Ben Hatch

The story of a madcap five-month family trip to write a travel guide?embracing the freedom of the open road with a spirit of discovery and an industrial supply of baby wipes "Hurry up," I shout at Dinah, whilst on the overhead telly Ray Mears' Survival is playing extraordinarily loudly because Charlie sat on the volume button of the remote. The kids writhe about in the V05 shampoo they just spilt, laughing as the last of their clean clothes bite the dust, and I'm thinking: "Survive driving round England with two under 4s, staying at a different hotel each night and visiting four or five attractions a day and sometimes a restaurant in the evening. Sleep all in the same room, go to bed at 7 p.m. after having had no evening to yourself, wake up at 7 a.m. and do it all again the next day with the prospect of another 140 nights of the same?then come and tell me about survival in your khaki ****ing shorts, Ray." They were bored, broke, burned out, and turning 40. So when Ben and his wife Dinah were approached to write a guidebook about family travel, they embraced the open road, ignoring friends' warnings: "One of you will come back chopped up in a bin bag in the roof box." Featuring deadly puff adders, Billie Piper's pajamas, and a friend of Hitler's, it's a story about love, death, falling out, moving on, and growing up, and 8,000 misguided miles in a Vauxhall Astra.

8,000 Misguided Miles Round Britain in a Vauxhall Astra

Are We Nearly There Yet?

The P45 Diaries

From the bestselling author of ARE WE NEARLY THERE YET? (Radio 2 Book of the Year & voted Amazon Customers' Fave Kindle Read 2011) comes a new hilarious and touching story of travel chaos. Chosen as one of Amazon's Best Kindle Books of 2013 Ben Hatch is on the road again. Commissioned to write a guidebook about France (despite not speaking any French) he sets off with visions of relaxing chateaux and refined dining. Ten thousand miles later his family's been attacked by a donkey, had a run-in with a death-cult and, after a near drowning and a calamitous wedding experience involving a British spy, his own marriage is in jeopardy. A combination of obsessions about mosquitoes, French gravel and vegetable theme parks mean it's a bumpy ride as Ben takes a stand against tyrannical French pool attendants, finds himself running with the bulls in Pamplona and almost starring in a snuff movie after a near fatal decision to climb into a millionaire's Chevrolet Blazer. Funny and poignant, Road to Rouen asks important questions about life, marriage and whether it's ever acceptable to tape baguette to your children's legs to smuggle lunch into Disneyland Paris.

Ben Hatch

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