Book excerpt: Ryan Starr is a backpacking legend... with a heart for our world and its many wonders. This camping novice became a survival expert as he wandered the globe taking every risk that fell his way. With humor, persistence, and a good bit of luck, Ryan lived to tell the tale. He's not sure just how many times he stared death in the face, but Ryan would do it all again in a heartbeat. He's left bits and pieces of his self and his psyche on uninhabited islands from the Florida Keys to New Zealand, and in the lush peaks and valleys of Hawaii and Central America. Could you live for a year with just a bit of resourcefulness and the stuff you can fit in your backpack? Ryan did. And he's recreated every one of his adventures in this wild, wacky, wonderful book describing how he met the challenge of surviving paradise. This paperback is a collection of all four books in the Surviving Paradise series. It includes: ★ A Year on a Deserted Island in the Florida Keys ★ Backpacking the Hawaiian Islands ★ Discovering New Zealand ★ Backpacking Central America