Sam Manicom’s dynamic third reserve transports you to Southern Africa, South and Central America. Sam has a gift for explaining the vibrancy of people and places, and you are led easily through three completely different parts of the globe by his enthusiasm and his severe observations. Human behaviour, drama, passion, disaster, humour, as well as the 100 % pure adrenaline hype of overlanding such far-flung, crazy and exotic areas are all right here.

This thought provoking mix is brought alive by both his descriptive, about Distant Suns: Adventure in the vastness of Africa and South America which can make the mouth water or the hairs on the trunk from the neck crawl, as well as the historical titbits and cultural notes about the people and places he visits. Distant Suns shows the joys of traveling with others and how, if you are with others, you frequently do and see things you usually may not have done; but also details for the added tension that is included with traveling in groupings – even small groups.

Unlike his two previous books, Sam travels using a companion, Birgit, who you’ll have met during the course of his previous book ‘Under Asian Skies’. Partly, Distant Suns may be the tale of how boy meets young lady, both endowed having a mile-wide streak of wanderlust, and both fiercely self-employed, but learning to live collectively on the road, and saving each other’s lives on occasion. Birgit catches your attention immediately with her amazing initiative and ability with her bike. Yet she’d only been buttoning a shirt for 600 miles when they arrived in Kenya at the start of this trip.

Sam and Birgit’s activities should never be without peril, but the attitude they have is what makes them terrific world travellers. During the period of three years a lot of things can and perform fail, but Sam and Birgit don’t let any of them stop them from completing their trip. When Paul Theroux published, “Consider the leap. Go as far as you are able to. Try remaining out of contact. Become a stranger in a strange property,” he could have been explaining Distant Suns.