In this self-help guide, a motivational speaker outlines his travel-focused philosophy for achieving inner and external growth.

According to Murphy (Travel Unscripted, 2012), if you embrace the principles of this book, you’ll change your life—and change the world. The author quit a corporate job more than a decade ago and is a now an entrepreneur and motivational speaker who has appeared on Fox, CNN and NBC’s Today show. His ideology focuses on five core values—integrity, love and gratitude, a lifetime of learning, self-determination and oneness. To illustrate his points, he shares anecdotes about such high-profile figures as Nelson Mandela, Condoleezza Rice and Jon Bon Jovi, as well as lesser-known people, such as the author’s friends and family members and other people he’s encountered on his world travels. Murphy often features bits of text in larger type, and in several instances, he allows a single quote to fill a full page. He also sets forth a series of reader assignments, such as listing the places you’d like to go in the “physical world” (such as St. Lucia) and those you’d like to achieve in your “personal world” (such as smiling more at strangers). Although the travel theme unravels at times during the more general musings, Murphy does present some food for thought for readers seeking to rebalance or redirect their lives. He’s also an admirable advocate of his “oneness” concept, highlighting charitable organizations throughout this work. The author’s own “personal world” journey rarely appears, but it does include a touching mention of his wife’s diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and how he and his wife “could sit around and lament the diagnosis and what might happen or they could focus on living their lives.” The text after the “or” is bolded and in a different color, reflecting the onward-and- upward perspective that Murphy consistently espouses throughout this book.

An easy-to-read self-help primer with an intriguing travel premise and positive pointers on building a more fulfilling life. 

A globetrotting producer chronicles his misadventures while filming unscripted videos from around the world.

Former ad man Murphy founded the video production company Travalliance Media on a straightforward premise: head to the airport with a small crew, arrive at the destination and wing it. Naturally, when someone’s job relies on spontaneity and chance, things are occasionally bound to go wrong. And that’s where Murphy turns his capricious lens: to the often humiliating and uncomfortable struggle to get the perfect shot. Available as both an interactive e-book and traditional paperbound edition with supplemental photos and online videos, Murphy’s Bourdainian journeys take him to more than 20 locations, including Dublin, Tel Aviv and Moscow, as well as aboard America’s Grand Luxe train line. He and his companions try and fail to explore the seedy side of Bangkok, dodge piles of donkey dung in a downhill race to catch a boat in Greece, inadvertently go clubbing with a group of young Vietnamese women and try to avoid one aggressive tour guide after another. The stories vary in entertainment value, but most of them feel incomplete, too safe and anecdotal to be fully engaging. While in Vegas for a television appearance that never happens, Murphy devotes most of a chapter to mocking a drunken man he finds asleep in his hotel hallway. Aside from trying to stir the man, nothing much happens and Murphy ends the section with a bit of characteristic cheese: “It seemed pretty clear to me that this particular experience would ‘stay in Vegas.’” The author throws around puns (about the Chinese god of fireworks: “Zhu Rongs do not make a right”) and makes ample Murphy’s Law jokes. Some readers will be drawn in by this depiction of a germophobic 40something dude who still makes potty jokes, flirts with young foreign ladies and describes his travel-workout regimen in full detail. On the other hand, Murphy’s cool-dad tone (he references Bowie, Glenn Miller and the fact that he owns both an iPhone and an iPad) makes for a charming if infrequently obnoxious traveling companion. More memoir than travelogue, Murphy’s collection of escapades offers an interesting exposé of an unusual job.