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3mph:The Adventures Of One Woman's Walk Around The World (2011)

by Polly Letofsky(Favorite Author)

3.8 of 5 Votes: 4

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

GlobalWalk, Inc

review 1: 3 MPH is the enchanting and inspirational story of a woman with the ability to envision her life's work and the will to carry it out. Polly Letofsky walked around the planet. The stepping part alone was a five-year commitment. Then, she wrote a page-turning book about it. With humor and spirit,the author entertains us with her candid observations of the people and cultures, while sharing her goal of raising global awareness for breast cancer. I took away two good lessons from reading this book. First, was a sense of how the events of September 11, 2001 galvanized Muslim cultures in Asia, particularly Malaysia. Second, was a renewed appreciation for the freedoms afforded by living in the United States; especially the one that can empower an individual to clarify her life's ... morepurpose, and then follow that dream along destiny's path.
review 2: Polly Letofsky had a comfortable life and a condo in Vail when several of her friends were diagnosed with breast cancer. Wanting to do something to help, Polly realized she could combine her childhood desire to walk around the world with an awareness and fundraising campaign for this difficult disease. 3MP is the journal of her travels across 4 continents and 5 years. From the beginning of her book, Polly's vivacity and enthusiasm for her project is infectious. The writing gets off to a bit of a bumpy start, however, as her initial accounts of heading out of Vail towards California fall into a bit of this-happened-then-this-happened trap as she struggles with unreliable fundraising partners and unstable walking support teams. This is not surprising given that covering such an enormous span of physical space and time would be a challenge for even the most seasoned writer. But once Polly hits New Zealand, she begins to hit both her walking and her writing stride, and I found myself really enjoying her story.I learned quite a bit about different parts of the world from reading this book. The road threw many surprises, challenges and delights at Polly along her path, and hers is a good reminder of how different travel can be than we expect. She had prepared herself for hard hours of solitude on her journey, but was adopted by the Lions Club early on and handed off from town to town by their enormously helpful members. In parts of Asia she had as many as 150 people walking with her at a time, and had to fight to spend so much as 10 minutes on her own in that community oriented culture. Knowing 4 people close to me who have openly fought breast cancer myself, I was also surprised to realize that there are parts of the world where this disease is still barely acknowledged. Polly's campaign was critically useful in several Asian countries where there was no public awareness of what a breast lump meant and many women were diagnosed well past the point where they could be helped.Polly happened to be in a predominantly Muslim country when 9/11 struck, so her journal also thoughtfully records the reactions of the world around her during that awful time. Though she did make some itinerary changes due to the attacks, the greatest hostility she experienced happened in Europe, where her Lions Club allies were all on vacation and rude shopkeepers had no use for a shoestring American traveler no matter how important her mission. Aside from her distinctly unfriendly welcome in Greece and her discovery that it is a really bad idea for a woman to walk alone in India, however, Polly's journey is one that is genuinely inspirational. The support she received both for her mission and herself was incredibly moving, and I found myself tearing up more than once as she described the strings of little gifts and miracles that carried her around the globe as she tried to do her own small part to help. I closed this book with a real sense of hope for humanity, and a lot more educated about the world we live in to boot. less

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