Adventure Capitalist by Jim Rogers Book Review

I’m a little late with this review since I read this book last year in 2022 for my personal finance resolutions, but better late than never! Here’s my Adventure Capitalist book review.

 genymoney.ca is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com

Who iS JIm Rogers?

If you invest, you have likely heard of Jim Rogers. Like Warren Buffett, he got interested in money at a young age. Jim Rogers started selling peanuts at age 5 during baseball games, growing up in Alabama.

He is an American investor who currently lives in Singapore. He co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros and this portfolio gained more than 4000% while the S&P500 increased by less than 50% over 10 years.

He retired early at age 37 (is he one of the earliest “Financial Independence Retire Early” folk out there you think?) and did an around the world motorcycle trip in 1994 and later on did a round the world car trip in 1999.

His net worth at least a few hundred million dollars and he’s famous for being bullish on commodities and bearish on the US stock market and FAANG stocks.

He’s a big fan of China, so much so that he moved his family to Singapore, so that his children could learn mandarin. His daughters are fluent in mandarin and have won awards for their mandarin fluency.

Jim Rogers has also written a book called A Gift to My Children: A Father’s Lessons for Life and Investing which I though was really good too. I think I read it before I had kids, so I should read it again.

Adventure Capitalist Book Review

Jim Rogers and his wife Paige Parker hold the Guinness Book of World Records for the most countries visited by car (that’s 111 total countries) on a continuous journey. They covered over 245,000 km across 6 continents between 1999 and 2002.

Adventure Capitalist documents that particular millennium adventure, with the ultimate road trip.

They had a custom made bright yellow two seater Mercedes SLK (It is a raised SLK with a hitch trailer attached to it) and they start off in Iceland on January 1, 1999, then it was to Turkey, Central Asia, China, and Mongolia. In the middle of all this they are able to plan a wedding in England and got married Henley-on-Thames. Then they travel to Africa, and ended up at gunpoint in war torn Angola…they managed to diffuse the situation with a polaroid camera. After that they went to Myanmar, and then La Paz, Bolivia among others.

Jim Rogers gives you a glimpse into the real world from the ground up, so you can truly understand the world as it is, economically, and socially, and see where the future investments lie.

What I Liked About Adventure Capitalist

If you like to travel, you will love Adventure Capitalist. I felt I was traveling vicariously through the book. Jim Rogers has a degree in history from Yale and you can definitely tell when you read the book. I learned so much more about world history in this book than I did from reading a history text book in high school.

He has a knack for capturing the essence of a culture and of people from a particular country, weaving financial information and predictions alongside sharing the stories of that country’s past. Jim Rogers is strongly opinionated and it certainly shows in this book.

You see the big picture, and the book was very well written, with economics, history, and politics all rolled into one exciting adventure.  It was very much an “on the ground” encounter around the world.

What I Didn’t Like About Adventure Capitalist

There wasn’t anything that I didn’t like about Adventure Capitalist, though it would be nice to read more in detail.

It was a three year journey weaved into a 350 page book.

I know it’s difficult to summarize so many countries and memories and encounters in one book though.

That’s it, it’s a great book even if it is 20 years old!

A lot of what you read in the book still remains relevant today I would say.

Some things change drastically and yet still stay the same.

My Jim Rogers 2 Question INterview

I remember than Nelson (you know, Financial Uproar, or now known as Uproar Capital) said he wrote about Jim Rogers, and that Jim Rogers sent him an email thanking him for the nice write up.

I thought wow, Jim Rogers seems really nice on TV, wouldn’t it be cool if we met him when we went to Singapore?

Well, I was actually very close to meeting Jim Rogers for a coffee but unfortunately his business trip had to be extended the timing just didn’t work out as we had to go back to Canada.

Jim Rogers kindly agreed to answer two questions that I had, via email. One of which Liquid from Freedom 35 Blog asked.

Here they are!

What country would you want your daughters to go to university?  (I am aware one of your daughters is in the USA for post secondary) 

Probably China, but I have learned I should leave it up to them even if I disagree.

What was your all time favourite country or place in the world to visit? 

I have no answer.  I always learned even when there were bad experiences. E.g. Angola during the war was not fun, but it was a fabulous experience — since I came out alive!

Hope you enjoyed this Adventure Capitalist book review. I will definitely encourage my children to read it when they are older, I would love for my children to have the curiosity to travel the world and experience different cultures, and at the same time learn about money.

I’m going to be reading the predecessor book, Investment Biker this year as it’s on my 2023 personal finance resolutions list.

You can check out Jim Rogers’ website out, it has pictures and videos of his around the world adventure.

You may also be interested in:

• 5 Must Read Personal Financial Books for Canadians
• The Education of a Value Investor Book Review
• Richer, Wiser, Happier by William Green Book Review

What is your Adventure Capitalist book review?