It's on the Meter: Traveling the World by London Taxi
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15
Ratings1
Average rating3
When three friends, fueled by an alcohol-induced dream to travel the world, clicked “buy” on an iconic London cab they name Hannah, little did they know what they were getting themselves into. Leaving the Big Smoke in their vintage taxi, Paul, Johno, and Leigh began a 43,000-mile trip that would take them off the beaten track to some of the most dangerous and deadly places on earth. By the time they arrived home, they would manage, against all the odds, to circumnavigate the globe, and in doing so, break two World Records.
It’s On the Meter is an honest account of what it’s like to drive a Black Cab around the world. From altercations with the Iranian Secret Police to narrowly escaping the Taliban, the trio’s adventure is filled with hair-raising escapades. The traveling trio will give an impression of each country the taxi passed through and its people and will help readers understand how to survive fifteen months on the road. Feel the fear, frolic in the fun, and meet the hundred passengers the taxi picked up along the way, as the authors take you on their action-packed journey.
Reviews with the most likes.
"The fact that someone was now paying for us to complete our adventure and that the story was starting to be picked up by major newspapers and TV stations showed that we were doing something remarkable, even if it was really just an excuse to go travelling and party on an overextended road trip with our best buddies."
I said this in one of my Goodreads updates while reading this, but this book is like if 90s Ashton Kutcher wrote a factual account of traveling the world. That either does it for you, or it doesn't, there isn't a whole lot of inbetween. I fell on the "doesn't" part of the spectrum, but there were some redeeming qualities about these guys' trip that kept me reading.
The back-of-the-book summary is what's inside - three friends, in an attempt to put off being an adult post-college decide to take a London cab on a worldwide tour to break a Guinness world record and circumnavigate the world. Along the way they meet a host of friendly people, make their way through miles of bureaucracy, become expert roadside mechanics, and just overall have a good time with their buds.
They really do just party their way through the first part of the book, to get it out of the way early. Lots of drinking, partying, and couchsurfing, before waking up, driving all day, and doing it again in another location. I'm not a huge drinker or partyer, so they do come off as being a bit insufferable in the beginning to me.
But you can see a tonal change right around when they start trekking through the Middle East. I feel like we get a bit more introspection out of them about the world they're just now starting to see and about the people around them. There's less about how they're drinking their way to liver failure, and more about the scenery, the journey itself, and how much of a struggle it is to keep their cab running on a day-to-day basis. It's these little nuggets of introspection that were the most interesting to me.
But I mean, at the end of the day they do come off as being insufferable dudes who haven't really grown up yet circumnavigating the world on someone else's dime to put off having to make adult decisions. Which, fair, they're up front about that in multiple places in the book, but it's still a little tedious to read about.
