Son of a Sandstorm is a memoir about the early life of Raymond Burrus. When his daughter went away to college, they agreed to write to each other each week. As the letters progressed, he used his journals from his travels and started writing her his life story up to age twenty-seven. Those eighty letters became the genesis for this book.

Raymond served four years as an officer in the army. Upon his return from Vietnam, he decided to see more of the world, so he bought a one-way ticket to Frankfurt and traveled in twenty-seven countries in Europe and thirteen countries in Africa. He took a boat from Barcelona to Alexandria, Egypt, and then traveled overland to Cape Town, the length of Africa. He did all this travel over eighteen months and spent less than seven thousand dollars. He learned that there's an inverse relationship between time and money: if you need to be in Paris tomorrow for breakfast, you can do it, but it will cost you plenty; on the other hand, if you have infinite time to get to Paris, you can probably get there for free.

He gained many insights about life, travel, and the people he met along the way, which he shares in the book.