I really wish if I hadn't read this book. I had such an image of Crichton as a perfect, well read scientist and man in general. Some of the things he did in his life I find appaling and they didn't really make sense, especially for a man with his level of education and upbringing. Also, the writing style itself in this book was filled with clichés and it was, to say the least, tacky and unlike his writing style in Fiction, which was well executed and beautiful. I cannot believe that this is the same man who wrote Jurassic Park, The Lost World and Congo, books that left me mystified till this day. This is my first experience with travel books and he kind of made me hate traveling to unique places. Whenever he travelled to some exotic site, he was never fully happy or satisfied. The most boring of all was his "journey" to discover his inward self. PLEEAASSEE....

This is a collection of short essays about Crichton's days at Harvard Med School and internship, the various travels and expeditions that he made throughout his life, and his metaphysical journeys. I was very interested in reading the chapters about the latter, expecting that I would be reading about his experiences with meditation, zen, religion, philosophy...etc. Indeed, it began with that, but before long we find Mr. Crichton visiting psychics, going on retreats, playing with auras, and attending spoon bending parties. Strange things start happening and I found them hard to believe, especially coming from a former doctor and skeptical critic of global warming and second-hand smoke.

Crichton's writing is wonderful, the stories are personal and interesting, and each one ends with a bit of insight. He was a very intelligent and thoughtful person, and I really liked him for most of the book, but when someone expects me to believe that you can bend a spoon with your mind...I'm sorry - I just can't buy that one. If you can bend a spoon, then bending the handle of your ceramic coffee cup should be no problem, show me that! Or, instead of bending the spoon, why not s t r e t c h it out like silly putty...why does't anyone do that? Because it isn't real, that's why!

So I ended up enjoying the book and the author less and less as I continued reading. I don't know what to think of Crichton now...I somewhat believe that he may have been a mixed up person. For sure, a complex person. The book does delve into issues that he had growing up.

Worth reading, but it seems to be an artifact of the New Age era and probably some confused or wishful thinking on Crichton's part, may he rest in peace...

This is a weird one.

Good:
The first part of the book, describing the author’s time in med school I found very interesting. A lot of his travel adventures are unique and exciting. You definitely get a window into his mind.

Bad:
The “mental trips” and visits to psychics that are all over this book did not resonate with me at all. I think the attempts to normalize astral projection, energies and mediums were ridiculous.

Ugly:
The casual mention of child prostitution in this book was disgusting. I don’t think I can dissociate Crichton from that story moving forward. I don’t know how it was published, frankly

Really really hard to review this one. As several others have mentioned, the scene with the child prostitutes was handled in the most disgusting and reprehensible way. In that situation did I expect him to go to the police? No, and probably if he did, they wouldn't do a single thing about it. What did disgust me was the way he just calmly let it happen, didn't try to persuade his friend to go somewhere else, didn't say out loud that he wasn't okay with this, and even still when writing the book, didn't make any further comment on regretting being a part of the experience, speaking up, redirecting, or donating some of his fortune to a child sex slavery charity - anything really. He just sat back, let it happen, left, and then profited off it. It was disgusting and I almost couldn't carry on with the book. I'm not sure it was worth it in the end.

Also the spoon bending party? It didn't happen how he described it. It just didn't. I don't care what anyone argues, spoons don't bend because you yell at them, BEND BEND BEND. That's it, its literally impossible. So why did he act like not only did it happen to everyone, but it happened so much that people got bored of it. Someone was hosting the party, and everyone had to bring spoons, but they would pick up a spoon and yell at it to bend, but if it didn't they go for another spoon until it does, so obviously there were trick spoons in the pile. I don't understand his lack of critical thinking as soon as a phenomena occurred, or 'occurred'. He's skeptical up until the last moment, then all skepticism and critical thinking disappeared.

Outside of that, he's a good writer, of course, so it was an easy and fast read. Ups and downs and overall, I wouldn't recommend it and it didn't leave a good impression.

At first when I started this I was like wtf? He's talking about being in med-school and I thought 'Oh no! This is going to be boarding as hell'
This turned out to be a really great book!
This isn't your standard memoir. Each part where Crichton tells about a trip he toke, it is written like a really great short story. I really enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it to everyone. I was actually sad when I finished with it.
He published this right before publishing Jurassic Park. I really wish he would have written a fallow up to this about the latter part of his life.
Book *****
Audiobook *****

Interesting book. Thought-provoking. Also kind of weird--he starts off autobiographical, waxing philosophical, but in the last half of the book he takes quite a turn and ends up trying to convince the reader of the paranormal. Seeing auras, channeling, spoon bending etc. But all that is interesting too. I guess it's all the rage in Hollywood.

Crichton goes to a lot of trouble to inform us how intelligent and logical he is. But I found a lot of his reasoning to be a mess logically.

Also, I walked away thinking the author is pretty much a scumbag. His pursuits in life just seem shallow and the cold way he talks about his relationships left me thinking he's pretty selfish and weird. Or maybe he was just too honest?

I think I first saw the cover of this book when I was about 13 and the mystery of it grabbed me even then. It’s a hard to find book. Not as popular as Crichton’s works of fiction. But I happened upon a copy a few weeks ago and devoured it in two days.

Travels is the story of Crichton’s life from Harvard medical school to internationally acclaimed author of Sphere and Jurassic Park. But what makes it more than a jerk-off self-important autobiography is how Crichton talks openly and honestly about his search for truth and meaning in life. His adventures– and misadventures– span the entire world and beyond, venturing into the realm of metaphysics and transcendental meditation.

We travel with Crichton to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro and witness the disintegration of his marriage. We venture into the jungles of Africa to visit the last wild gorillas with him. He takes us meditating in the California desert, and introduces us to a talking cactus. Crichton spent his life researching the edges of humanity, the fringes of what we are capable of. At time, what he finds is disappointing. But I was left with more of a sense of how we are all connected to each other, possibly on a quantum mechanics level, even.

Reader beware, this nonfiction book pushes the boundaries of believability at points, especially toward the end as Crichton begins to see auras and discovers he might be possessed by a few demons.

But it was a hell of a ride and everything I had hoped it could be. And I have a profound respect for the writer, now. Not just for his economy of words but for his gall to be so honest with his readers.

After reading this book, I realized that I never want to meet Michael Crichton. Ever.

I have read most of the novels written by Michael Crichton, both the popular, such as "The Andromeda Strain" and "Jurassic Park", and the less-well-known, such as "Eaters of the Dead." The corpus is diverse but there are continuous threads which recur, prompting one to wonder about the author: what were the sources in his life of these interests? His non-fiction memoir "Travels" offers some answers. The first eighty pages of the book recount his adventures as a medical student at Harvard University. The style is very similar to his writing in an earlier non-fiction book called "Five Patients" published in 1970. The remainder of the book alternates between stories of his adventures as a world traveler and his adventures as a person interested in psychic phenomena. In an oblique way, it explains how he left a career in medicine for a career as a novelist, screenwriter, motion picture director and television producer. His view of the paranormal is well grounded in his own experiences and distinctly non-whacky. The writing is witty and self-deprecating. The sources of his themes -- that human wisdom has not kept pace with advances in technology and that complex systems are prone to break down in unforeseen and disastrous way -- can be found in his travels, both around the world and inside his own head. Crichton died in 2008, leaving a partially completed manuscript for his next novel "Micro." His estate commissioned Richard Preston to complete it. I bought it and I'll read it, if only to bring closure to my enjoyment of all of his work.

Great bio about one of the best writers of the last 100 years. Very interesting read

I read my first Chrichton, Prey, in seventh grade. Since then I've bought most of his books at library sales. This, which I picked up in my town in August of 2021, is no different except for the fact that it's not a novel; it's a book about him writing about his travels. What could be cooler than reading one of my most important authors talk about his travels?

Well, the title's a bit misleading. The first quarter of this book is more about Crichton's days in the medical field and how he pivoted into writing. The opening line of this book about the hacksaw... just go pick this book up. It's worth it for that opening line. The whole opening quarter is written very well and it gave me a similar feeling to one of his thrillers like Sphere or Disclosure. Just... really good.

The middle half is more about his travels and how they changed him. This is about Crichton's personal growth. I liked this part. He's a good storyteller and even though he did touristy things they're mostly interesting. And sometimes Crichton sounds like a douchebag, but I think he knew that. I think he was a flawed guy who made a big name for himself despite a troubled upbringing who genuinely tried to improve throughout his life. A couple parts made me uncomfortable, but that's okay; this is Crichton's journey.

And then his journey led to the last quarter-ish of the book, where he dives into physics and spoon-bending and his exorcism. Some of the things he clearly believes and some of it he pushes back against, but... it does seem like an odd turn into mysticism. The storytelling also seems to peter off, but maybe that's because I was rolling my eyes a bit by this point. This still ain't a bad book - not by any means - but it slides from a good four star to a good two star read. That's why I chose four stars. I'd still recommend this to any Crichton fan for the strength of the first three parts. They offer genuine insight into a thrilling author and gave me some things I'll always think about. So what if the last few pages got weird? It's still a good book.

It is easy to fall in love with Crichton’s writing. It immediately grasps you as solid writing. It is funny, easy, polished, gripping when it needs to be, authentic in both styles – fiction and memoir – and it stays with you long after the reading has ended. There is not a single excess word in all his writing; there is a purpose for every word, every phrase, and every chapter. You just know you are in the presence of great writing.

In the span of 353 page book, it is not until after the first 80 pages recounting the challenges of his medical days (1965-1969) that he begins to share his extensive travels. These first 80 pages offer many clues into Crichton’s shaping character and his priorities in pursuing his passions of writing and travel, despite the incurred cost and expended efforts on a career in medicine.

Crichton’s overall experience during medical school and especially his clinical rotations are disturbing, scary, gory, amusing and frequently daunting. It is the daunting that eventually leads him to quit medical school – the tough choices of bad or worse that a doctor has to make, the changes he observes in the doctors from human to robot for adaptation and survival in their environment, and the loose laws around malpractice which cost patients their lives or their limbs with hardly any punishment more than a slap on the wrist of the responsible doctor – these were the daunting observations that while tolerated and accepted at the time as the norm by his peers, Crichton was not able to live with. So he quit medicine.

His accounts of psychiatry are extremely funny. Crichton considered entering psychiatry when he was turning away from general medicine, but his clinical rotations proved his assumptions true – at least for him – that psychiatry does not really help people. There are two groups who dominate the clientèle in Crichton’s view: those who are severely disturbed and need help, for whom psychiatry does not make do much and certainly does not effect cures, and those who make up the self-indulgent, absurdly wealthy crowd for whom psychiatry is a glorified form of treatment and he had no interest to help them.

And this brings me to what Crichton does best in this book – and something that I found outright hilarious: He would form an opinion about a subject and act in accordance with that opinion, until someone suggests the opposite view, which, through long analytical monologues, disturbs him to the point that he switches to the opposite end of the opinion spectrum, and adjusts all his actions accordingly. Perhaps, on significant issues this would seem like a person who does not believe in anything, and therefore falls for anything – but these were all petty affairs, such as visiting a psychiatrist – whom he finds to be a waste of time – until his friend tells him that the guy probably would not make time to see him anyway – leading Crichton to panic that perhaps his case is not interesting or important, and he makes an appointment right away!!!


The chapter dearest to my heart is on his experience with the Mountain Gorillas. The dialogue between the scientist and Crichton before his journey up the mountains to see the gorillas:

“I wouldn’t study gorillas”, Nicole said.
“Why not”, I asked.
“They are men.”
“Gorillas are men?”
“Yes, of course”.

Gorillas are not animals, they are same as men. The Gorilla story is chilling, sad, beautiful and more. As Crichton comes to see these gorillas close-up, he “drifted into a feeling of extraordinary enchantment. Never in my life had I experienced anything like it. To be so close to a wild creature of another species, and yet to feel no threat…I never wanted to leave.”