Books

The Other Worlds: Offbeat Adventures of a Curious Traveler

The Other Worlds takes the reader on journeys from Cuba to China, from Finland to the Tip of South America, and from the author’s birthplace on Minnesota’s Iron Range to his tin-roofed shack in Guatemala’s mountains of the Maya people.

He crawls through an underground silver mine high in the Andes Mountains—and is invited to join the mine crew on a full-time basis. He searches for a private island and a private sauna in Guatemala—departing with bittersweet memories of one, and a blistering recollection of the other. He rides his Harley motorcycle across half of Canada and back through Montana and the Great Plains.

Sooner or later, the author gets lost in a pitch-black barn with a pig in China, gets tossed into a notorious jail on a raucous Saturday night in Tijuana, follows the footsteps of novice monks in Laos, and runs into Bob Dylan in a Greenwich Village bar the summer of Woodstock. He also recounts a youthful 36,000 mile journey in “Around the World in 400 Days.”

So, follow along as Tom meets strangers, who become friends, around the world. More than one has signaled to the author: “Make my story travel!”

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Meeting Strangers, Making Friends: More Surprising Travel Adventures From The Minnesota Storyteller

In Meeting Strangers, Making Friends, join Tom Mattson on a search in the Andes Mountains for three Indigenous women pictured on a postcard, travel along remote ocean shores to a certain tip of South America where you’ll sleep in a hammock at Luzmila’s place, and explore Machu Picchu with a descendant of the Incas, who might become a lifelong friend.

Motorbike with Tom toward an idyllic village in Thailand as you clutch a New York Times photo that draws you ever closer, and in the Himalayas jump in a car with two Bhutanese guys for an unforgettable two-week road trip crisscrossing their kingdom.

You’ll also be along for a two-month journey in Africa where you’ll meet welcoming residents from different walks of life, and for motorcycle rides through 15 states in the American West that open doors to a cowboy of your dreams, Cherokee youth eager to demonstrate ancient traditions, and an Indigenous family that’s celebrating its feast of the year in a 920-year-old pueblo set on the top of a mesa.

This book offers readers more, too: Lost Lake in Minnesota, museums, the Cuban mountains of 1950’s revolutionaries, and a Mayan town in the Guatemala mountains where Tom sinks into another life at his tin-roofed shack.

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In-person sales locations in Minnesota are growing, too. They are–

Chisholm: Minnesota Discovery Center (Hwy. 169, ph. 218-254-7959)
Duluth: Zenith Book Store (318 N. Central Ave., ph. 218-606-1777)
Hermantown: Casa Latte (5493 Miller Trunk Hwy., ph. 218-729-7690)
Ely: Piragis Book Store (105 N. Central Ave., ph. 218-365-6745)
Hoyt Lakes: Eclips Salon (314 Westover Rd., ph. 218-225-2221)
Aurora: The Hive Coffee & Bakehouse (103 N. Main, ph. 218-229-0001)
Embarrass: Nelimark Homestead Museum, (Salo Rd., ph. 218-984-3503)
Eveleth: Jon’s Drug (318 Grant Ave., ph. 218-744-2774)
Biwabik: Pine Grove Gallery (601 Main St., ph. 218-865-6125)
In Virginia, MN: Iron Range Apparel (1401 S. 12th Ave. in Mall, ph. 741-5138); Andrew’s Cameras (410 Chestnut St., ph. 218-741-6549); The Newsette (406 Chestnut St., ph. 218-741-7121); Irma’s Finland House, (625 9th St. N., ph. 218-741-0204); and The Card Shop (422 Chestnut St., ph. 218-749-1077).
Baltimore, MD: Barnes & Noble at Johns Hopkins (3330 St. Paul St.)

I’ve been fortunate to work with some great professionals to get this book published and publicized. Dudley Court Press, LLC is a hybrid book publisher that helps thoughtful people write, publish and market meaningful books. For more information, visit https://www.DudleyCourtPress.com