Don't Lean Out of the Window: The Inter-Rail Experience

by Stewart Ferris, Paul Bassett

A hilarious travelogue about a group of twenty-somethings who endure Europe's notorious rail transportation. This is a tongue-in-cheek look at life on -- and off -- the train. Readers will laugh right along with these Gen X travelers as they get accosted by undesirables, have their patience tried by uncontrollable kids and, predictably, get arrested through no fault of their own. All aboard for fun.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Trains

192 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1992

About the author

Stewart writes The Ballashiels Mysteries, a series of semi-comedic archaeological adventures (The Sphinx Swindle, The Dali Diaries, The Chaplin Conspiracy and others). He is also the author of Oversleeper (under the Matt Mountebank pseudonym), plus The Reluctant Rescue and a number of non fiction books including How to be a Writer. His scriptwriting includes Pokémon and The Mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau. He has a PhD in Creative Writing, specialising in P.G. Wodehouse.

Reviews

[Carron Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

I took this book on holiday with me, picking it blindly from my huge box of TBR. I wasn't sure about the writing to begin with, but it soon had me chortling through my flight. I'm not sure if figuring out the currency conversions of Europe through how much a cheesburger costs is genius or not, and I did wonder if the only vegetables these boys ate came from the pickles, but then we're told that they stuck them to the bottom of tables in MacDonald's. Nice! Never go inter-railing with these boys.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An immature yet very entertaining take on inter-railing. Boys humour and honesty made a charming read as the boys traipsed around Europe without a plan or clue, avoiding culture wherever possible.

[J · Rating 1 out of 5]

A particularly poorly written book about a not particularly interesting journey in Europe via inter-rail taken by three British men in 1992. There's a list of words people are likely to take offence to at the back. But by far the most offensive content of the book is the out and out racism (Dagos, Krauts) and homophobia throughout the book.

All three authors have basically the same writing style and write about basically the same things: busking, eating at McDonald's, chasing Dutch and Scandinavian women, disliking homosexuals, foreigners and police.

The McDonald's Big Mac Index referred to throughout the book was cribbed from The Economist who have published it as a measure of PPP since 1986. Curiously one of the authors claims to invent this concept in 1992 and we are given a rundown of how much a Big Mac costs in the local currency for each country they go to.

The only real takeaways were: don't sleep in a park in Italy, go to Castellane and sophomoric humour ages incredibly poorly.

[Steve Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of three young Englishmen slumming it around Europe with an Inter-Rail ticket and a guitar each. This is a hilarious account of their adventures which covers the buying of porn, busking and being arrested for busking, upsetting the natives, smelly feet, meeting women, fast food, attracting the unwanted attention of homosexual men and police brutality among other things. Well worth a look if you could do with a good laugh.