I've done a lot of travel reading lately, but haven't found anything exactly inspirational and personal at the same time. A lot of what I've read has been quite good, but just not exactly what I was looking for. And then I saw Letters to Zerky: A Father's Legacy to a Lost Son and a Road Trip Around the World on the shelf in the store. I had walked by it several times in the past since it's been out since 2009, but it caught my attention this time around. And I'm glad it did since it was exact...

I knew that after reading Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country, anything that followed most likely would be a let down. Nonetheless, I picked up Cold Beer and Crocodiles: A Bicycle Journey into Australia by Roff Smith. I was keen to to continue reading about traveling, particularly in advance of my trip to Australia, and this seemed like a good book to keep the wheel turning.

In the book, author Roff Smith details his bike ride around Australia from Sydney, north along the coast to Cairns,...