In 1953 Nicolas Bouvier and his friend Thierry Vernet embarked on a yearlong driving trip from Lubljana, Yugoslavia to the Khyber Pass in a Fiat prone to repeated breakdowns. Having little money, the two planned to work their way across the continent, Bouvier writing and giving lectures and Vernet selling paintings and making murals. Bouvier describes their adventures, the people they encountered and the landscapes and climate, in an admiring and even-handed way that must have been unique for two young Swiss artists in the 1950s. The reader cannot help but admire Bouvier’s willingness to accept people on their own terms, and to roll with the malaria, stomach ailments, occasional con artist, and the flies, always the flies. Six years later, he comments on an archeological dig he helped with in Afghanistan at the end of the trip, comments that summarize his documentarian style: “Is there a methodical way of putting down what is known about such a place, all the facts in order of importance? No doubt there is—I have labored over it, but I can’t get it right… Why add stale words to fresh things that can get along perfectly well without them?” (307). But his are far from stale words, and those of us who will never take such a trip are very glad he made the effort.