The Buddha and the Bee: Biking through America's Forgotten Roadways on an Accidental Journey of Discovery

The Buddha and the Bee by Cory Mortensen. He left Chaska, Minnesota for California on a bicycle with no route, no timeline and none of the right equipment, carrying a backpack. What followed was the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, an alkaline desert and the Sierra Nevada, plus the people who turn up on the roads most travellers skip. This is the first of three books and it set the pattern for the rest: slow travel, self-deprecating humour, and a running argument with the idea that a life has to be planned to be worth living. Mortensen is a cyclist, filmmaker and former entrepreneur from Minnesota who writes about moving through the world slowly enough to notice it.