The Round Trip, the much-loved travel series by Yuval Ben-Ami, has been published as +972’s first e-book.
While +972 blogger and travel writer Yuval Ben-Ami traveled for three weeks around Israel’s borders, I mostly stayed put. But editing the series that was borne of that journey was an exhilarating experience. The 22 posts that made up “The Round Trip” were written one a day, in real time, on the road. At any given hour of every single day, we – Mairav, my co-editor at the time, and I – could expect the next installment of Yuval’s adventure, as he zig-zagged through the weird patchwork that makes up this land. I never left Tel Aviv, but I could barely keep up.
“The Round Trip” turned into a fascinating exploration of the 1967 borders. In the first post of the series, Yuval describes the physical and symbolic nature of his trip:
My country once had internationally accepted borders, but that ended with the Six Day War of 1967. On that week in June we took bites from our neighbors’ territories: we bit the Golan Heights off from Syria, the West Bank from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. Since then, the Golan and East Jerusalem were annexed to Israel, the Sinai was returned to Egypt, the West Bank is still being heavily settled by Israelis and the Gaza Strip settled and then vacated of its settlers. The degree to which we treat the various lines as proper borders varies from Israeli to Israeli. All in all we can’t say we know where our borders run, or what the hell is going on.
The resulting journey along Israel’s shifting frontier is strange, surreal, and beautiful. It is at once a travel chronicle – rich with diverse cultures, foods, and vistas – and an account of war and displacement. It is alternately inspired by an incredible diversity of hospitable people, and plagued by the sense that something here is going very wrong.
And now, “The Round Trip” has been published as an e-book, in +972 Magazine’s first foray into the format. We’re incredibly excited that after tracking the adventure in real time, our readers can now experience the completed journey, in book form.
The e-book brings you the entirety of the series in one, attractive package. Except for some stylistic edits, the text and the many photographs that made up the original series remain intact. The e-book was produced using the program iBooks Author, so you can click here to buy it if you have an iPad and live in one of these countries.
If you don’t own an iPad or can’t buy the book due to Apple’s geographic restrictions, we will be happy to send a PDF version in exchange for a donation of $6 or more to +972. You can use this link to donate, and just add a note saying “I would like to receive a copy of The Round Trip.” You can also send us an email at info@972mag.com after your donation is confirmed, and we will send you the book.
Enjoy!
