Freak Show without a Tent: Swimming with Piranhas, Getting Stones in Fiji, and Other Family Vacations

Summary

Fishing for piranhas in the Amazon, getting stoned at Fijian kava ceremonies, and witnessing the ancient ritual of land diving on Pentecost Island is the stuff of National Geographic cover stories— and Nevin Martell’s childhood vacations.

His family’s globetrotting took them from the South Pacific to South America and many points nowhere in-between. Though their lifestyle choices were eccentric, the locations they visited exotic, and the people they met extraordinary, these escapades are firmly grounded in the trials, tribulations, and tribal rivalries that plague all families. Freak Show without a Tent is a grandly hilarious memoir-misadventure that is equal parts National Lampoon’s Vacation, Romancing the Stone, and Crocodile Dundee.

Woven seamlessly into the stories of exploring the far side of the far side, near death experiences, and gastronomical catastrophes, is the story of a young boy coming of age, the evolving relationship between a father and son, and a family discovering its own boundaries. With the honesty and innocence that can only come through the eyes of youth, Martell reveals the symbiosis of interdependence and independence that exist deep within both rain forests and families. To paraphrase a family motto: buy the ticket, take the ride, and hope you survive, so that you can tell your therapist all about it.