Lone Traveller: One Woman, Two Wheels and the World [Paperback]

Anne Mustoe is neither a professional adventurer nor writer, but a sixty-something Suffolk headmistress. When she embarked on cycling the world's historical trade routes, she didn't consider herself a "cyclist" and remains unable to mend a puncture. "I'm not young, I'm not sporty, I never train", she states, making light of her incredible achievement, following the Silk Road across China, Pakistan, the Gobi Desert and Turkey; traversing South America and more. "My only duty in life was to get myself from one shelter to the next before nightfall..."

Mustoe's strict girls' school background is evident in her rigid planning and seriousness. She revels in solitude, dining by herself or watching TV after a long ride, and describing a "good night out" as attending a ballet alone--although she breaks her Girl Guide demeanour slightly when staying in China's cheap-and-cheerful gated lorry compounds or sharing a joint in a Byron Bay backpacker hostel.

Lone Traveller will be useful to anyone contemplating a foreign bicycle trip. Mustoe explores the pros and cons of cycling alone; dealing with police; tacking tough terrain; and the peculiar maps which neglect to depict whole mountain ranges. She includes her packing list and documents the varying reactions to a lone women cyclist--bewilderment in Brazil; house arrest in China; hero worship in sporty Australia. Although informative, it doesn't have the same spontaneity or spirit as Josie Dew's classic cycle diaries Travels In A Strange State and The Wind In My Wheels. Mustoe's rambling style is innocent and unembellished, both the book's joy and its downfall. While some will find Lone Traveller heart-warming and inspirational, others will tire of its matter-of-factness.--Sarah Champion

More remarkable tales from the intrepid cycling ex-headmistress

'You don't have to be twenty, male and an ace mechanic to set out on a great journey. I've cycled round the world twice now. I'm not young, I'm not sporty, I never train and I still can't tell a sprocket from a chainring or mend a puncture.'

So speaks Anne Mustoe in the opening to this fascinating record of her second epic journey cycling around the globe from East to West.

Using historical routes as her inspiration, Anne followed the ancient Roman roads to Lisbon, travelled across South America with the Conquistadors, pursued Captain Cook over the Pacific to Australia and Indonesia and followed the caravans along the fabled Silk Road from Xi'an to Rome.

'You don't have to be twenty, male and an ace mechanic to set out on a great journey. I've cycled round the world twice now. I'm not young, I'm not sporty, I never train and I still can't tell a sprocket from a chainring or mend a puncture.'

So speaks intrepid ex-headmistress Anne Mustoe in the opening to this fascinating record of her second epic journey cycling around the globe from East to West.

Using historical routes as her inspiration, Anne followed the ancient Roman roads to Lisbon, travelled across South America with the Conquistadors, pursued Captain Cook over the Pacific to Australia and Indonesia and followed the caravans along the fabled Silk Road from Xi'an to Rome.

With incredible tales of police arrest, the threat of guerrillas and attacks by wild dogs, Lone Traveller is an absorbing account of one woman's experience on a remarkable journey.

'Her wry sense of humour is one of the great charms of Lone Traveller' Daily Telegraph

'A book about the true spirit found in real travellers, written by a real traveller' Wanderlust

Anne Mustoe read Classics at Cambridge and was the headmistress of a girls' school in Suffolk until 1987, when she left her job and embarked on her first solo journey around the world by bicycle. She is an established travel writer with a substantial following who lectures regularly on her adventures.