Twenty Countries, Four Continents and Three Wedding Rings may sound like a title stolen from Four Weddings and a Funeral, but it certainly had me thinking about an interesting journey – THREE wedding rings?! – made by Ian Barnes and his now wife. So, I popped the book into my Amazon basket, and have just waded through the epic tome that landed on my doormat more than a month ago.

The thing is VAST! With TINY writing!

Ian and Claudia spent a year travelling around the world, and did just what it says in the title. I couldn’t quite fathom why they included the USA bit however. As teachers, this part could have been done in the summer break without wasting precious gap year time or money. It’s all very easy for the armchair traveller – like me – to say ‘oooh I wouldn’t have done it that way’, but I really wouldn’t. The USA is like being at home, just with bigger of everything and better weather. So, I would have included Africa (which they left out completely) and saved North America for another day.

If there is one word to describe the book, the first that comes to mind is ‘comprehensive’. Ian is a Geography and History teacher, and this shone through in every chapter. Some of the historical and social commentary was interesting, and some felt laboured and copied from guidebooks or tourist information leaflets. Clearly much research would have been put into finding the historical, social and economic information imparted about each place, and it did feel like I was in some kind of lesson. To be honest, particularly towards the end, I actually just skim read some of those bits so I could get to Ian’s own thoughts and experiences rather than the researched facts and figures.

You know when a word sticks out from overuse? Well, in Ian’s case, the word ubiquitous was ubiquitous in every single chapter.

The missing link for me was what Claudia thought and felt about the journey. Occasionally Ian would write what she liked or didn’t like but you could almost forget that she was there thinking and feeling things too. I wonder how different the story would have been if told by both people experiencing it? A his and hers view of events perhaps?

And then… it abruptly ended. Sat on a dune in the desert outside Jaisalmer in India. No journey home, no what happened next, and no how it changed my life.

I had started off enjoying it, and by the end, I was relieved I could move on to something else.