How Not to Travel the World: Adventures of a Disaster-Prone Backpacker / Lauren Juliff

It was hitting rock bottom that convinced Lauren to quit her job, sell everything she owned, and travel the world alone. It wasn’t an easy decision: she suffered from debilitating anxiety, was battling an eating disorder, and had just had her heart broken. Not only that, but she had so little life experience that she had never eaten rice or been on a bus.

She’d hoped leaving everything behind would help her find and heal herself, but instead Lauren's travels were full of bad luck and near-death experiences. She was scammed and assaulted; lost teeth and swallowed a cockroach. She fell into leech-infested rice paddies, was caught up in a tsunami, had the brakes of her motorbike fail, and experienced a very unhappy ending in Thailand. It was just as she was about to give up on travel when she stumbled across a handsome New Zealander with a love of challenges...

How Not to Travel The World is about following your dreams, no matter how many curveballs life throws at you. It’s about learning to get out of your comfort zone, finding the humour in messed up situations, and falling in love with life on the road.