Let's Go Mad ─ A Year Abroad in Search of Utopia and Enlightenment

In my madness I bought the ticket. I took the ride. I needed to live. I needed to suffer. I had to go.” Rob Binkley

Rob Binkley is a young Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has it all at 27: a thriving business, beautiful girlfriend, and overall happy life. But something is missing, and despite his success, Rob fantasizes about shedding the shackles of his American Dream to live wild and free like his hero Hunter S. Thompson. As Rob's world begins to fall apart, a visit from his Zen madman of a best friend, Brian, inspires him to hatch an escape plan and follow his bliss for authentic life experiences. Will he find the meaning of life while backpacking through 23 countries or will he and Brian go mad wallowing in the extreme debauchery the world has to offer?

A tribute to gonzo beat literature, Let's Go Mad is the amazing, true story of their year abroad backpacking across the globe on a sideways search in all the wrong places. Brian's lust for life propels Rob into taking steps in all the wrong directions with all the wrong people at all the wrong times. After Brian inspires him to embrace his inner madman, pushing the limits of sanity (and their friendship) into one merry blurthey come to realize there's more to life than mere mad experience. They must have a personal renaissance” or die trying.

Rob Binkley is an Arizona-based entrepreneur and avid backpacker who looks back on the adventure of a lifetime in his first book,Let’s Go Mad. Back in 1997, Rob could only dream of getting lost like Hunter S. Thompson in Brazil with his alcoholic monkey until his destiny was changed forever by an alcoholic monkey of another color, his mad best friend Brian Rakkow. He resides in Phoenix, Arizona.

Murphy Hooker is a Texas-born writer who has coauthored and ghostwritten five books. Driven by a passion to heal the world by laying bare the shared absurdities of the human condition, some call him a verbal swashbuckler, others a dream nurturer, acclaimed journalist, filmmaker, altruist, and all around troublemaker. With a Hollywood career in perpetual turnaround, Murphy is steeped in silver celluloid reverence for all things filmic and, by all accounts, is full of the elusive it.” He resides in Los Angeles, California.