Tony James Slater has had a lot of close calls during his many years of traveling the world.
He’s had a bear eat his pants, he’s been chased by armed authorities in Ecuador and China, and he once narrowly avoided eating an egg and refuse-filled abdomen of a tarantula. But his wildest experience in his three-month American book tour is one many of us consider mundane: shooting a gun in someone’s backyard.
Slater is an international author, known for his accident-prone adventures that he self publishes. His first book, That Bear Ate My Pants!, originally had only 30 downloads when it was published in 2012; last time Slater checked, the book had been bought more than 100,000 times, “but then I stopped counting,” he said during an interview in Dunbarton. Since then, Slater has published three more books and is working on a fifth about his recent trip to South Asia.
So how did he end up in little Dunbarton?
With a little help from his friends. Slater and his wife, Roo Raynen-Slater, have been lodging with their fans during their cross-country road trip, many of whom reached out to him on social media when he announced the book tour.
Jessica Baker of Dunbarton was one of those fans.
Baker said she connected with Slater on Facebook after she read his first book.
“I was like, ‘Here’s the 17 different reasons you need to stay with me,’ ” she said. “I was hoping he’d be able to enjoy New Hampshire in the summer, but I think it’s better they came in the fall.”
New Hampshire was the Slaters’ second-to-last stop on their tour, which started in Los Angeles and has taken them to Washington, Colorado, Texas, Alabama, New York and Massachusetts. And North Carolina, where the gun incident happened.
In Australia, owning guns except for work or farming purposes is outlawed, Slater said. He was shocked when his host casually asked him and Raynen-Slater if they’d like to try shooting guns one night.
They were even more surprised when the guns, which they described as an AR-15 and a handgun, and ammunition were stowed under the very mattress they were sleeping on. Their host, who lived in the woods surrounding Glowing Rock Mountain, at first offered to drive them to the shooting range before deciding to just have them shoot in the backyard. The host’s daughter, they said, had her own gun: a pink rifle with the words “My First Rifle” etched on the side.
“It’s like discovering someone breeds tigers as house pets,” Slater said. “I don’t think they’re bad people for owning guns, but it’s just mind-blowing that people are comfortable with something that dangerous. For us, that’s a step down from nuclear weapons.”
Other experiences have been a little more tame: In Boston, the couple got the chance to try a freshly-made cannoli, and in Dunbarton they learned the proper way to eat a lobster.
“I made them promise not to try it anywhere else, because no one will be able to do it right,” Baker said.
The Slaters also said they were struck by the friendliness of Americans.
“Everyone is so confident and open here,” Raynen-Slater said. “People thought we were brave to be staying with complete strangers, but we had communicated with them so much previously that we felt very safe.”
Raynen-Slater said the idea to stay with fans was her idea.
“We always try to travel on a budget,” she said. “It would be too expensive to travel the states otherwise.” She and Slater estimated their tour has cost them around $20,000 – they couldn’t imagine how expensive it would have been otherwise. While they are able to travel off the proceeds from Slater’s books, their day jobs are doing roadside flagging work in Perth, Australia, where the cost of living is high. For example, minimum wage is $19 an hour; flagging pays them between $30 and $35 per hour.
The trip has been exhausting on the couple, and both agree their frequent journeys makes them appreciate home more. But they also agree the 9-to-5 workweek was never going to, well, work for either of them.
“I just get bored,” Slater said. “There’s so much of the world out there that fascinates me, and I have all these chances to go explore these places, I’d be crazy not to.”
Slater encourages young people to travel as much as they can when they have the chance.
“It’s the best thing anyone can do, especially if you’re young, it gives you more self confidence,” he said. “Not only that, it gives you more respect, and the tools to get out of a difficult situation. It makes you a better person, and it makes you appreciate home more. It’s those kind of life lessons you can’t learn in school.”