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Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip

by Jim Rogers

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330878,167 (3.8)1
Drive . . . and grow rich! The bestselling author ofInvestment Bikeris back from the ultimate road trip: a three-year drive around the world that would ultimately set the Guinness record for the longest continuous car journey. InAdventureCapitalist, legendary investor Jim Rogers, dubbed “the Indiana Jones of finance” byTimemagazine, proves that the best way to profit from the global situation is to see the world mile by mile. “While I have never patronized a prostitute,” he writes, “I know that one can learn more about a country from speaking to the madam of a brothel or a black marketeer than from meeting a foreign minister.” Behind the wheel of a sunburst-yellow, custom-built convertible Mercedes, Rogers and his fiancée, Paige Parker, began their “Millennium Adventure” on January 1, 1999, from Iceland. They traveled through 116 countries, including many where most have rarely ventured, such as Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Angola, Sudan, Congo, Colombia, and East Timor. They drove through war zones, deserts, jungles, epidemics, and blizzards. They had many narrow escapes. They camped with nomads and camels in the western Sahara. They ate silkworms, iguanas, snakes, termites, guinea pigs, porcupines, crocodiles, and grasshoppers. Best of all, they saw the real world from the ground up—the only vantage point from which it can be truly understood—economically, politically, and socially. Here are just a few of the author’s conclusions: • The new commodity bull market has started. • The twenty-first century will belong to China. • There is a dramatic shortage of women developing in Asia. • Pakistan is on the verge of disintegrating. • India, like many other large nations, will break into several countries. • The Euro is doomed to fail. • There are fortunes to be made in Angola. • Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are a scam. • Bolivia is a comer after decades of instability, thanks to gigantic amounts of natural gas. Adventure Capitalistis the most opinionated, sprawling, adventurous journey you’re likely to take within the pages of a book—the perfect read for armchair adventurers, global investors, car enthusiasts, and anyone interested in seeing the world and understanding it as it really is.… (more)
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I read this book to get ideas on how to invest. It turned out to be a pretty fun travel book. Jim Rogers dubbed the “Indiana Jones of Investing” decided to drive around the world in a car after doing the same thing ten years ago. Last time he went along on a motorcycle; this time he took his fiancé, got married, and spent three years pursuing this idea.

This is a multi-millionaire and while investing was one of the major reasons to go on this trip, he wants to also experience life – life as the locals live it. The list of local delicacies he ate at each country is too long to list. Though I do wonder why he ate at Applebee’s in Tucson; Applebee’s is considered local cuisine.

He candidly describes the customs and the points out the bureaucracy and corruption of the world. Particularly he hates the idea of foreign aid to countries. Foreign aid in a country just creates a generation that learns how to live in a welfare state. Furthermore, besides the corruption of leaders of other countries, there is the sadly the corruption of our own officials in particular Africa. Our tax monies are being spent on their Mercedes, security guards, and flying in people for conferences – conferences to find ways to spend the money wisely and to get even more.

This is a man with money and a lot of connections but he still had lots of troubles with access to other countries. The guy is brave; he went through several war zones as well. If anyone decides to go to a Third World Country, here some advice: bring lots of Coca-Cola, Polaroid cameras, and cigarettes.

The book is rather fast paced but honestly humorous. Some of the best parts of the book are getting a ground eye view of other countries and selling me the idea of going somewhere bolder for my next vacation.
( )
1 vote wellington299 | Feb 19, 2022 |
Dated at this point, but a worthwhile read if one is interested in how badly dysfunctional the world we live in is.

Rogers is a surprisingly decent writer. Seems like a decent fellow also. ( )
1 vote jmatson | May 26, 2012 |
Following are a few quotes from Jim Rogers, which describe more about his book than I can ever write:
Pg. 202 "...most famines are caused not by a lack of food but by government bungling."
Pg. 246 "With only 3% of its population speaking English, India ... is the 3rd largest English speaking nation in the world, after the U.S. and the U.K."
Pg. 329 "If you learn nothing else in your life, learn not to take your investment advice, or any other advice from the U.S. government - or any other government."
"If you or I kept books like the U.S. government does, we would be thrown in jail."
Pg. 334 Rogers quotes Hemingway: "The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. Both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists."

After my own trip around the world, I had feelings similar to Rogers':
Pg. 340 "The inner peace I felt upon returning (home) ... did not last. ... A vague sense of unease ... set in almost immediately after I arrived in New York."
"I knew instantly when I walked through the door that I wanted to simplify my life. ... I became protective of my calendar..." ( )
  ds1 | Feb 22, 2010 |
A bit of hyperbole in being the "only person ever to..." in some places, but very good. I wished he had focused a bit more on some places. Very illuminating and intriguing last chapter about the US and Greenspan. ( )
  ORFisHome | Jul 13, 2009 |
A bit of hyperbole in being the "only person ever to..." in some places, but very good. I wished he had focused a bit more on some places. Very illuminating and intriguing last chapter about the US and Greenspan. ( )
  IFREF | Apr 24, 2007 |
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To the greatest adventure: my first child, in the hope that she will always seek, explore, an question, and understand the world as it really is.
Hilton Augusta Parker Rogers
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I entered the investment business in 1968 with six hundred dollars in my pocket, and I left it in 1980, at the age of thirty-seven, with enough money to satisfy a lifelong yearning for adventure.
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Drive . . . and grow rich! The bestselling author ofInvestment Bikeris back from the ultimate road trip: a three-year drive around the world that would ultimately set the Guinness record for the longest continuous car journey. InAdventureCapitalist, legendary investor Jim Rogers, dubbed “the Indiana Jones of finance” byTimemagazine, proves that the best way to profit from the global situation is to see the world mile by mile. “While I have never patronized a prostitute,” he writes, “I know that one can learn more about a country from speaking to the madam of a brothel or a black marketeer than from meeting a foreign minister.” Behind the wheel of a sunburst-yellow, custom-built convertible Mercedes, Rogers and his fiancée, Paige Parker, began their “Millennium Adventure” on January 1, 1999, from Iceland. They traveled through 116 countries, including many where most have rarely ventured, such as Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Angola, Sudan, Congo, Colombia, and East Timor. They drove through war zones, deserts, jungles, epidemics, and blizzards. They had many narrow escapes. They camped with nomads and camels in the western Sahara. They ate silkworms, iguanas, snakes, termites, guinea pigs, porcupines, crocodiles, and grasshoppers. Best of all, they saw the real world from the ground up—the only vantage point from which it can be truly understood—economically, politically, and socially. Here are just a few of the author’s conclusions: • The new commodity bull market has started. • The twenty-first century will belong to China. • There is a dramatic shortage of women developing in Asia. • Pakistan is on the verge of disintegrating. • India, like many other large nations, will break into several countries. • The Euro is doomed to fail. • There are fortunes to be made in Angola. • Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are a scam. • Bolivia is a comer after decades of instability, thanks to gigantic amounts of natural gas. Adventure Capitalistis the most opinionated, sprawling, adventurous journey you’re likely to take within the pages of a book—the perfect read for armchair adventurers, global investors, car enthusiasts, and anyone interested in seeing the world and understanding it as it really is.

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