Who do you think is the intended audience? Why?

I think that Bill Bryson never writes for a specific group of people. I think that he knows he is funny and just wants to get as many people to read his work as possible. I mean this in the nicest way possible: I think he just likes attention. He doesn't care who reads his books as long as a large number of people read them. In this specific book, however, and actually when I think about in probably most of his books, he writes for the Baby Boomer generation. Bryson is a baby boomer, and he makes baby boomer jokes and allusions. This doesn't contradict what I said earlier: he directs some of his jokes and references to baby boomers, but they are never such that other readers won't get them. He wants everyone to enjoy his books.

The reason that I think his main audience in this book is the Baby Boomer generation is that his topic is one that many baby boomers will relate to. When he was a young adult, he backpacked through Europe, just like lots of others in his generation. Now he's writing about repeating that trip but this time as an older man. The places and experiences are probably things that other people around his age would appreciate. In addition, he tells the entire book from his perspective, obviously. He is a baby boomer. It would make sense that he wrote this book for others his age. Other baby boomers would be able to relate to his reactions to experiences, to his emotions, and to his wishes and desires on his trip, more so than young people or much older people.