Lesser Known Travel Tips Series by Simon Yeats ~ #Humor #Memoir @GoddessFish

Please welcome Simon Yeats to the blog today:

What group did you hang out with in high school?

I was in the often forgotten about clique of people that were not cool enough to be with all the popular kids, but I was not smart, or dorky, enough to be with the geeks. So I did a lot of personal introspection at boarding school while sitting by myself. 

What are you passionate about these days?

Trying to be the best father in the world and only this. Every other thing pales in comparison to this and I make complete spinal cord patients walk again for a living. 

If you had to do your journey to getting published all over again, what would you do differently?

I have enjoyed the setbacks, the knock backs, the rejections. I do not think I would change it for anything else. It is the struggle that is the journey. The writing is secondary to what I am overcoming by being persistent and dogged in my efforts to be noticed. Once I become rich and famous, then the parties and the drugs and the women will quickly destroy all the hard work I applied to get to where I am. 

Ebook or print? And why?

I love reading my books on my computer, but I love holding the physical copies in my hands. I love seeing them on my bookshelf. There is something different about a book that is tangible. 

What is your favorite scene in this book?

My favorite story in the entire series is the episode of being dragged all over Plovdiv, Bulgaria by my older sister and the group of 30 of us are rejected at every restaurant because none of the staff at any location wanted to work hard. We ended up at the door to a bistro located on the hill above the city and the owner would not let us in because a faction of the local Mafia was having a quiet dinner. I was on crutches as my Achilles tendon had ruptured and after having to climb up the hill to be turned away was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Lesser Known Travel Tips Series

by

Simon Yeats

Genre:

Humor/Memoir

About the Series:

The Lesser Known Travel Tips memoirs are a hilarious series of travel misadventures and dubious personal introspection by Australian author Simon Yeats, who from an early age learned that the best way to approach the misfortunes of this world is to laugh about them.

Simon shares his comedic insights into the unusual and uproarious elements of living life as an Aussie ex-pat and having a sense of Wanderlust as pervasive as the Spanish Flu in 1918 or hordes of Mongols in 12th Century.

From how to keep yourself entertained when unwittingly forced to watch 11 hours of live sumo wrestling in Japan, to surviving heartbreak in India at the hands of a French flight attendant, to 48 hours spent in Nepal that qualify as the funniest most gut wrenching travel experience since Captain Bligh was set adrift in the Pacific, to his unsuccessful attempts at avoiding going to a brothel in Thailand. From what to do when several people converge to rob you after midnight on a deserted Copacabana Beach, to how to save the Sierra Mountain Range from a wildfire outbreak due to a lack of quality toilet paper, to where not to go in Tijuana when trying to locate the origins to stories of the city’s mythical adult entertainment, to how to save yourself from drowning when caught in a storm while sailing off the California coast. From how to outwit the Italian police while trying to find parking in downtown Genoa, to how to negotiate exploring the Roman ruins of Plovdiv, Bulgaria while on crutches, to how to impress the German Mafia with 80s dance moves, to how to leave a lasting impression on a crowded bar in Gothenburg, Sweden after combining alcohol and antibiotics.

Simon Yeats has gone into the world and experienced all the out of the ordinary moments for you to sit back and enjoy the experience without the need to break a leg, contract Dengue fever, or rupture a pancreas.

Read an Excerpt from How to Avoid Getting Mugged in Rio de Janeiro by Singing Songs by The Police and Other Lesser Known Travel Tips:

My trip to Steamboat in 1988 was life defining for me in so many ways. First time being on my own out of Australia. Overcoming that paralyzing fear. First time standing up on a snowboard. Overcoming my natural uncoordinated self while being too poor to pay for lessons. First time having my newly purchased snowboard stolen. Overcoming grief and anger. First time falling in love. First time having my heart crushed, then stepped on, then thrown in a blender. First time having an UZI in my face.

There was no time in my life more memorable than the three months I spent in Colorado during the winter of 1988. I was a raw lump of clay, and this small northern Colorado ski town was the pottery wheel. It was a huge, tense step up in life. And I learned that facing up to uncertainty will open the unlimited possibilities of the world to me.

Steamboat Springs, often shortened to Steamboat or even The Boat, lives up to its billing as a ski town with a cowboy spirit. Ten-gallon hats and boots are a common sight along the main drag of Lincoln Avenue. The world-famous cowboy downhill runs every January, coinciding with the National Western Stock Show in Denver. Up to 100 professional rodeo riders descend on the town, to show off their complete inability to ski. The Hindenburg landed in a more graceful fashion than these cowpokes after they hit the slopes.

The town's name derives from the abundance of natural, hot mineral springs in the area. Early trappers to the Yampa Valley mistakenly believed that the chugging sound emanating from the hot springs was a steamboat coming down the river. I wonder how many times trappers went off tramping to find animal pelts into the untamed wilderness at an elevation of 7000 feet and stumbled across a steamboat navigating a shallow mountain creek?

Meet the Author:



Simon Yeats has lived nine lives, and by all estimations, is fast running out of the number he has left. His life of globetrotting the globe was not the one he expected to lead. He grew up a quiet, shy boy teased by other kids on the playgrounds for his red hair. But he developed a keen wit and sense of humor to always see the funnier side of life.

With an overwhelming love of travel, a propensity to find trouble where there was none, and being a passionate advocate of mental health, Simon’s stories will leave a reader either rolling on the floor in tears of laughter, or breathing deeply that the adventures he has led were survived.

No author has laughed longer or cried with less restraint at the travails of life.

Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/4cRsYeE

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@authoryeats

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authoryeats/?hl=en

Purchase on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4cLvLWN

Enter the Giveaway:

A randomly drawn winner will be awarded a $25 Amazon/BN gift card.


a Rafflecopter giveaway This blog uses affiliate links.

My SECOND Life by Simon Yeats ~ Memoir

My SECOND Life

Simon Yeats

Genre: Memoir

Date of Publication: 7/4/23

ISBN: 9798223369066

ASIN: B0CB4LCCPN 

Number of pages: 254

Word Count: 76,000

Cover Artist: Yolairis Barranco          

Tagline: You cannot possibly understand how important things are until you have to decide between them and life.

Book Description:

We all have two lives, but we only get to experience the second one when we realize we have just one.

My first real scare in life happened when I was seven - I got attacked by a kangaroo. My first brush with death occurred at the age of 12 when my dad drove our family down the treacherous Skipper’s Canyon dirt road in New Zealand, in a rented minivan.

Including the terrifying night when I almost found myself in two separate plane crashes, there have been at least half a dozen other occasions when I was just a moment's inattention away from death. However, none of these frightening incidents can compare to what I went through after my son was abducted.

This memoir recounts the story of how I harnessed the traumatic experiences of my life to find the strength to persevere through a 13-year battle to be a father to my son.

  

What did it take for me to reach this second life? I had to truly understand the meaning of fear.

Amazon     Smashwords     Kobo

Meet the Author Video
https://youtu.be/mfb8WOeMSG4

Read an Excerpt:

At seven years of age, I am not comfortable at all being alone. It is a very unsettling feeling. Nerve-wracking. The sense of uncertainty over whether anyone will come back to get me. That I will be abandoned and left behind. Well, I already am left behind, so the fears are well founded.

My coping mechanism, when terrified at this age, is to cry and then shrink into a corner.

But I don’t want anyone to witness my fragility. I have to keep that hidden.

As I search for a place to disappear into, I stumble across an unlocked gate to an enclosure. There are no people on the other side in the enclosure and my youthful brain interprets this as a secure place then in which to hide and cry.

I do not even hesitate to go in. Keeping my emotional fragility hidden far outweighs the explicit warning from the park owner that “everything in Australia can kill you.”

In recent years, I have often wondered how the course of any life might change if these small insignificant moments in our lives were different. How strong is their influence on the outcome of our existence? What if we had not gone to this animal park this day? Could my life be completely different? And this moment occurred 48 years ago. How grand do defining moments in a person’s life have to be to completely change the trajectory of their lives?

What if mum and dad had taken us kids for a hike this day instead of driving around the back streets? What if we went to the toad races? What if I had not needed to go to the bathroom?

What if? Can a life change that much from the effect of a moment that takes just five minutes to play out?

I wander a few steps into the pen and sit down with my back against the fence. Here, I will not have to be worried about seeing the faces of my parents, who could be embarrassed at the sight of their shrinking violet of a son, while at least they will see where I am and come get me. Hidden but obvious. A useful tactic in every child’s handbook.

It is at this point that I am aware that I am inside a large pen that has a group of kangaroos in it.

If there is one native Australian species that any person alive would prefer to be enclosed with, it is the kangaroo. Not with one of the world’s nine deadliest snakes out of the top ten. Not with a couple of saltwater crocodiles. Not with a collective of deadly drop bears. Give any man a docile, grass eating kangaroo every day of the week.

A group of kangaroos is most commonly referred to as a ‘mob.’ They also use the terms ‘troop’ or ‘court’. In this case I will stick with the use of ‘mob’ and then I can later casually toss in using the adjective ‘unruly.’

Most of the kangaroos are listlessly lying around scratching their groins, as these animals do most of the day, even in the wild. The life of a nature park animal exhibit is most likely 99% boredom until some inattentive staff member also leaves the gate to the crocodile pond ajar.

I sit against the fence, remaining perfectly still. One oversize Big Red kangaroo rises from its sprawl on the ground. He stretches himself upright, then laboriously rolls forward on its front paws to nibble on the tufts of brown grass. Observing me, he slowly paddles his way over to inspect the newest occupant of its pen.

The nickname given to any male kangaroo is either ‘boomer,’ ‘buck,’ or ‘jack.’ Sitting alone in an animal enclosure as a seven-year-old, while penned in by a beast on a comparative size scale as large as wrestling great Andre the Giant, I would also accept the use of the term ‘scary mother fucker.’

Scrambling to my feet, I then stand frozen. I swallow large measures of palpable fear as the animal sniffs at my cheek with its sizable, quivering nostrils. It is a disconcerting feeling, while it takes all my youthful willpower to not have my knees buckle and collapse. At seven, this is like staring death in the face.

Holding my breath, I desperately attempt not to flinch as the roo perches in front of me.

The other kangaroos in the ‘mob’ stand up and move into position to back up their ringleader. If my legs were not two sticks of gelatinous whale blubber sheathed in sausage casing, I might have run. There is no telling if this is the right thing to do, but it was one of the two options available to me on the table. The other one is cowering where I am and die.

The Big Red slowly leans forward and gently taps me on the chest with his paw. Barely a glancing touch, but still a well-intentioned threat. The native animals of Australia are still bullying the colonialists a good 200 years after we thought we took over the land. Humans may well be the most intelligent species, but no one sits down on a toilet seat and simply ignores an inland Taipan nestling in the water of the bowl, no matter how well developed our brains are.

What am I supposed to do against this animal? Defend myself? I could not fight my way out of a wet paper bag if I had on steel capped boots, a swastika tattooed on my forehead, and holding an M-16.

The kangaroo staring me in the face terrifies me.

About the Author:

Simon Yeats is a physical therapist who works primarily with spinal cord injuries. The most challenging of the most challenging of patients. His own experiences in life overcoming tough challenges makes him perfectly suited to his profession. His interest in writing books is to inspire the world to go over and above the ordinary in everything they aspire to do in life.

https://www.tiktok.com/@my.second.life3

https://www.instagram.com/mysecondlifeyeats/  

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/40948459.Simon_Yeats 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway