Press kit
Eleven Year Vacation: a travel memoir by Paul Fenn
In 1988, a 28-year-old Steelcase office furniture salesman exited his successful career in suburban Toronto, and his charmed life in the Annex, with a $100K war chest, a backpack and no plan. He returned eleven years later with a few tales.
The story
Eleven Year Vacation follows Paul Fenn from a successful but soul-sucking sales job in the Toronto suburbs to Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Borneo, the Philippines, Singapore, Mexico, Costa Rica and Panama, mostly by thumb, ferry, cargo boat and crewing on other people’s yachts.
Along the way: an Iban longhouse whose headman fought beside the British SAS, a hashish bust at Manila airport, five days of gale-force winds aboard a yacht that was falling apart, Laos when it had barely opened to the West, and a long run of improbable friendships, romances and gloriously ill-considered decisions. It is a portrait of Asia, the Pacific and Central America before mass tourism and smartphones, told with the candour of someone who kept every diary, letter and postcard.
The memoir comes in two volumes, drawn from thousands of pages of diaries and photocopied letters. Volume One is being serialized free on Substack, a chapter at a time, under the masthead Sublime Inanities. Volume Two, which begins when the money runs out and he moves into a Jakarta slum, is being edited now and will follow.
Quick facts
- Title: Eleven Year Vacation
- Genre: Travel memoir / narrative non-fiction
- Period: 1988 to 1999
- Where: South Pacific, Australia, Southeast Asia and Central America
- Status: Volume One serialized on Substack since 2023 (50+ chapters so far); Volume Two in revision
- Read it: paulfenn.substack.com (start with Chapters 1 & 2)
Five chapters to start with
- Marination (Ch. 1–2): Toronto, 1987. Why a suburban office furniture salesman walks away from it all.
- Deliverance (Ch. 11): First steps in Indonesia, and a clove cigarette lit beside a refuelling airliner.
- Conquest achievable (Ch. 16): Bali’s Mount Agung, a warning dutifully ignored.
- Rumah with a view (Ch. 32): Life in a remote Iban longhouse in Sarawak, Borneo.
- You are so busted (Ch. 36): Manila airport security finds the stash.
Story angles
- The last analogue odyssey: eleven years abroad, mostly before the internet and smartphones, documented in letters he photocopied and kept before mailing.
- A vanished Asia: Laos in 1989, Borneo’s longhouses before mass logging and oil palm plantations moved in, Singapore’s louche yacht-club scene.
- Quitting everything: what happens when you walk away from a “great” career, and what it costs to discover the better one.
- When the money runs out: broke in Jakarta, living in a slum, and the darkest, strangest stretch of the whole eleven years.
- Sailing, hitchhiking and crewing: how to cross oceans for free on other people’s boats, 1980s style.
About the author
Short bio: Paul Fenn is a Toronto writer and creative director. He left Canada in 1988 and spent eleven years travelling, working and sailing across the South Pacific, Southeast Asia and Central America. Eleven Year Vacation is his memoir of those years.
Longer bio: Paul Fenn left home at 16 on the notion of living a large, action-packed, abnormal life internationally. Between 1988 and 1999 he hitchhiked, crewed yachts, and worked and lived around the South Pacific, Southeast Asia and Central America, keeping diaries and photocopying every letter he sent home. Those records became Eleven Year Vacation, now serialized on Substack. He built a career as an advertising copywriter and creative director, first in Singapore and later in Canada, writing for brands including Pizza Hut, Harley-Davidson, Singapore Airlines and Norbord/West Fraser Timber. He lives in Toronto.
Available for
- Podcast and radio interviews
- Excerpts and reprints
- Guest posts, readings and talks
- Literary agents and publishers: the Volume One manuscript is available on request
Images
The images on this page may be used for coverage of Eleven Year Vacation, credited to Paul Fenn. Higher-resolution versions and more archival photos are available on request.
Contact
Paul Fenn
Toronto, Canada
647-296-6006
[email protected]