🐶Adventure Caravanning with Dogs: It Never Rains But it Paws by Jacqueline Lambert, is reviewed by @SueBavey for Rosie’s #Bookreview Team #RBRT

Today’s team review is from Sue.

She blogs here https://suelbavey.wordpress.com/

Rosie’s Book Review Team

Sue has been reading Adventure Caravanning with Dogs: It Never Rains But it Paws by Jacqueline Lambert.

Adventure Caravanning With Dogs by Jacqueline Lambert

Jackie’s writing is extremely witty and clever. She makes you feel like you are travelling alongside her and Mark and their four adorable dogs, due to her chatty and engaging nature. This comes across well in her “Adventure Caravanning with Dogs” series. In the case of “It Never Rains but it Paws”, the story takes place against the backdrop of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is the fourth book in the series, but each one can be read as a standalone. The shortish chapters keep the story flowing as the couple and their four dogs travel around Europe. Jackie and Mark  are up against a deadline to set off before Brexit happens, in order to escape the bureaucracy caused by travelling with four dogs and a caravan around Europe. They aim to travel through France and spend the ski season in Italy. Delays due to family illness cause them to panic as their deadline looms nearer,, but eventually they are off on their way! Jackie includes plenty of historical detail and background information about the places they visit  to make you want to go to the locations on their trip, although possibly not during a pandemic!! Their experiences of lockdown in Italy, up a mountain in a deserted ski village with scarcely any Italian between them were eye opening.

A highly entertaining adventure!

Book description

Five years after giving up work to travel full time, Dog-ma Jacqueline (Jackie) and Dogfather Mark race against time to leave the UK before Britain exits the EU. If Brexit happens, their four Cavapoos (Cavalier/Poodle cross) Kai, Rosie, Ruby, and Lani will lose their puppy passports, and the Lambert Family will be unable to travel together. But Brexit isn’t their only obstacle. A few months into their adventure, the pandemic suddenly shatters their plans, and leaves them trapped in the epicentre of Europe’s No. 1 coronavirus hotspot.

The fourth road trip Europe adventure in author Jacqueline Lambert’s “inspirational and hilarious” series of true travel memoirs invites you to join the couple as they discover even more amazing and little-known places, this time in France and Italy. However, this isn’t just a priceless escape travel story filled with humorous mishaps and mountain adventure. The coronavirus pandemic separates the family from their loved ones at home, and leaves Jackie stranded alone during a blizzard in a remote Italian village, with Mark thousands of miles away, back in the UK.

Between terrible weather, political mayhem, and a global pandemic, Jackie and Mark try to take lessons from each hardship. Yet, even with a positive attitude, a sense of adventure, and a caravan full of loved ones, you can’t stop all the obstacles life rolls your way. These “amusing and informative” travel stories are certainly proof that It Never Rains… But It Paws! 

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Rosie’s #Bookreview Of #Travelogue ADVENTURE BY CHICKEN BUS: Family Backpacking Through Central America by @JanetLoSole #TuesdayBookBlog

Adventure by Chicken Bus by Janet Losole

4 stars

Adventure by Chicken Bus is a travelogue from a family of four Canadians who sold up all their possessions and went back-packing through Central America. Between 2005 and 2007, Janet and Lloyd took their two home-schooled children, then aged 8 and 5 years old, on a very long school field trip.

The family started in Costa Rica and were determined to live and travel as the locals did. This meant taking long uncomfortable journeys on ‘chicken buses’, ex North American yellow school buses that have been recycled. Janet and Lloyd were both experienced back-packers and travellers, but the extra challenge was travelling with small children.

I was fascinated by some of their experiences which often took them on a less travelled route and far away from popular tourist destinations. This way they immersed themselves in the people and the places. The turtle conservation, watching ships pass through the Panama Canal and walking around Mayan cities, which remained almost undisturbed, were some of my favourite parts.

Janet and her family travelled for almost two years; they became adept at frugal living, keeping themselves safe and planned trips, excursions and long distance travel carefully where possible. Although Costa Rica was the primary destination, the family also backpacked in Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize, Guatemala and Mexico, I know very little about these countries so the map at the front of the book was a great help.

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Embarking on a homeschooling field trip to Central America is stressful enough, but add in perilous bridge crossings, trips to the hospital, and a lack of women’s underwear, and you have the makings of an Adventure by Chicken Bus.

Buckling under a mountain of debt, Janet LoSole and her family are at their wits’ end. Determined to make a drastic change, they sell all worldly possessions and hit the road. With only a few items of clothing, a four-person tent, and little else, the family visits a sleepy island backwater in Costa Rica to save endangered sea turtles.

In Panama, they bounce around like turnips in the back of a vegetable truck to reach an isolated monkey sanctuary. In Guatemala, they scale the ancient Mayan temples of Tikal.

In between tales of begging rides from total strangers and sleeping overnight in the jungle with an indigenous family, Janet endorses community-based travel–supporting local businesses and favoring public transportation called chicken buses. She also writes candidly about what it takes to travel long-term with two little girls amid the chaos of border crossings, erratic drivers, and creepy crawlies lurking at the edge of the jungle.

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