When I traveled to New York for the first time back in 1994, the very first person I met while riding the subway was Tony Mansfield, a porn actor who had a minor role in the 1978 adult classic Debbie Does Dallas.

How’s that for an opening sentence? It also happens to be a factual detail, which I’ll get back to it in a moment.

As a book tour stop, New York was somewhat of … Read more »

A reader asks: “Is it possible to buy one-way air tickets in this day and age? I ask because I’ve heard of people being detained or even turned back after an overseas flight that doesn’t have a return. I want to go to Southeast Asia and make my way through Asia and Europe before returning to North America.”

This is actually something I touch on in the pages of Vagabonding — since I think … Read more »

While driving through Texas a couple weeks back, I heard a country radio song called “You’re Always Seventeen in Your Hometown.” The meaning of the song, I’m sure, pertains to how people in your hometown see you when you come back to visit. But whenever I go back to my hometown of Wichita, I begin to feel seventeen years old without other people’s help. That is, I fall into this strange pattern of activities that … Read more »