Yoga for people who can't be bothered to do it by Geoff Dyer

Nomad for it: a travel addict's confessions

Halfway through this book, I decided that I wanted to be Geoff Dyer. He has lived the writer's life without compromise, pursuing his passions with scant regard for publisher's genres, and he has produced a body of work that is as rich as it is intellectually nomadic. He also takes a lot of drugs and hangs out in exotic places with beautiful girls.

In this superb collection of travel essays, Dyer seems to have no anchorage, no drag; he is a free spirit without a compass: "That's basically all we did. We kept going elsewhere."

In the delirious heat of Cambodia, he encounters fellow headspace pilgrims with such names as Vortex, Raven, Love Cat and, my favourite, Cloudy Bongwater. The vague geography saps all purpose and a river boat trip turns into a Conradian nightmare as they realise the vessel is going round in circles. Dyer's girlfriend writes a postcard to her mother saying the country is "nothing to write home about".

In Paris, he gets so stoned on skunk that "as soon as I noticed one thing, I noticed something else, and so, in a way, I was oblivious to everything". A girl he had met the day before suffers a paranoia of expressionistic magnitude, hails a cab and is never seen again.

In Amsterdam, in the "long autumn of his psychedelic years", he consumes more magic mushrooms than is wise and is rendered hilariously and terrifyingly disorientated. Changing out of his rain-soaked trousers in a tiny toilet cubicle he succeeds, after several attempts, in putting on a dry pair inside out and is too exhausted to start all over again: "a fairly poor show for a 42-year-old intellectual". He loses the map and tries to navigate the city on chemical-enhanced instinct, which leads further into Amsterdam's dark side.

A resort in Thailand allows Dyer to observe the extreme wing of self-journeying, the serious weirdness of distracted, fugitive personalities. Wayne, a Robert Stone character, evaded the draft in the Sixties by adulterating his salute with a tattoo along the base of his right hand displaying the words "Fuck You". "That's insubordination," says Dyer. "You got it, bro," he replies.

In Rome, Dyer "lived in the grand manner of writers. I basically did nothing at all". This self-deprecating irony disguises a steely discipline and ambition. His writing is as taut and resonant as piano wire and his slacker, freewheeling digressions are cover for a craftsman of obsessive, exquisite detail.

There are dangers lurking beneath this perpetual motion, this mental surfing. The dread that gives his narrative such urgency builds through the book into a full-blown, black dog wipe-out. The travel bug turns toxic and his breakdown is a journey too far to a state where he is "constantly in flight, an exile everywhere".

This book is an archaeology of joy, despair and redemption. Dyer deserves to be one of this country's top humorist travel writers; he is Pete McCarthy on methamphetamine. Being Geoff Dyer may have its rocky patches, but the world is a far more entertaining place when seen through his eyes.