Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Nine Horizons: Travels in Sundry Places
    The Nine Horizons: Travels in Sundry Places
    The Nine Horizons: Travels in Sundry Places
    Ebook278 pages4 hours

    The Nine Horizons: Travels in Sundry Places

    By Mike Robbins

    4.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    In 1987 Mike Robbins, a young journalist in London, felt restless and decided to travel. He never really stopped. In the quarter century that followed he lived and worked in countries as diverse as the world itself. The pieces in this book take the reader from rural Sudan to the headwaters of the Amazon, from Semana Santa in Quito to Buddhist temples in the Himalayas, across Bhutan on a motorbike, into the ancient souk of Aleppo, to the steppes of Central Asia and finally to New York.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateMar 17, 2014
    ISBN9780991437436
    The Nine Horizons: Travels in Sundry Places
    Author

    Mike Robbins

    Mike Robbins is a sought-after motivational speaker and leader of personal development workshops and coaching programs for individuals, groups, and organizations throughout North America. He is the author of the bestselling book Focus on the Good Stuff and has been featured on ABC News, the Oprah and Friends radio network, Forbes, and many others.

    Read more from Mike Robbins

    Related to The Nine Horizons

    Related ebooks

    Essays & Travelogues For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Love Comes In The Morning

      May 13, 2019

      Love Comes In The Morning
      6 min read

    • Article

      Three Outsiders In Makhanda

      Nov 24, 2023

      Three Outsiders In Makhanda
      9 min read

    • Article

      THE BATTLE FOR Kurrumbede

      Jul 21, 2019

      Ghosts shift soundlessly across drought-stricken paddocks. In abandoned slab huts, Doris Day smiles from an old magazine cover, and a gate leg table with barley twist legs lies in pieces on a broken floor. Desiccated umbrella grass tangles in stables

      9 min read

    • Article

      Travel Sickness

      Aug 24, 2022

      Travel Sickness
      5 min read

    • Article

      Into A Brave New World

      May 18, 2020

      Into A Brave New World
      8 min read

    • Article

      Oxford Karma

      Sep 1, 2022

      Oxford Karma
      3 min read

    • Article

      Document

      Mar 23, 2023

      n"This book encapsulates everything I loved about Soho. It's about what was an underbelly of London, where everything came together - underground drinking places, an eccentric literary scene, sex, everything Soho represented at that time. I started w

      5 min read

    • Article

      Exploring The Eastern Townships

      Mar 22, 2022

      Exploring The Eastern Townships
      6 min read

    • Article

      Behind The Fake News

      Dec 27, 2019

      Behind The Fake News
      7 min read

    • Article

      Small Is Still Beautiful

      Dec 16, 2020

      THINK small: it’s more beautiful. Years ago, I was chased around a dining table in Shad Thames by a feisty publisher called Anthony Blond, one of the last of a generation who believed in three-bottle lunches and flying by the seat of his pants. I was

      2 min read

    • Article

      Mandela’s Cape Town

      Feb 1, 2024

      Mandela’s Cape Town
      8 min read

    • Article

      1990s Notebook

      Oct 5, 2022

      AS a tearful Margaret Thatcher was driven from Downing Street on a chilly November morning in late 1990, Britain’s first female Prime Minister seemed to reflect the national mood of foreboding: the BSE crisis, the devastating bombing campaigns in Nor

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Symposium on Deserts

      Mar 1, 2019

      A Symposium on Deserts
      24 min read

    • Article

      Too Much, Magic Bus

      Dec 9, 2019

      Too Much, Magic Bus
      8 min read

    • Article

      Borderline

      Feb 20, 2019

      Borderline
      19 min read

    • Article

      Gothic Whitby

      Oct 21, 2021

      Gothic Whitby
      6 min read

    • Article

      Meet You In The Accurseds

      Feb 17, 2023

      Meet You In The Accurseds
      6 min read

    • Article

      Meet You In The Accurseds

      Feb 17, 2023

      Meet You In The Accurseds
      6 min read

    • Article

      In Paddy's footsteps

      Dec 14, 2022

      I wonder what Paddy Leigh Fermor would have made of it. The doyen of travel writers, a dedicated pedestrian who trudged across Europe from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople and always embraced St Augustine's creed of solvitur ambulando – it is so

      5 min read

    • Article

      Florida Man

      Dec 1, 2023

      Florida Man
      17 min read

    • Article

      Exmoor Ecstasy

      Jun 2, 2021

      Exmoor Ecstasy
      4 min read

    • Article

      Iain Ayre Time And Place

      Dec 24, 2021

      Iain Ayre Time And Place
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Nine Horizons

    4.5/5

    5 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      After going on a round-the-world gap year, you might claim to have ‘travelled’. Next to Mike Robbins, however, you will realise that your journey was the equivalent of a short jolly holiday.The author of this book has spent most of his adult life travelling to vastly different countries; staying and working in some for years at a time. Putting so many years of memories into a single book of 258 pages is no easy feat and Robbins manages to do it rather well. However, when I came to the end of the first chapter in Sudan, I was left feeling that I wanted more - I was only just becoming acquainted with the country and its people - but then I reminded myself that this book is supposed to be seen as a series of snapshots, so it was then on to the next place, and Sudan was soon forgotten. I quickly got used to the change of scenery, and I just let myself go along for the ride, but occasionally I would still feel like I wanted more from certain places. For instance, Robbins spends four years in Aleppo and yet it’s one of the shortest chapters. With such a place now so firmly out of bounds, I would have liked to have known much more about Syria in the mid-nineties. As much as Robbins is a very accomplished writer, I did feel like there could have been more of the man in the book. We get to know him well enough through various scenes and narration, but at the end of the day, this book is a memoir as much as it is a travel book (even if the author may disagree), so it would have been nice to have had more personal moments included. Not everybody will just up and leave and have no one home, so I’d have been interested to know more about the motives and philosophies of the author. Minor nit-picking aside, this is everything a good travel book should be. It vibrantly describes places and scenes. It makes you want to be there yourself and sometimes it makes you feel as though you are there. It contains just the right amount of information on each place, whether it’s about the history, the economy, the ecology or the agriculture. It also includes sharp observations about the people and the cultures, alongside good humoured and funny stories.I’m pretty confident that you won’t find another travel book that contains: Sudan, Ecuador, Bhutan, Syria, Brazil, New York and others, nor any that would give you a very real glimpse into each place in quite the same way, so I’m very glad I went on this journey and recommend that you do too.
    • 5/5
      “The Nine Horizons: Travel In Sundry Places” is billed as a series of snapshots and lives up to this claim, offering nine sparkling vignettes of the author's experiences in Sudan, Quito in Ecuador, a rainforest (Ecuador again), Bhutan, Syria, Central Asia, Brazil, New York, and during an England to USA crossing.His method of financing his travels is through “development”, a vaguely worded profession that consists of volunteer work for the UN, the EU, NGO's, and other do-gooder organizations. His interests began in 1987 with the modest goal of getting out of a journalistic rut in London and escalated toward language studies. Ultimately, the theory and practice of economic development was taken on at advanced levels.His interest in hiking is usually presented as the highpoint of his travels in each country, possibly because it allowed him a quite literal overview of the country. In the structure of the book, recollections of his hiking serve a different purpose: they allow plenty of free space within which he can touch on the diversity of these lands and on the integrity of the vastly different peoples and cultures he has helped and learned from. Make no mistake, if you read this book, you too will learn. Robbins is a master teacher and his methods are beguiling.The first sentence: “You do not need to know much about me” contains only nine words, but they set the tone, which is both understated and supremely confident. Once immersed in the book, we understand why. His writing style appears to grow organically out of his journeys, for the stories show that he took countries as he found them. He sought out central areas of the cities for solitary living quarters, for example, rather than settling for suburban comforts. He often arrived into and exited from a country with his worldly possessions crammed into a single knapsack, albeit the contents may have changed. In between times, he clambered up and down mountain trails with alacrity and agility (notwithstanding bashing a rib or two). Robbins is a great travel writer but there are surely limits to what one can imply through clouds, and I fear that he reached the limit about half-way through the book. White, fluffy, fat, pale, wispy, foggy or otherwise, I was glad when the clouds (or the incessant rain for that matter) cleared out and made way for more earth-bound matters. Other than this quirk, I enjoyed his descriptive verse, which must account for the majority of the book. Long passages can be tiring, but fortunately he is also a master of the short sentence, and the results are never less than graceful. One might question what makes a man travel so persistently, but there is a discernible arc to the stories, and, ultimately, a satisfying resolution — which need not be revealed here. Robbins seems occasionally to mistrust “progress” almost as much as some of the remote rainforest tribes he profiles. Can you blame him? His creed, if it were reduced to a few words, might sound something like “...feeding the world without wrecking it...” (page 194). Saving the world is a large problem, and I don't mean to give the impression that Robbins claims to know how. But, this book does show that he found the world and its inhabitants to be beautiful, which may be a more important thing. Only in the last few pages does Robbins' writing become a bit more abstract as he draws a few lessons from the body of the book. These are well-founded observations perfectly pitched to what has gone before. Like many of the propeller-driven airplane rides just described, these observations bring the reader to a graceful touch-down after an exhilarating and enlightening flight. It's interesting to note that “Nine Horizons” is only one of three books that Robbins published in early 2014. Having enjoyed this first one so much, it makes me happy to think of what lies ahead.

    Book preview

    The Nine Horizons - Mike Robbins

    1^book_preview_excerpt.html}|˶F`h"%/{%?׵TUI"IB0FݓԗܽwDJtHx/O0=~elzvu,ҡ:clǡ#|GxC՗^ ?e}} qY u]J١=|[ ?}kj^}cЖ]6?z=Wy@#{U_jPP7VCLXbNx~3>gX XF=LuUcqI}SB)g^ϻcx Om{FmžOP귴 P~ &UT^7ݧn .M&|GTcrQ c,㽉|Cn,<(K{YU(4W~fANj1 , @K9^aܻ·Fļ'Ʃ4uWӘUey  1TaGMcn7qm3 OfL*rZ஻:=@+SӿsM=a^z;i?s* Rф+m0a]iO- C]NaR䨗 [}1ڢ}SׇKP~vPc7i~mᮯ}Jc^Elvl= WCxֻko[(ꦘRRJXC_&>v8XF>qi|0F^Zoy7ϭ:9Y M-WD2Ot<Ɓjcӑs-+\6RM駟o筻q ]-@b9f󟋧}}'O>ddYAR$IWYa}}ƈ>3nإN^+ϡzOoS(Sk>@׾ 3>%Sû+^ 8O>''ۧ=_嫟Z=լs*ҮJ>t+: \ІnQ/jlAj6 JGBšP#TJۄzU!1gEZN]4h 6 +Ce&צ!qOJ=.Ta@00& PY|Ca٧Ao%>2 x&b8BC]&Z"pǀX.V'L$k ű]'XFwr]u;dOp^@Ο›p>-wA nR{ZӃCp=]"d1V;]͹ψ5O韊nLNШឮq&Ί.+k~$`=/|XUN-v> ^!5h}olj!qU?yCZDMȬvoOUyO䥭^{aFFu܏$OnްXDž&갏7z|T7#`P0FRˍ,f( ChzݻܦKclEZu}SXwP3,,ׇj);bb>H9,~,'%p"$/jůT.ǯ)uoDڗ{Gev\>p4% P`? 2~NU2ca9eZyŞ}`DkyĪr" hy[Kl›X#o![  e> p{S2n漥 OCzdj.wŏ|!5czcMQMgpJ}7Wt,n{d1yTo+`ȩ|$aϡOID'J rAL-B§; M){|De~c="ŭ3y*p1M@AƀDB} Wlh;%]%[3[YMc"VRin'!D (acP!/'*n$u5Yޖ-R w0c$gZ ~f*y_40Ȑ֎a? yC@Ri"gްZb: p}cI}6bZG* ݂Ӳ#&tT":y "<+ḙNlGZ.a pP&@k ɵ1I %9 \ɩihx=16N+w9j cP> ūI.L}/6]谫)53HW?!4ij*'੃06k&GaMY'Q"x;8 >268?d L1o~t?f` {a_P66)iRg1Uv OuFXHDUQo'h8F'tcw%g.Zt"LNڟZ=;{V@d›ov58 ~Lj8yǂCÏsݞ#\V19{ 96ۄ`z[S vkWh? Fdwg2FlPgy$OF--CXy_7E^b } sMUM^gM+hlwmvQn+pf@RKk2ƈY|bj^pOD IsK Hxdq,dV?^B}wۦٮ;6k6JVL(^yMf@dDy2#&!3j  &O"^#;# '@`\X`޵鑨ye62y|0Rw{bx5; QIGK BL:eNp#\4.e H@PP2l+:U;(28S/JNANW:=cE~2F=N Ulw]9QjBH\ٴ=#Fsniډ;JAK&䁜̼8'DwΘkf]+U.˛VxWb ҃O;5g^U#!T06A^?UT`JhpVEb^:􊖪ѝ,^GAQ ?|_ Mp>ME&4W Fƙx]WE?c}ew}QVi*X7O U 5]3NtN!Q񢁯B/Ue4R3fFK88k&R؊a΃iԋ{Nݛ[R.ش{c))Ƨ]su(<0BTuLz "mpPJHsۅXM{ d'%v"9d:rQiKU1]+eb%oIL Xg=*borPj^b5:S4q5"L:͜8gxno9i -K]iyĔuKADg)$ 󗗿(՞|'2-+zaȴ2%hW$2`[8yqX0d"&:D-Q㧟qOt[ju3 *d ߌZb< <6Ā QM^0 $a5/%!rRʧj5Vy.BDV( I LGiĪۮ1Qѿ n XB!^ʚx_яcgWq\(uڙsR1tZr5{|n@05&W5+WF a?.27Z'`O#pXY7-~ .asM2\M׍]t."sɐKVܲʱ}=MU@Pt\9bC븜nE\I44mL^?t6|i5zv !cXane;7*BOn3Xⲡʴx HBn P8.E_VڠZ&𓑥4%[\#zwІ -BS5w*C9 1ʍi Q~Xuz)i~C &w/p.FCE[̊O"B ^sz^#̛k +yˊgɘIu9"+f=q#T紞uJqXTR\ ߧE82FWgA3`⽠nw[Ӽ#Qtl!xH!]; f]=$~vk\٬2L޼LgVB|)ԟoM *Rnng3\BK]W""{R -\Gzhph+h0H('EFLoiJ ӯ9|lB輖-JX, U-Fznjƕ@#6T?d|yDÙXȀC48=ZZS;./cDfV:D{'ƽ+8śJ'⿟`PjTһg5JǪM3u =sp Ez9&gLLɪ3~7B==N@+WfP9amH!#3ݚ40[kx1dUP=8"f#DԻ0 pT*WLLZjJ:*Z}Q7%[VY]vIԹtAlA'#˜ؠD. |`@$`}g>&."Pl [9[FAhتULmK>)az*f~8 ٱuKek'N dm/M9%#й_ͬaL0SVH`_@ ZV"U;J7Xx{΅,ߢ -z D.+-z⬦#s1$mk04]Z_ejl9D?vZS~HR@oTm2jGXMW|OeRF2#3̊f{[A `^mc i^\f3]vjPcFK-Q7g74is]OhњMrRYx^Uvv)|wpK2af$u]gGٱj~"iRqI^gάXȪg瑼 ;$'` ADL$VX#,vdζXǘtc37a6\2Iࡳk S<2 я&T;u G ޲1lDFX1_|qܳ a"S -T=]VlJx] ~%Md'#ֵ)f=? dYiW#[#2JG-/.Vd`Vkr@!B]:Y+Wϱ:TQ 57~`u$~1C|!@-/jH鸪*.[ʆna̭Yi*rSOMO|r9"D["V1cr͍Nʚʑ7vOX"6tYzF X)*M(8Gm7jJ)F:ñMGenKdIUʦU#{w35C:5qN rҎ- 6"]dEȨ>H>ꜺI&ģB28X>aa.(W,d`SrݒZ>9JT@?^gTkpч^Gn+dcz'TÇp@QXl.LUKn_'Cur3L]k_@0: ˩W /2za^OGtuWc˅e$D|_ܭv 9!VPt܅I1n ܭd]Bk;hA`AuCT:Ze͎'̢K1\fj廴bW^lڀW \G_AW-QrQ|YKIO+. [ږ-`M$UrH3#z lI5\q#~NUFt+oU99r;J_j50yv7+Qgv(N&B*s~9YAa)j=Oq?'P?yW^ϒd!EF7K?m/i'25?&!bϏp@Ff(x[R$} l¬t5q2R(scpzmY  ؃2@!.;E"rYo*k1vSeReI?fr/6J;EПI1wKI:}y6TXOORKv9yj=x5f9]^'uXss)&cE|y<*e,6t%;)l-3슗-}\4"Pmu:( =['y{*)JLEWT1z, ) )0,[@("Ķ!X iڔ-MdB+{gSUj~noW C <&CSGyu<46Pб<h>6; u3t2Ŵ0>uR '9͗kO^ ]'%qɞv_7Bby>~i7:#bE#*9p3~7'$P".,1L':&4z/ ('hp&Mp0/7mQb`Oz`/^sZS6iREt.C\+֭"V_ D3/wrLv6C80sN.U{<^&]Ej{9^?-S3֤JFڥ-lf97\uh62O/R +SV4{r>YnWz_u(W.q 0àJhN:!8s".! M{auS;ɇ`Mݎ)G8וF󥾟*MOƓj3L񭶵3Ш^:co!rġ)䝶\A3ڬ[H=V+@Ɓqe7U4JvyϠC4ɺŶ`a#DtxCȷ+kSjw026ڌ P-vN)!NMSoߒ>}hYzB٪(d-pqJLZ7tXoG<ڣrc<1z?UQ'/B{{5ZOq5~tF>½PVxe5Yj5>qs|E40*.m+vz?͡sFը!A I~L@ϾGCz/S;8]g:?ԋi_0 ޳?_Ld?! im;\BLmLK8yݣ3zKAܜ̼n24낭OƬE_I!KGGuE<̻sc 0D)I셍t{텋ҳ% CfϸFr,"v=fcC9DUX(y]ı{ew] MMꌾC#o@f]ε~\fcupX? A Y:6~a.5JN7a$p13g<9k_>R|,7s -wt( o;Fև0eQsZI;Sn|?oY΄aTXԻ$Dc9vC,yxSC9zKv(k9Se]'d WjrIZDVzK5왜J$1kOSJdoo"EU)iȢU庋s@lJ벬Nk7$TX'|SZr;[[67\h!vV1rE`:^e(Cz2TmP5<6gr.o9rm@h93n8dr p)R <_sϜ;zW MT]G#0{ 󭽬*Kʯ.5_ }8tc $~3 {cݽa~++rzeKbr&ݢZ*RlVmJmFa[|K )P1ji9RvX9*7Mj zU.sf %_zk|eG;Kn`XoWE,>z q\q$V`Ys"oA]6۽&jZ=TW/7G/QVo :a31iӗv$lxhU ^_iU +θӺ.[/mv']CK'ޛ|ͺSɳ%39EDC9Vq "2VdbWEE6B%b=~Y/[J?⥉\dYwC'\ "D"8N=e9ve\U7󚡛ÂjNR5zÑ|rf Jm[3wBrY|M̧s?,2Lz ܨǏx]ǟgdnܚajK*†jg*~9'?-w|G^ hXu|WL0ULKmAOGsȼ8ЭZm7XAoXL::f,"/,t٫(>RV/3Y5좱 Px7,cuDYiX>⟟=b0z1jL;ӵ3-~[*ȵ4YY$UͬL*VR͚uN  K͚g*`ZK8,Zς}w8q9۫SYY/gfʎ Di7 a]
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1