Winner of the STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR

"This book seems prophetic in the wake of Donald Trump and the current controversy over 'fake news'" Daily Telegraph

"One can't help thinking that the future of travel writing lies in this adventurous, postmodern genre" Sara Wheeler

Documenting Sayarer's real life journey hitchhiking across the US, this fascinating memoir tells the story of the forgotten people lost in their own country, grappling to find a voice in the vast political landscape of the US.

Recruited to work on a big documentary project, Julian goes to New York convinced he has hit big time at last. Finding the project cancelled he wanders the city streets and hitchhiking to San Francisco slowly starts to seem like the most sensible option for his career as a travel writer.

The story finds an unseen America in rough shape; Julian meets a place of Interstates, forgotten towns and food deserts, always grappling with the scale and energy of the US. Julian tells a tale of Steinbeck, Kerouac and the vast, thundering indifference of American geography and culture at the start of a new century.

"On the Road for the Occupy Generation" Open Democracy

"Sayarer is a precise and passionate writer . . . The vast energy of his commitment to discover, observe and communicate makes for engrossing, often incandescent prose. We need writers who will go all the way for a story, and tell it with fire. Sayarer is a marvellous example" HORATIO CLARE

Prizes

Winner of Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year 2016

Challenging and enigmatic . . . One can t help thinking that the future of travel writing lies in this adventurous, postmodern genre -- Sara Wheeler
As much an examination of roadside politics as the US landscape, the round-the-world cycling record holder writes about encounters with characters who range from roadside travellers and anarchists to blue-collar communities struggling to find meaning after their industries have departed overseas * Guardian *
The book seems prophetic in the wake of Donald Trump and the current controversy over 'fake news' * Daily Telegraph *

JULIAN SAYARER cycled a half dozen times across Europe to his second nation of Türkiye before before breaking a world record for a circumnavigation by bicycle, and going on to write Life Cycles (2014). He is the winner of the Stanford Dolman Travel Writing Award for Interstate (2016), an account of hitchhiking through middle America, and is the author of Messengers (2016), All at Sea (2017), Fifty Miles Wide (2020), Ondaatje Prize-longlisted Iberia (2021), and Türkiye (2023). Julian combines a background in political science to create a critically acclaimed travel writing style - politics at roadsides. In this 12mph view of the world in passing, he uses human stories and journeys to document global issues for a broad audience. His writing has appeared in the London Review of Books, the Guardian, Financial Times, Aeon Magazine, and in numerous cycling publications.