Mad Travelers

A Tale of Wanderlust, Greed and the Quest to Reach the Ends of the Earth

By: Dave Seminara

Narrated by: Chris Henry Coffey

A brilliant, young con artist offered to help the world’s most traveled people reach the planet’s last untouched frontiers; instead, they were taken for a wild ride that turned into a costly lesson on the perils of wanderlust.

At 23, William Simon Baekeland was well on his way to becoming the world’s best traveled person. The “billionaire” heir to a great plastics fortune had already visited 163 countries, but his real passion was finding ways to visit the world’s most challenging destinations - war-torn cities, disputed territories, and remote or officially off-limits islands at the margins of the map. He earned rock-star status in the world of extreme travel by finding ingenious ways to bring the world’s most widely traveled people to difficult-to-reach and forbidden places. But when his story began to unravel, an eccentric group of hyper-well-traveled country collectors were left wondering how they had allowed their obsession to blind them to the warning signs that William Baekeland wasn’t who they thought he was.

Mad Travelers: A Tale of Wanderlust, Greed and the Quest to Reach the Ends of the Earth delves deep inside the subculture of country collecting, taking listeners to danger zones like Mogadishu and geographical oddities like Norway’s nearly impossible-to-reach Bouvet Island. Along the way, this raucous tale of adventure and international intrigue illuminates the perils and pleasures of wanderlust while examining a fundamental question: Why are some people compelled to travel, while others are content to stay home? Mad Travelers is a perceptive and at times hilarious account of how the pursuit of everywhere put the world’s greatest travelers at the mercy of a brilliant young con man.

Soon to be an HBO documentary.

©2021 Dave Seminara (P)2021 Recorded Books

Required reading for any traveler

Although I’ve always considered myself a road warrior, I have only been to six or seven countries, and always for a very lengthy time. So I definitely did not qualify for the elite group of travelers brought to life in this book. The journalistic approach to this book was fascinating. as the author interviewed people from addiction counselors to seriously mad travelers. Appropriately, I listened to this on a long driving trip, and have suggested it to similar folks who enjoy the journey typically more than the destinations. In this respect, I believe we are different than the characters the author has chosen to follow.

Mad Travelers is a whole New World for me

Dave’s book introduced me to a world of enthusiastic travelers I’ve never even thought about before and actually makes me want to travel less although I do appreciate a couple of trips a year! This book definitely expanded my world, and I highly recommend it!