"9.5 intense months after standing on the edge of Ushuaia with my thumb up - 9.5 months of intense loneliness and intense connection, intense indignation and intense brotherhood, intense fear and intense awe, intense appreciation and intense adventure - I completed my journey from south to north."

Thumbs Up is an edge-of-your-seat adventure travel memoir that will allow you to vicariously experience some of the most remote and dangerous parts of our planet, hitchhiking from southern Argentina and ending nine arduous months and 25,000 kilometres later, on the shores of the frigid Arctic Ocean in northern Canada.

Any traveller who has ever felt the irresistible attraction of wanderlust will love author and adventurer Thomas Kearney's recollections of the most profound moments on the road in this unforgettable travel journal of self-discovery, from misinterpreting hand signals as being gestures of friendship instead of threats on his life, to touching encounters with the best examples of humanity, who offered food, warmth and shelter to the tired hitchhiker.

Travelling through bleak poverty-stricken villages to breathtakingly beautiful jungle, mountain and forest landscapes; from freezing nights in the Andes to blistering days in the desert - the author relives his amazing hiking adventures in this inspiring first-hand account of vivid American travel stories.