamiles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charlottamiles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2643"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/charlottamiles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3170,"href":"https:\/\/charlottamiles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643\/revisions\/3170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/charlottamiles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charlottamiles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charlottamiles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}