Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Travels

3.88 of 5 stars 3.88 · rating details · 3,919 ratings · 324 reviews

Often I feel I go to some distant region of the world to be reminded of who I really am.

When Michael Crichton -- a Harvard-trained physician, bestselling novelist, and successful movie director -- began to feel isolated in his own life, he decided to widen his horizons. He tracked wild animals in the jungles of Rwanda. He climbed Kilimanjaro and Mayan pyramids. He trekked...more

Paperback, 400 pages

Published November 5th 2002 by Harper Perennial (first published 1988)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

50 Books That Will Change Your Life - Chapters/Indigo

95th out of 208 books — 455 voters

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks

Books Written by Physicians

84th out of 115 books — 29 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Feb 08, 2009 Alan rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book came highly recommended, but I was disappointed in Crichton's travel book. There were several stories relating to Crichton's experiences in exotic places, but much of it was preoccupied with his early years in medical school and later, dealings with meditation, mystics, and his inner journey, which was not at all what I was expecting or looking for. And the picture the author paints of himself through these adventures is not altogether a flattering one.
The one good thing that came out...more

2 likes · like · see review

Nov 05, 2008 Rob rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, travelogue

I love travel adventure books, so I was excited when I saw one written by a prominent author while I was wandering about a local bookstore. I bought it and started reading it immediately over lunch. I quickly realized that it’s a lot more than just a travelogue. It has essentially three main focuses: his training at medical school, his travels, and his spirituality.

The book begins with his medical school horror stories and then moves on to his quirky travel adventures. Both topics were fantastic...more

2 likes · like · see review

Feb 24, 2008 Wellington rated it 5 of 5 stars

Usually I avoid the most popular books, but because of a high recommendation I decided to read up on Michael Crichton, the author of books like Jurassic Park and Congo.

The book begins with Michael, the medical student, figuring out how to use a chainsaw to cut the head of a cadaver in half. First I thought that he was a de Vinci doing some research for a book. However, he did attend medical school supported by his “side-job” of writing books. In the end he just didn’t fit the philosophy and soci...more

4 likes · like · see review

Apr 13, 2013 Farnoosh Brock rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoirs

It is easy to fall in love with Crichton’s writing. It immediately grasps you as solid writing. It is funny, easy, polished, gripping when it needs to be, authentic in both styles – fiction and memoir – and it stays with you long after the reading has ended. There is not a single excess word in all his writing; there is a purpose for every word, every phrase, and every chapter. You just know you are in the presence of great writing.

In the span of 353 page book, it is not until after the first 80...more It is easy to fall in love with Crichton’s writing. It immediately grasps you as solid writing. It is funny, easy, polished, gripping when it needs to be, authentic in both styles – fiction and memoir – and it stays with you long after the reading has ended. There is not a single excess word in all his writing; there is a purpose for every word, every phrase, and every chapter. You just know you are in the presence of great writing.

In the span of 353 page book, it is not until after the first 80 pages recounting the challenges of his medical days (1965-1969) that he begins to share his extensive travels. These first 80 pages offer many clues into Crichton’s shaping character and his priorities in pursuing his passions of writing and travel, despite the incurred cost and expended efforts on a career in medicine.

Crichton’s overall experience during medical school and especially his clinical rotations are disturbing, scary, gory, amusing and frequently daunting. It is the daunting that eventually leads him to quit medical school – the tough choices of bad or worse that a doctor has to make, the changes he observes in the doctors from human to robot for adaptation and survival in their environment, and the loose laws around malpractice which cost patients their lives or their limbs with hardly any punishment more than a slap on the wrist of the responsible doctor – these were the daunting observations that while tolerated and accepted at the time as the norm by his peers, Crichton was not able to live with. So he quit medicine.

His accounts of psychiatry are extremely funny. Crichton considered entering psychiatry when he was turning away from general medicine, but his clinical rotations proved his assumptions true – at least for him – that psychiatry does not really help people. There are two groups who dominate the clientèle in Crichton’s view: those who are severely disturbed and need help, for whom psychiatry does not make do much and certainly does not effect cures, and those who make up the self-indulgent, absurdly wealthy crowd for whom psychiatry is a glorified form of treatment and he had no interest to help them.

And this brings me to what Crichton does best in this book – and something that I found outright hilarious: He would form an opinion about a subject and act in accordance with that opinion, until someone suggests the opposite view, which, through long analytical monologues, disturbs him to the point that he switches to the opposite end of the opinion spectrum, and adjusts all his actions accordingly. Perhaps, on significant issues this would seem like a person who does not believe in anything, and therefore falls for anything – but these were all petty affairs, such as visiting a psychiatrist – whom he finds to be a waste of time – until his friend tells him that the guy probably would not make time to see him anyway – leading Crichton to panic that perhaps his case is not interesting or important, and he makes an appointment right away!!!

The chapter dearest to my heart is on his experience with the Mountain Gorillas. The dialogue between the scientist and Crichton before his journey up the mountains to see the gorillas:

“I wouldn’t study gorillas”, Nicole said.
“Why not”, I asked.
“They are men.”
“Gorillas are men?”
“Yes, of course”.

Gorillas are not animals, they are same as men. The Gorilla story is chilling, sad, beautiful and more. As Crichton comes to see these gorillas close-up, he “drifted into a feeling of extraordinary enchantment. Never in my life had I experienced anything like it. To be so close to a wild creature of another species, and yet to feel no threat…I never wanted to leave.”(less)

like · see review

Jun 11, 2012 Kristi rated it 2 of 5 stars

My husband gave me this book because of my love and desire for travel. It was not what either of us expected! The first part of the book deals with medical school and his experiences there. There are some travel essays - though these seem to have more to do with relationships than travel. Then there are the many phychological, mystical, paranormal experiences. I found this interesting, but certainly not what I had expected when picking up a book about travel. All in all I crossed out many bad wo...more

like · see review

Feb 26, 2011 Loren rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: morbid-books

The book’s called Travels. It was shelved in the travel section of the bookstore. The cover photos show the author hiking with a backpack, posing with an African tribesman, scuba diving. It’s not a leap to assume from all this that Michael Crichton had written a book of travel essays.

That’s where you’d be wrong. In fact, Travels opens with the line, “It is not easy to cut through a human head with a hacksaw.” The first 80 pages of the book cover Crichton’s four years of medical school, where he...more The book’s called Travels. It was shelved in the travel section of the bookstore. The cover photos show the author hiking with a backpack, posing with an African tribesman, scuba diving. It’s not a leap to assume from all this that Michael Crichton had written a book of travel essays.

That’s where you’d be wrong. In fact, Travels opens with the line, “It is not easy to cut through a human head with a hacksaw.” The first 80 pages of the book cover Crichton’s four years of medical school, where he fended off a nympho psych patient, wondered about the mental component in the timing of heart attacks, and watched the malpractice errors of the senior doctors without feeling he could challenge them. By the end of the section, he’s written The Andromeda Strain and been whisked off to Hollywood to discuss the film.

More than 100 pages into the book, the actual traveling begins: in Bangkok, where Crichton discovers just how little he knows about the world. Along the way, an expatriate investment banker takes him on a tour of the fabled nightlife, ending at a brothel of prepubescent girls. While Crichton doesn’t partake of the offerings (at least, not in this report), he also doesn’t try to dissuade his host or leave in a huff. It’s an odd moment, true Morbid Curiosity material, without the self-exploration one expects.

Crichton reports on several other adventures where he pushes himself farther and farther from his comfort zone — swimming with sharks, climbing Kilimanjaro, sleeping amongst elephants in Kenya — before slipping into the heart of the book: psychic exploration. This ties back into the first section of the book, where he visited a Hollywood psychic before making the movie Westworld. In London he consults the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain, which he refers to as the psychic smorgasbord. From that point on, he attends a meditation conference in the California desert, where he studies with a cactus. He learns to see auras, travel astrally, and bend spoons. He channels spirits.

Throughout it all, Crichton is unafraid to depict himself as unlikable. He not only questions everything, he’s hostile about it. He’s petty and unkind. He doesn’t accept generosity graciously. He goes through women like Kleenex. Still, the journeys he undertakes, the explorations he makes are entertaining reading. Whether you’re a fan of the author of Jurassic Park and Twister or not, Crichton covers interesting territory in Travels.
(less)

like · see review

Jan 02, 2011 Kenny rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography

Michael Crichton, ubermensch (medical doctor, best-selling novelist, screenwriter and film director--all by the age of 30), wrote a book about traveling, both to places like Borneo and Tibet, as well as to inner destinations: spirituality, astral-projection, self-hypnosis, spoon-bending, channeling, etc.

Clearly, for all his remarkable intellectual gifts, Crichton was not given a spiritual barometer when he was young. So, after seeing his inadequate responses to life's difficulties, he set out to...more

1 like · like · see review

Apr 11, 2009 Pete rated it 4 of 5 stars

So,

AWESOME book. Especially the first two thirds.

#1: he travels around the world
#2: he gets all new-agey, progressively more and more.

As always, and as the ultimate critic I like to try to focus my reviews on my own personal experiences with a book. So here goes:

Pros: How amazing are some of the experiences he has and what he's willing to put his mind and physical self through. His writing is so solid and killer. Good ole MC is genius and great writer and personable, so that he makes you feel li...more So,

AWESOME book. Especially the first two thirds.

#1: he travels around the world
#2: he gets all new-agey, progressively more and more.

As always, and as the ultimate critic I like to try to focus my reviews on my own personal experiences with a book. So here goes:

Pros: How amazing are some of the experiences he has and what he's willing to put his mind and physical self through. His writing is so solid and killer. Good ole MC is genius and great writer and personable, so that he makes you feel like you are walking alongside with a very smart friend who is really talking to you one on one.

Cons (remember this is the ultimate critic spewing forth): When he gets all new-agey, meditating, auras, etc, it does not reveal any lasting depth to these experiences and the quality of his life... I end the book with the feeling that he is sort of leading an empty life, even with all of the intelligence, money, and fame, he isn't grounded the way experiences you might hope experiences with the mystic should guide you. Travels dealing with relationships usually end with him and a girlfriend or wife drifting apart... sad! Pull it together, you poor, scarred in childhood Michael! Focus on what will make you happy in life!

He reminds me of those people who are all sharp when young, and then sort of turn into a person who, as they get older, starts to get more and more facts wrong, and a more wonky perception of reality. For example, in the postscript, his argument to skeptics at Cal Tech, I found, as a physics major and student of said topics myself, he had some critical flaws in the logic of his argument. How he becomes convinced, beyond a doubt, that people can tell his fortune for example, is not well guarded and explained. It is as if we non-believers should just as easily just accept it as fact without some real explanation. He uses the argumentative style that 1.) he begins each surreal story as a skeptic, and 2.) too quickly turns into a believer, without 3.) a fully convincing explanation. But, like I said, this is a great book, described on the cover as "unsettling", and good for him for putting himself out there and laying out all his differences and shortcomings!(less)

2 likes · like · see review

Feb 03, 2012 bloggerlite rated it 5 of 5 stars

I first picked up this book in the mid-1990s knowing that Crichton was responsible for Jurassic Park and later learned that he was the creator and executive producer of the TV show ER, a favorite of mine after it launched in 1994. Once I began reading 'Travels' which opens with his early years as a Harvard med student, ER made more sense to me. The first few chapters are devoted to him retelling school days studying psychotherapy and even autopsy.

Each chapter shares another tale of his life: wr...more

like · see review

Jan 25, 2012 Alisa rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

I thought I was really going to like this book, despite the fact that it really is *very* different than what you'd think. Much less about travel, and more about his life, period. The whole first section was about his experiences earning his medical degree, for example. That part was great, if quite dated. But then he began to come across as a very repulsive person, and I'm just glad he isn't an author I read much of, or he'd have ruined his books for me. Lots of dangerous, ridiculous New Age mu...more

like · see review

Nov 26, 2012 Terry Dunn rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is great. I was fascinated how a man of Science explored the mystical and paranormal and reconciled within himself a respect for both sides.

It was surprising and interesting to read about Crichton's travels in the normal sense of the word and his 'inner travel' adventures. It's not your average 'travel' book.

The only bits that dragged for me were some of the relationship difficulties that he describes. I wanted to sympathise with him or her, but I decided that I couldn't care less and wan...more

1 like · like · see review

Apr 10, 2008 Amber Strussion rated it 5 of 5 stars

Travels is one of my favorite books. I've read it at least three times in my life. It is Michael Crichton's autobiography detailing his life in medical school, but most of all his travels around the world. Each chapter is a new adventure and Dr. Crichton makes you feel as if you are right there with him! I definitely recommend this book to anyone that likes to travel or just wants a fun, entertaining, read.

4 likes · like · see review

Dec 22, 2011 Unigami rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, non-fiction

This is a collection of short essays about Crichton's days at Harvard Med School and internship, the various travels and expeditions that he made throughout his life, and his metaphysical journeys. I was very interested in reading the chapters about the latter, expecting that I would be reading about his experiences with meditation, zen, religion, philosophy...etc. Indeed, it began with that, but before long we find Mr. Crichton visiting psychics, going on retreats, playing with auras, and atten...more

like · see review

Aug 27, 2011 Joey H. rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book narrowly edges out Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" as the best book I have ever read. I now read this book yearly, sometimes twice a year if I cannot wait long enough to read it again. Let me say, first of all, that I have read damn near all of Michael Crichton's work, from books to speeches to magazine articles. To me, Crichton is only an above-average writer. What makes him special is the way that he thinks. Crichton is, in my opinion, one of the greatest and most innova...more

4 likes · like · see review

Feb 09, 2009 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read this book as a young one in the 10th grade in an english class. I remember it being pretty integral to my forming world view, now i see it as one man's way to look at the world and tear it apart to death without really living. It seems michael crichton just cannot get over his framed western view of the world even though at the end he trys to write an essay about how its important that even scientists realize the short sightedness of a limited worldview, ie. not being able to explain EVER...more

like · see review

Oct 17, 2010 Connie Harkness rated it 2 of 5 stars

I found it appalling that Michael Crichton so calmly depicts waiting outside a brothel in Asia while his host has sex with children. I suppose we're supposed to think he's a good guy for not indulging himself, but the fact that he is having a conversation with someone while they wait, and never objecting or contacting authorities is shocking to me. As Edmund Burke said, "all that's necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing". After reading this book, I don't know that I'd even b...more

2 likes · like · see review

May 17, 2013 Shanna rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical, metaphysics

This book, I think is going to be about proving some facts and other peoples views and putting them into perspective since there seems to be distressing and confusing things that readers of this work are running into.

Due to the title being so simple, doesn't automatically make the subject matter follow in kind. In fact, if you know Crichton's fiction, you should immediately be wary. Otherwise, you've just become a part of the unobservant readers.

The first section of the book deals with his medic...more This book, I think is going to be about proving some facts and other peoples views and putting them into perspective since there seems to be distressing and confusing things that readers of this work are running into.

Due to the title being so simple, doesn't automatically make the subject matter follow in kind. In fact, if you know Crichton's fiction, you should immediately be wary. Otherwise, you've just become a part of the unobservant readers.

The first section of the book deals with his medical years and his interest in psychology whilst treating patients. So from the beginning it's already delving deeper than just the obvious.

And I think Crichton is being very forthright when he admits he kind of went girl crazy after his divorce. I don't see anything wrong with it, since he's just staying true to the facts how he remembered them.

Then there's the section in Bangkok. Some people seem to think Crichton must be horrible for entertaining the idea of being given the option to go to a place that "serves up" 10 year old girls as prostitutes. No one would argue that, but both Crichton and his friend that he came with didn't want any part of that and repeatedly tried to get their third business/friend to take them, but he was adamant about showing them a "good time" and was the only one to partake of that crazy option.

Is Crichton responsible for bringing this one prostitute house to justice in a foreign land? Or is he just leaving this experience of his in this book, just to let us know that it happens, in whatever year that was and maybe we should know. Doesn't matter to me, I'm just reading this as an impartial party (my boyfriend requested I read this).

After that there are more examples of people's ignorance towards just about everything and becomes a mix of travel and spiritual and more psychic stories. These are tiresome because he's so intrigued by it. Although, the section with the cactus seemed funny compared to all the psychological and physical stresses he mostly collected. He also couldn't seem to apply the feelings from his 2 week meditation vacation that he discovered and coveted to his every day life, which sounded like the very thing most everyone wants; Energized, positive, seeing things clearly/differently; But he was able to change all the bad things in his life once he got back, which seems worthy of note since he changed himself for the better. He seemed to be very fanciful at that time.

He does end the book with a narration of a time he spoke for a group disproving psychic and UFO phenomena and I applaud his ability to review how wrong scientists have been only in order to compare how those phenomena tend to have so little fact known about them it's hard to disprove it easily since no one has multiple experiences to establish them one way or the other. It's a fine way to complete Crichton's search for answers about himself and this crazy world, if you don't regard his final speech which is very quote-y.(less)

like · see review

Jul 13, 2011 Philip rated it 4 of 5 stars

A friend of mine raved about this book. He said it was his favourite book, ever, and it changed his life and how he thinks.

OK, that’s a lot to live up to.

This book isn’t an autobiography. It begins when Crichton is in medical school and already feeling like he has made the wrong decision. Still, he is convinced to see his medical training through and has some horror stories to tell about this time. He seems astounded by how little doctors actually know and how much they bluff to their patients.

A...more A friend of mine raved about this book. He said it was his favourite book, ever, and it changed his life and how he thinks.

OK, that’s a lot to live up to.

This book isn’t an autobiography. It begins when Crichton is in medical school and already feeling like he has made the wrong decision. Still, he is convinced to see his medical training through and has some horror stories to tell about this time. He seems astounded by how little doctors actually know and how much they bluff to their patients.

As a writer myself, I was looking forward to hearing about how Crichton got his break, but this part of his life is glossed over in a single sentence: I wrote a book, it got published and I became rich and famous. Oh, so it’s that easy.

The ‘Travels’ this book’s title refers to are both physical and spiritual. We hear about him swimming with sharks, scuba-diving sunken ships, climbing Kilimanjaro, and all sorts of visits to jungles and out of the way places to meet some tribe or see some rare animal. These trips often are described in painful detail – sometimes you wonder why he keeps putting himself through these horrible journeys. It’s because he’s an explorer with a thirst for knowledge and new experiences.

The second half of the book veers more into esoteric areas. Crichton lived in LA in the seventies where all sorts of oddball gurus were willing to share their take on enlightenment for a price. He writes about seeing psychics and observing them scientifically, and comes to the conclusion the phenomenon is real (though there are a lot of fakers out there, too). He also talks about his experiences with out of body experiences, spoon bending, seeing auras, entities, and even what he learned from conversations with a cactus!

The last chapter is mostly taken up with a speech he was going to give a group of sceptics at Cal Tech on how there is more to life than science can quantify. This chapter is really dense with his ideas and conclusions, and despite maybe over-stating the same point, it’s quite interesting. He equates proving paranormal phenomenon with trying to prove creativity; why is one person more creative than another? Science has no answer, but you can’t deny creativity exists, and Crichton feels the same respect should be shown to the paranormal. He believes everyone has a degree of paranormal ability, but like creativity, your mood and mindset have to be right before you can do anything with it; you can’t just sit someone down and say, ‘Be creative, now!’ This is why he says psychics fail so often under laboratory conditions.

So, overall, it’s a cross between a travelogue and Crichton’s own (surprisingly successful) dalliances with the paranormal. If either of those things interests you, it’s probably worth a read. I don’t know if it’s changed my life, but it’s definitely given me a lot to think about.
(less)

like · see review

Mar 21, 2010 Valarie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography-memoir, europe-north-america

This has certainly changed the way I view Michael Crichton as an author. His autobiography shows that he is a "normal" person just like everyone else, which of course I knew but had trouble really believing when he has such a heroic status in my mind. One of the most interesting aspects of this book is this scientist's exploration of the paranormal and psychic realms. He honestly believes in things like telekinesis, fortune telling, visible auras, etc., and his explanations for why these things...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 14, 2012 Daniel rated it 2 of 5 stars

I enjoyed Crichton's descriptions of medical school and various locales that he visited, but dreaded the increasingly frequent chapters near the end about psychics, auras, and other supernatural claims. Stuff like this:

Occasionally, as an adult, I wondered again about halos. They were so prevalent in religious arts—coud they really be just an arbitrary convention? If so, why had artists settled on that particular convention? Why a circle instead of a star, or a crescent? Why yellow instead of so

...more

like · see review

Nov 22, 2008 Dylan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-own, memoir-biography

I didn't expect this memoir to be very interesting, and the cover description gives no indication that it is heavily focused on Crichton's deeply-felt experiences with the occult and "new age" spirituality. I was fascinated with the lack of concern he expressed about preserving any duality between the scientific worldview versus his spiritual extrasensory experience. For example, he recounts his ability, since childhood, to induce his consciousness to leave his body.

While experiences like these...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 23, 2011 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

I'm wavering between 3 and 4 stars... I think my mom gave me this book from one of her many book clubs. I can't say I would have picked it up on my own, but I found this travel memoir quite addictive. Crichton begins with several chapters about his time in medical school, which I found quite interesting to read, especially as he decided he wanted to quit in his first year and then finished all four years. The rest of the story is about fascinating places he has visited and his experiences there....more

like · see review

Jan 22, 2010 Mandi rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-during-peace-corps

This isn’t the story I thought it was going to be. Instead of really being about traveling, it was about his exploration of the paranormal.

However, once I got over the story not being at all what I expected, I was able to enjoy it. I liked getting to see real insight into the life of a famous popular author. It was interesting to read about his medical school experience, the challenge of deciding not to proceed, and the glimpses of a very imperfect person. At times his arrogance and lack of com...more

like · see review

Sep 12, 2009 Felly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: environment-and-deep-issues, pick-it-somewhere-and-random, spiritual-things-and-divine, traveling-junkie

This books will tell you everything about Michael Crichton while he still young enough in medical school, as a writer, traveling around the world to satisfy his knowledge and in the end his spiritual journey besides his interest in metaphysics. In the beginning perhaps this book will be very boring for you who don't expect almost 1/3 books tell you about whatsoever will be happen if you are medical student. After that he will tell you about his journey to Africa and Asia which was very cool enou...more

like · see review

Aug 24, 2012 Nathan Miller rated it 3 of 5 stars

Interesting book. Thought-provoking. Also kind of weird--he starts off autobiographical, waxing philosophical, but in the last half of the book he takes quite a turn and ends up trying to convince the reader of the paranormal. Seeing auras, channeling, spoon bending etc. But all that is interesting too. I guess it's all the rage in Hollywood.

Crichton goes to a lot of trouble to inform us how intelligent and logical he is. But I found a lot of his reasoning to be a mess logically.

Also, I walked...more

like · see review

Feb 04, 2012 Sue rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a very interesting memoir of Michael Crichton's travels and search for his inner self. For such a talented and educated man, with the opportunity to travel all over and explore different cultures and have a variety of professional experiences, he was a very insecure person. It makes one wonder how ones own life experiences have affected ones sense of self and ones own spiritual journey. This book (1989) could have been an inspiration of the more recent "Eat, Pray, Love". But, it was int...more

like · see review

Nov 30, 2008 Wyma rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Wyma by: wyma@charter.net

I am thoroughly enjoying this book. I'm reading it straight through for the most part, b ut occasionally dip in wherever the chapter title captures interest or the book falls open. Crichton went to some amazing places and did some extreme things; what makes these stories/essays interesting is that he portrays himself as is. No pretense at bravery nor exaggertion of any emotion/event in order to seem more interesting. He is examining himself and his reactions in these tests/travels that he sets f...more

like · see review

Jun 08, 2012 Stephen rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have read most of the novels written by Michael Crichton, both the popular, such as "The Andromeda Strain" and "Jurassic Park", and the less-well-known, such as "Eaters of the Dead." The corpus is diverse but there are continuous threads which recur, prompting one to wonder about the author: what were the sources in his life of these interests? His non-fiction memoir "Travels" offers some answers. The first eighty pages of the book recount his adventures as a medical student at Harvard Univers...more

like · see review

Jan 15, 2012 Dalejwetmore rated it 5 of 5 stars

A fascinating look into a fascinating mind. Michael Crichton led an adventurous life, not only as an author but as a medical student at Harvard, a world traveller, and as a man seeking to understand the workings of his own mind. This book reflects Crichton's brilliance and curiosity as well as a surprisingly clumsy approach to human relationships. His emotional struggles are a a minor part of the story, however, and the book abounds with adventures in remote Asian jungles, encounters with psychi...more

like · see review

May 28, 2011 Fran Friel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Fran by: Douglas Clegg

This is an fascinating account of Michael Crichton's travels throughout his life. It spands his trips around the globe, as well as his consciousness expansion adventures. His account is unflinching in many ways, in which he often puts his hubris and insecurities out to dry. I appreciated his honesty and his dedication to understanding himself and the world more fully. He was a very busy guy. TRAVELS is an interesting read, if a little self-indulgent at times, but I enjoyed it especially for the...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
needs another cover image ...	1	10	Jun 16, 2009 12:34am

combine
Other Editions (13)

More editions...

Genres

Non Fiction

101 users

Travel

62 users

Biography

38 users

Autobiography > Memoir

30 users

Biography > Autobiography

10 users

Biography Memoir

6 users

Travel > Travelogue

6 users

Adventure

4 users

Thriller

3 users

Spirituality

2 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton was an American author, film producer, film director, and television producer. His books sold over 150 million copies world wide, and among his best-known works were techno-thriller novels, films and television programs. His works were usually based on the action genre and heavily feature technology. Many of his future history novels had medical or scientific underpinnings, reflec...more

More about Michael Crichton...

Books by Michael Crichton

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Travels

2 trivia questions

More quizzes & trivia...

Quotes from Travels

“Often I feel I go to some distant region of the world to be reminded of who I really am. There is no mystery about why this should be so. Stripped of your ordinary surroundings, your friends, your daily routines, your refrigerator full of your food, your closet full of your clothes -- with all this taken away, you are forced into direct experience. Such direct experience inevitably makes you aware of who it is that is having the experience. That's not always comfortable, but it is always invigorating.” — 26 people liked it

“The minute we look, we cease being afraid.” — 5 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: Travels
avg rating	preview: Travels Goodreads rating: 3.88 (3919 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7665.Travels?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348963625l/7665.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7665.Travels?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Travels by Michael Crichton[/url]

Travels

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website