Early April 2011: Anticipating hundreds of hours of potentially maddening silence ahead of me while cycling the length of Japan, I decided that music simply wasn’t going to cut it for the whole ride. Although a few phat beats are great to get into gear early in the morning (I hope you caught that cycle related pun), somewhere around day 10, I expected my brain would need something of more substance than the Allman Brothers. I had read stories about cyclists slowly losing their minds as the hours of blacktop rolled by. To avoid this unfavorable fate, I decided to investigate my options.
Long story short, audiobooks by Librivox were the answer. Although I had allowed myself a generous $100 budget to find some quality material, in the end I didn’t end up spending a single cent. The Librivox web site explains:
LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Our goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books.
I couldn’t believe it at first either. Suddenly all that saddle time started looking a lot more valuable. Not only that, but this discovery has since revamped how I view travel. Even now, I feel like I have discovered the El Dorodo of the Internet. Long flights, boring car rides, and even lay overs are now great opportunities to digest hundreds of classic books by captivating authors (my favorite is Jules Verne). The audio files are completely free to download and distribute. It’s rare to find an organization on the Internet who isn’t obsessed with signing up new users or profiting through advertising or affiliate links, but LibriVox is truly doing this for the benefit of society without a thought to monetary reward. There isn’t even a place to register on the site, this is madness!
At the finish line
When all was said and done, the total pedal time of the trip reached just over 175 hours over 43 days. If you put it all together, that’s over a week straight of being alone on a bicycle. Along the way I read Around the World in 80 days and a good deal of In Search of the Castaways. If you haven’t already, I highly encourage you to check out the extensive library of free audiobooks at LibriVox.org. Also, BooksShouldBeFree.com is a fantastic site that has collected the LibriVox cannon into more easily browsed layout.
My Top 12 Free Audiobook Picks
(click covers to download)
Around the World in 80 Days By Jules Verne
The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells
Swiss Family Robinson By Johann David Wyss
In Search of the Castaways by Jules Verne
Huckleberry Finn By Mark Twain
Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
Robinson Crusoe By Daniel Defoe
South! By Sir Ernest Shackleton
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Invisible Man By H. G. Wells
A Journey to the Interior of the Earth By Jules Verne
Sailing Alone Around The World By Joshua Slocum
Lead image by Finding Josephine
———-
Lastly, was this article helpful? Please let me know in the comments what you thought and what you’d like to read more of.
Awesome! I love audiobooks (since wasted time drives me insane). Luckily most kindle books that you download have an audio option as well and I use my kindle as much in my car as my couch.
Excited for you and Lori!! So soon!!
Thanks! We’re excited too =)
Great find! Thanks Andrew. How’s life stateside treating you?
Long time no talk Bobby, good to hear from you. Stateside is weird after so long in Japan. Everyone is loud and the portions are huge. In general it’s nice to be back though. You doing well? Any new awesome shots?
It has been a while! I been keeping up with your new stuff though. Great lighthouse shots. Things have been going well for me. I recently shot a Friends wedding. It was kind of last minute. She told me the day before! http://melissafernandoswedding.shutterfly.com/ I did what I could with the short notice.
Also, I did some work recently with a new crib company started by Tiffany Theisen and Lonni Paul from the show Saved by the Bell and HGTV’s Design Star respectively. They were super nice. Nothing big just some photography and some tweaks to their crib lines.
All my other projects have been going a little slower than I’d like. I guess summer fun gets in the way.
How are things with you and Lori? Tie the knot yet?