Well written and thoughtful, introspective but satirical, the self deprecating hero will appeal to us Brits.. Literary fiction/travel/humour at its most effective.

Not just a fiction travel novel but one person's exploration of himself, what one needs to be happy, we are all trying to work out who we are and what makes us happy.
‘So you’re the clever fella who thinks he can find love in places rather than in people,’ Anne said....

This work highlights the importance of the relationships we make with other people,
"Or is it the case that the more you travel, the more you realise that actually we’re all the same."

There is also an exploration of materialism throughout, the need to have more of everything, in this case visits to other countries, to justify ourselves. Does this lead to happiness?

Travel Fiction May Be The Best Travel Writing

In 1985 Jan Morris, the brilliant Welsh travel writer, published "Last Letters From Hav", a book that so exquisitely described the beauty, wonder, history, politics, culture, and appeal of "Hav", an entirely fictional place, that hopeful travelers besieged travel agencies for years trying to arrange visits there. That book came to mind as I read this wonderful addition to the fake-travel genre.

Thinking about other travel memoirs by authors I admire, (Theroux, Bryson, Eric Newby, and so on), it occurred to me that fictional memoirs offer so much more opportunity for exploration and satire and entertainment. Nonfiction practitioners are limited to what they experience, their own preconceptions, and their own attitudes and personalities, and the best they can hope for is that they have enough interesting experiences to elaborate on, dress up, or exaggerate into book length. But a fiction writer has an unlimited canvas upon which to work. Create a hero, invent a fictional world, and then introduce whatever events and supporting characters seem interesting.

That's what you get here. There is sly and deadpan commentary as well as antic buffoonery. Hotels, travel agents, airlines, the traveling public, travel connoisseurs - they all get comic treatment. Travelers of all levels of experience and style will find themselves identifying with certain experiences and nodding along with the hero's withering observations. This is pointed and perceptive stuff. Of course, part of the joke is that Kavanagh shares many of the less appealing characteristics that he mocks in others, but for me that just added another, maybe more subtle, layer to the satire.

Perhaps even better than the jokes and commentary is the fact that our fictional hero, Jack Kavanagh, is much more interesting than most real non-fiction memoirists. The real authors have whatever personal baggage life has given them - daddy issues, marriage issues, general grumpiness, world weary dismay. But Kavanagh, having been created out of thin air, is a more layered, and surprising, protagonist. Even as we play along with and enjoy his whinging and grim despair we find that a more interesting and sympathetic character is being teased out. At some point we realize that this is, in part, a meditation on loneliness disguised as a travel comedy.

In any event, I thought this had enough good lines, enough fine moments, and such a well realized fictional setting that I was happy to bump it up on my list of fake travelogues. A nice, if slightly off the beaten path, find.

(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

The Excursionist is a really interesting read for anyone who loves to travel or is a frequent traveller. It was a thoroughly enjoyable read.
“The excursionist, being an account of the attempt of Jack Kaganagh to visit his ninety-eighth, ninety-ninth and one hundredth countries and thereby ensure membership of the Traveller’s Century Club.”
I loved the quote for part one of the book by Evelyn Waugh, at the age of thirty-five one needs to go to the moon or some such place, to recapture the excitement with which one first landed at Calais.
For his final choices of destinations he has chosen to go to the Coronation Islands which are between Madagascar and Sri Lanka. Country 98 is Placentia, 99 is Kilrush and 100 is Fulgary. His ambition is to join the ranks of travellers who have visited 100 countries or more.
Booking the holidays for him is a way of escaping from the drudgery of everyday life, of knowing what is going to happen every day.
This book is part travel guide, part humorous memoir. It was a joy to read and Jack was an interesting character who it was easy to empathise with.
“Placentia is a place for wildlife and birdlike enthusiasts. In fact, with the exception of Thursdays late-night opening in peak season down at the museum…there were no nightlife, architecture, clubs, waterfalls, mountains, salt lakes, cave paintings, volcanoes, beaches, temples, churches, or indeed anything worthy of mention apart from the plant life, birdlife and wildlife. If you didn’t like those you didn’t like Placentia.”
According to Jack the first law of travel is that the smaller a country or hotel is the better it is. The second law of travel is, if you go away, you have to come back sometime, that is, if you’re lucky.
I am really pleased I chose to read this book.

This was an interesting idea for a book.
I think a title like "what NOT to do when you go on holiday" or "How to behave like the Worst kind of tourist" would fit better, but honestly it was the title that caught in the first place.

Jack is travelling to 3 of the Coronation Islands for the sole purpose of visiting 100 counties and finally joining the Travelers' Century Club.
I couldn't really decide if all the situations he get into were annoying or simply hilarious. He started with an exploration of the natural beauties of the first island, went to the religious center of the Coronations and ended in a resort where his self-centered self met with equally self-centered guests.

He was difficult to like or to appreciate as a character. When he was not complaining about travelling alone (which was almost always), he was either trying to be open minded about his experience and failing in that, or trying to impose himself on others and failing in that also.

The story was funny in the way that it made me think of this kind of "travellers" who went to places only to be able to brag about them, the people that all these experiences had absolutely no impact on them. It was even funnier when you think of people you actually met and who fit in this category.

It was an enjoyable story, sometimes confusing, but it was a small change from the kind i usually read.
In a way it was a reminder that if you do not want to appreciate the world and really learn about it, travelling would be completely useless, no matter how many countries you add to your list.

Jack Kavanagh travels. No, really, he has travelled to almost 100 different countries and he has almost gained the pleasure (well, he might consider it a pleasure) of entry into the Travelers' Century Club. What would he really gain from this achievement? Something else to talk about while attending a boring party?

At times, this book made me want to laugh aloud at the reality of Jack's feelings towards hotel staff, airline attendants and... don't tell anyone, other travelers. Other times I felt sorry for him--his snarky, blasé attitude seemed a front to cover his loneliness and sense of loss of her former fiancé and travelling companion.

Jack Kavanagh is unknowingly looking for something. I'm not convinced that he finds it, even at the end of our journey with him.

This is an account of the attempt of Jack Kaganagh to visit the countries numbered 98,99 and 100 on a list to complete the list and ensure membership of the travelers century club.
Apparently there is such a club - based in California of course- and seemingly full of white, middle class and it would seem wealthy people who have time and the resources to travel the world ticking off countries like we used to collect stamps.
Newly single Jack wants to achieve his goal before his 45th birthday and is quite a jack-the-lad who reveals he works as a stockbroker fleecing people with unethical investments.
The character is quite awful. The author's style is quite awful. It is apparently a travel book. However his visit to three Coronation Islands which include one famous for a rhubarb riot and another that had been colonised by the Irish are total fabrications. The dialogue is cutting yet jokey. Jack reads us the 'official' guidebooks to give us the knowledge of places he is imagining with hotels he inhabits with pretend guests and activities it seems impossible to believe he would undertake. Above all he is a miserable hypochondriac who basically is lonely and wants to go home.
There are so many other brilliant travel writers but JD Sumner, whether or not an ironic joker, is not one of them. Trying to research some information about the author is very difficult. Apparently he is Irish and has a PhD in Satirical Travel Writing! at this point I decided the whole book must be a joke or if not Oscar Wilde must be turning in his grave.
Definitely not one to pack in your suitcase......

To begin with I enjoyed my trip with Jack to Coronation Islands and his thoughts on his life and the companions on his journey, but midway through the novel I got a bit bored and yearned for some original comments on travel and travellers. I think it might have worked better as a short story.

A comical light hearted look at travel. Jack tells of the problems of traveling alone and of his adventures and the people he meets. This is a very short quick read.

As anyone reading this blog will know, I love, live and breathe travel and books which take you to places. So when Jack Kavanagh came into my life, I hoped I would go on an amazing journey with a fellow lover of travel.

Jack doesn’t like travel. He just wants to tick countries off a list like apples or supermarket butter. If he gets to 100 countries, he can brag about being in the travellers club.

The countries and places he visits are fictional - for this is not the novel I thought I was going to read but a satire on what it means to travel, the mess we get ourselves into, the stresses that it causes and the nature of the word Wanderlust.

As I read, my understanding of this travel tome changed and I started to understand it more - Jack meets people we all do - the cranky hotel staff, the noisy couple on the next table, the annoying children and no matter who you are and where you go, there are some things which never change. You take your luggage - physical and emotional with you wherever you go I think is the message. Why we travel, what it means to us and what it gives you. A bit Eat, Pray love in that sense but from a grumpy old man made it al the more funny and thoughtful.

There were times when the grumpiness got to me, but on the whole, i was happy to travel to these fictional lands and reminisce about my own experiences and what it means to have that wanderlust bug, to travel on your own, travel 1000s of miles and feel like you’re at home. Or to feel that you’ve never really left.

A travelogue with a difference and more fascinating places to put on the map of your own journey

I was excited beyond belief to find out that The Travellers' Century Club is real! There’s the link in the story and yes, I googled it, and OMG this is true. I even looked for the name Jack K ....

A nice, clever touch to a novel of exploration and discovery! This is the perfect read for any booktrailer whether you love literary travel or travelling for real. The sense of wanderlust, that delight at landing in a new country, the sense and freedom of the unknown.....A Booktrailer's delight!

I don't know if it's me getting older and more curmudgeonly, or my choice of books on Netgalley is leading me towards novels with unlikeable, off-putting characters or whether I've just had a string of bad luck with fiction, but I found the central character in this, unbearable.

I get that it's meant to be humorous, but the comedy in a book like this would surely come from unintentional choices going wrong. You pick the delicious-sounding thing on the menu, and it's funny because what appears is the 'Goat Tongue and Chewy Meat in Aspic'. But here, our hero actually ORDERS the 'Goat Tongue and Chewy Meat in Aspic' as well as the 'Lukewarm Vegetable Soup', thus stripping it of any comedy value when those things arrive. Why order things that sound terrible and then complain when they are terrible? Why cancel your pre-booked hotel room on a whim, and randomly ask a perfect stranger to book you a new one, arrive, find a rude, incompetent teenager hiding behind the reception desk ignoring you, then continue to check in, while complaining bitterly about such terrible service? It's hard to chuckle along with such misfortunes, when they are actively pursued. The entire book is about a man who deliberately chooses to go three countries of no apparent interest to him. Just...no.

I'm the first to review this novel on GR and I wish I had fonder things to say or type. I found it on Netgalley, was drawn in by the title, the cover, the summary. I adore travelogues, cheapest easier way to travel. The way this book was written it might have been fiction or a first person account, unknown author makes it all the more ambiguous. I might have preferred the latter. Anyway, as is it's a fairly pedestrian story of a crochety cranky not particularly nice man set to complete a mission of visiting 100 countries before his 45th birthday. The protagonist is a well to do Englishman whose fiancé had tragically disappeared during one of his trips. He travels to a remote place in the Indian ocean, but doesn't seem to derive any particular joy out of his exploits, it's more along the lines of putting checks on a list. Main problem is that he lacks the leading man charisma required to sustain a first person narrative and isn't quite as funny as he thinks, although there is a decent amount of humor to be found here. There is sort of a character arc as seen in the end, but not quite enough to care. This isn't the travelogue to send you dreaming of far away locales or exotic adventures. It's a decent enough book, especially for a first effort, it read very quickly, but it wasn't in any way extraordinary or exceptional and didn't really live up to its promise. Thanks Netgalley.