I loved this book.
It is a funny easy to read book.
Ben a man in his 30’s decides to go on coach holidays which we all know mainly consists of people aged 60+.
He tells us about the fun characters he meets on his travels as he travels the UK and explains the wisdom they pass on to him. They explain about love, loss, careers and family which really can make you think about life.
He also has his girlfriend and nan go along too.
After reading this book I fancy a coach holiday myself now just for the interesting people he met on his travels.

The Gran Tour by Ben Aitken. Going away on a coach holiday with a bunch of elderlies? Read this. I loved it. I didn’t find I funny hilarious but it did make me smile and nod in agreement at times. If you are looking for an easy, lighthearted read, this is it.

I love a funny travel book so I picked this up hoping for a Bill Bryson-style book that would make me laugh and look at things from a new perspective. I wasn't disappointed with this story of a 30-something man on a series of Shearings coach tours with his elders (but only actually once with his Gran!)

Ben Aitken is an incisive and engaging narrator as he writes about the six coach holidays he took in the UK and abroad. He observes keenly and gives the reader some interesting insights into the generation gap. His writing is sometimes poignant, but also often very funny as he presents the people he shared the coach trips with - some brilliant, eccentric characters and those who really have experienced life's ups and downs. What these older people have gone through is often sad - bereavement, illness, life's disappointments - but they are also survivors and making the most of the time they have. Whether that is bingo, booze or bra-flinging, they know how to have fun! Indeed, it's much more about people than places, which is good but wasn't quite what I was expecting.

This is an enjoyable read that does make you think about life's lessons and what we can learn from the older generation. It made me laugh, briefly consider a coach holiday (my husband said no) and order another book by this writer.

Entertaining and informative guide to travel, in this case several different coach tours aimed at older retired people. Perceptive in the various different ways that people view the world and at times mildly humorous.

Having thoroughly enjoyed Ben Aitken's previous novel, A Chip Shop in Poznań, I was looking forward to this. It is a great concept, we follow Ben on 6 coach trips to various locations with a number of older people...including his Gran! There is a lot of humour and warmth in this and given I'm a similar age to Ben, there was a lot to relate to.

I loved the humour, the wit and some laugh out loud one liners. The author has quite a dry sense of humour, as do some of the people he meets on the trips. The coach trip routine itself adds to the story, as done the camaraderie between those on the trips. It is amazing how friendships can form so quickly and how open people are to share their stories. Loss is a common theme in this book, as is resilience, strength and the fact that you don't know what unexpected stories people have to share until you ask!

I highlighted quite a few passages which I enjoyed in this book but my favourite is this one...

"...my generation copped a load of old whether we wanted it or not, today's youth will be shielded from their elders, and the resultant dislocation will be to the detriment of intergenerational relations"

The point being that when I was growing up, my parents made me watch cheesy tv shows that they loved on a Saturday night. We would watch old reruns of their favourite films and as a child, you didn't have much say. You absorbed that culture and era. Now, the younger generation have multiple devices on which to do their own thing, make their own choices. That cultural knowledge from the previous generation will just fade away and I find that quite sad.

Overall, an easy and entertaining read. I look forward to more from Ben Aitken!

Thank you to @netgalley and @iconbooks for the opportunity to review.

Released on 3rd September 2020

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The footnotes are in the wrong places on the kindle, i.e. footnote 1 is under the bit for footnote 2 etc so you have to go hunting for the footnotes, but that is literally my only complaint with this book. I wouldn't say it's side splittingly funny, more slightly humorous and smirk inducing, but well worth a read. I have already recommended this book to a family member as I enjoyed it so much, and I think different age groups would get different things from it.

This is in the style of the accounts popularised by Bill Bryson - part travelogue, part observing people and modern manners. The narrator, a man in his early 30s, joins coach holidays popular with elderly people (mostly 70+) and very economical. .

I've read a lot of books like this, and they follow a similar line of encounters with a range of people and some descriptions of place along the way. The writers usually look for some unusual hook - in this case the coach holiday. It is a pleasant read without any startling insights. I'd recommend it for an easy comfort read.

Bill Bryson revisited. And not a pale imitation. The style is the same but by using the vehicle - literally as well as metaphorically - of a series of coach trips for elders makes it instantly relatable, a throw back to the very British holidays of old and, strangely, inspirational. One of the few books I've read that has given me pause to consider trying this for myself just to savour the company of those who can tell a different and very unique tale.

Who knew coach trips could be so fun! This book has great humour, the stories from each of Ben’s trips are funny, the characters he met in hotel bingo halls and breakfast rooms are interesting and have their own stories both wacky and poignant. One thing I felt was lacking in this book was more about the places travelled to, I would have liked to have read more about each town as well as the hotels. All in all I enjoyed this quirky read and honestly I think I would enjoy an “OAP coach trip” if only for the drinks tickets

The Gran Tour follows Ben Aitken as he goes on six coach holidays. Whilst initially impressed at the value for money, he soon discovers the joy of spending time with older people.

I expected this to be a comical, light hearted read and whilst moderately amusing, it was also rather poignant when Aitken talks with the other guests on the trip and they discuss their ill health, bereavement, divorce and their regrets.

Aitken has a good style of writing and the book flowed fairly well, however I would have liked more discussion on the places visited and their history as well as seeing more of Aitken's personality rather than descriptions of food or excessive talk of bingo.

An entertaining enough read but I don't think I'd read anything else by the author.

Thanks to Icon Books and NetGalley for the ARC.

The Gran Tour was absolutely laugh out loud funny, Ben Aitken is a wonderful writer, capturing all of these moments so vividly and expressively through text, I enjoyed reading this so much.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an Advance Readers Copy in exchange for an honest review.

I have been on more coach holidays than I have been on hot dinners. That would at times appear to be a quote from this book, but is a statement from your humble reviewer. For yes, I've been on coach hols from Alaska (where everyone knows the done thing is to cruise the fjords and glaciers by boat, not bus) to Kyrgyzstan. And partly as a result, I've even guided a few specialist day trips for busloads of people of a certain age. So this book really hit the spot – you don't have to know the nickname for the coach company formed by Shearings merging with Wallace Arnold ("Sheer Wallies") to enjoy it. But it might help.

Yes, for more times than I care to count I was the youngest person on a coach trip, whether it be ten hours long or ten days, and the author is the same. I thought The Gran Tour might be him with his randy granny, flirting her way round the fleshpots of that there Scarborough Grand (crikey, it's hot in there!!) and suchlike, but no. The first trip, to Scarborough – albeit a different hotel – is our man solo. He drags his partner with him down to the south-west, and only once does a relative fill the seat next to him. Throughout we might not gain a heck of a lot of local geography (well, benders forcing him to miss the bus to Whitby, and a general lack of that sort of thing in Cornwall won't help matters), but boy does the lad have a great line in quotes and quips from his fellow travellers.

And that is the form the book takes, a meditation ultimately on these people with their retired status, often with their partner of many years long in the grave (or car boot), and what they can teach us about life. It's a rarefied thing to do six coach trips in one season, practically back to back, but our guide is a welcome one. The book starts with the minutiae of the dining arrangements, and the bingo nights, and goes – with the help of an elderly leading hand – into musings about how the youth of today, with everything on instant demand, will never learn anything by mistake, and how our elders are a cherishable resource, whether we're related to them or just bunged together with them for an hour while all the feeder coaches come in. With this, which struck many a familiar chord, and a prior book about a city I love to bits (Poznan), I opened this thinking this was a very close equivalent to me, writing it. The book is quick to prove that I'm an older he, and we're not really contemporary, but it does also prove that that shouldn't be an issue.

A strong four stars.