Beginning at age 19, writer Davis had the opportunity to travel while in the Marine Corps and when working for the U.S. Government, and later by choice with his wife, Susan. Every page of this travel memoir is graced with photographs, mostly taken by or of the author. He places flowers at a warrior’s grave in France in 2018, and as a young man, is seen roaming Piccadilly Circus or posing near the Rock of Gibraltar. He has a photographer’s eye for great architecture: the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the Alhambra in southern Spain, China’s Forbidden City. Alone or with Susan at his side, he visits, revisits, explores, and enthusiastically describes everything from grand European cities, the Italian countryside, famous icons like Big Ben, Mt. Fuji and China’s Great Wall to humble markers like a red London phone booth or a captured Japanese flag from World War II.

After serving in the Marines in Europe, Asia, and stateside, Davis served under two United States Presidents as a Secret Service agent and a criminal investigator. These postings offered opportunities to place new pins on his proudly displayed world travel map. The illustrations provided are integral to his yarns, which sometimes involve honors he received but, just as often, respect and admiration he devotes to others. He advises potential tourists, often with a dash of humor, to “bring a pocket full of money” to the French Riviera. He wept at the sight of Michelangelo’s Pieta, but found Iwo Jima “a terrible place to be, even in peacetime.” One outstanding photo-op shows Susan and Davis standing with the Terracotta Army near Xi’an, China. Davis’s travels and his engaging narrative will be appreciated by anyone who craves new sights or new views of old ones, and by travelers of both the get-up-and-go and the armchair variety.

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