One Less Traveled

Book Rating 3 of 5

One Less Traveled is a difficult book to find, you must be a patron of MotorCity Boat Werks.

Clearly One Less Traveled is a self published book by a amateur author. As such some of the writing can be a little rough. I had a hard time parsing my way through the descriptions of some of the remodels.

That being said I actually think Joe actually has a good skill in story telling. The first chapter on buying the boat and “sailing” the boat from the Chesapeake Bay to North Carolina was very engaging. I felt a real connection with Joe and his trials with the boat buying it, relocating it and moving aboard. The most interesting parts of the book was when Joe reflected on his life and how the boat related to his life.

At one point Joe is driving many hours most weekends to work on the boat. I wish he had explored some of his feeling about doing this. What compelled the insanity? Does he regret any of it? What was the reward? Were there other things in his life that pushed him to do this or was he simply in love with the boat?

I think some stories about sailing the boat after its refit would have been a great addition to the book.

I would have liked to understand why after owning the boat for so long he finally gave up on it. Why did he sell it when he did? Was there a new boat? Was it something more personal?

All in all I think One Less Traveled is actually good book. If you’re not that interested in boat restoration I think you can skip those chapters and just enjoy Joe’s tales of finding the boat, living in the boat, moving the boat and selling the boat. Its not as deep as Dick Proenneke’s story of living in the Alaskan Wilderness but its still a interesting story.