Book Description 

Vagabond Zoo is one man’s attempt to find salvation abroad after none could be found at home. Though this search often devolves into a celebration of madness, debauchery and instant gratification. There are moments of pleasure. There are moments of pain. And there are moments too strange to be real. And yet they are. But at its core, Vagabond Zoo is a book about freedom. The freedom to go your own way. To trust your own voice. The freedom to carve out a path where none had existed before.

In the spring of 2001, Nick Mistretta went to India with little money and no plans. He suffered through a terrible bout of food poisoning, saw the Dalai Lama and nearly met God on a horrifying bus ride. And that was just in the first two weeks. He met other travelers and continued on with them to SE Asia, finally ending his year-long odyssey with a solo trip through Spain, Morocco and Korea. He battled aggressive cockroaches on a ship to Singapore, suffered through third world surgery in rural Thailand, witnessed an animal sacrifice in Morocco, ate bugs in Bangkok and survived a curious duel with a water buffalo in Indonesia. Along the way he learned a lot about the world and a little about himself. And eventually he became the traveler he set out to become.