Interview with memoirist Simon Yeats

Memoirist Simon Yeats is chatting with me about his new humorous travel memoir series, Lesser Known Travel Tips series.

During his book tour, Simon will be giving away a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky randomly drawn participant. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit his other tour stops and enter there, too!

Bio:
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.

Welcome, Simon. Please tell us about your new series release.
The Blurb:
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.

Excerpt from How to Survive Making Yourself Look Silly While Dancing with the German Mafia at a Bavarian Nightclub and Other Lesser Known Travel Tips:
“Your nephew has been selected for the world championships in Plovdiv,” my dad proudly told me.

“Wow. Plovdiv, Norway?”

“Bulgaria.”

“Bulgaria, really?” I responded. “Does that still exist as a country?”

“Apparently,” said Dad.

“Bulgaria. Rats. Why couldn’t Plovdiv be in Norway?”

Keeping track of all that has gone on in the old Eastern European Communist block had fallen by the wayside with me. The two Germanys got back together, and their female athletes stopped taking so many steroids, that I knew. But I rather enjoyed the Cold War era. Back when James Bond villains were extra formidable and daunting. The Cold War gave Western political parties someone to blame for the ills in Western society. Now they blame us, the citizens. The budget deficit, the trade imbalance, and the need for higher taxes are all my doing, not the fault of Czechoslovakia and Belarus.

To get to see my 18-year-old nephew represent his country, I must make my first visit behind the Iron Curtain. I have spent his entire life living away from Australia. I have never seen him compete in a regatta. I do not know his favorite movie or even if he has a girlfriend. Once in his life I treated him, and his siblings, to breakfast at the Pancake Manor in downtown Brisbane. It was a special moment for me. This is the unseen burden of being an expatriate. I have always felt like an uninvolved, forgotten uncle.

Now I have an opportunity to change that.

I have no idea what I would be getting myself into going to Bulgaria. Like eating an American ballpark hot dog. Was it safe, or was it not? But this unknown aspect of travel is also what gives me a buzz. Who knows what unusual things I will learn, or what new things I will see? The first thing I learn online is that Bulgaria is notorious for its Roma population, or gypsies. The European equivalent of the traveling carnival employee.

Gypsies. Damn it. I have a history with gypsies.

Where did you get the idea for this book?
I was sitting in a pub in Ireland and I had run out of money and I was thinking about all the places I had gone in my life up until that point. The book series, Lesser Known Travel Tips, came about because I thought of the difference that getting out of my comfort zone to explore the world and overcoming my fears had been to have such a beneficial effect on my life. Sure, I made plenty of mistakes, a ton of them. Three books worth of mistakes, but if I could write a book series that helped even one other person understand how amazing it can be to find the confidence to head out into the world and experience life, then that one person will be indebted to me and owe me a beer and maybe they might have been in that pub at the time.

What, in your opinion, are the most important elements of good writing?
Well, spelling is not a biggie. Being able to write sarcasm and make people understand it is sarcasm without them thinking, ‘does he not know how important spelling is to writing a book?’

Who is your favorite author and why?
I like Bill Bryson and Tony Hawks. Two humor travel writers that made me believe that people can enjoy reading about the stupid thoughts that can go on in a person’s brain during a person’s travels. These authors are traveling and simply alone with their thoughts. Travel is an absolute luxury. We all know there are package tourist tours and there is traveling. There is a massive difference. Most people, I would bet, prefer to take a package tour on vacation but want to read about traveling.

What is your favorite quote and why?
Nobody can discover the world for somebody else. Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond, and we cease to be alone.

Any weird things you do when you’re alone?
Um, you really want me to answer that question because I will. I just promised the dwarf I would not use his real name. But I suppose if I am with a dwarf I am not technically alone, so that would then exclude that as an answer. My sexual proclivities aside, yeah, there is one really weird thing I do every morning when I am alone walking my dogs. For 15 minutes while I am alone with them watching the sunrise, I have a dream that the entirety of humanity gets wiped from the face of the earth. Everyone, me included. No mercy. Just everyone gets destroyed. Funnily enough, this is also often the happiest 15 minutes of my day. If you want to understand how a person can have so much rage in their body that they could wish such a terrible fate on humanity you will have to read about it in the one other book I wrote that is not part of the travel memoir series.

Links:

Amazon Author Page | TikTok | Instagram | Book One | Book Two | Book Three

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