Earlier this month I mentioned the debut of Jen Leo 's latest travel-humor anthology, What Color is Your Jockstrap? (to which I contributed one story). As part of this announcement, I mentioned that Jen would be giving one free copy of the book to a Vagablogging reader who entered her email drawing, and now I...

Back in May, World Hum's Top 30 Travel Books of all time included Tony Horwitz's Baghdad Without a Map , which occupied the #26 slot . Curious about Horwitz's take on the World Hum Top 30, I emailed him asking which travel books he might have included. This is what Tony told me: Off the...

This week in my Yahoo! News "Traveling Light" column, I review J. Maarten Troost's new travel book , Getting Stoned With Savages , and interview the author about travel in the South Pacific. Troost's first book, The Sex Lives of Cannibals , is among my all-time favorite travel-humor tomes, and his South Pacific sequel is...

Two months ago, World Hum's Top 30 Travel Books rundown put Jeffrey Tayler 's 2000 tome Facing the Congo in the #28 slot . Tayler is a regular visitor to my summer writing classes at the Paris American Academy , so I recently had the chance to ask him what he thought of the World...

Last month, Jen Leo debuted the fourth volume in her ever-growing collection of travel-humor tomes, What Color is Your Jockstrap? Unlike Jen's previous anthologies, this is not a womens-only affair; in addition to funny female writers like Susan Orlean and Laurie Notaro, this book features stories from the likes of Tim Cahill, J. Maarten Troost,...

Back in May, World Hum's Top 30 Travel Books of all time included Tim Cahill's Road Fever , which occupied the #21 slot in the countdown . Since I know Cahill from the Key West Literary Seminar , and also from my online interview of him in 2004, I emailed him to see what he...

Last month, World Hum's Top 30 Travel Books of all time included Peter Hessler 's River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze , which weighed in at #20 on the list. Curious to know Hessler's take on the Top 30 -- as well as his own suggestions for books that might have been included --...

Last month, World Hum posted its list of the Top 30 Travel Books of all time, to which I contributed a number of reviews. After the dust settled and readers weighed in with their own recommendations , it occurred to me that I correspond with a number of the authors who made the list. What,...

This week, Brooklyn-based writer (and erstwhile traveler extraordinaire) Ayun Halliday debuted her fourth book, Dirty Sugar Cookies : Culinary Observations, Questionable Taste , which "takes readers into the unpredictable mind and comical experiences of a true anti-foodie, giving even the most hopeless cooks a moment of relief from self-criticism, and the least discriminating eaters a...

World Hum 's, countdown of the top-30 travel books of all time finishes today. Late last week, I reviewed Pico Iyer's Video Night in Kathmandu (#8) , of which I wrote: A collection of eleven essays chronicling the cultural fusion of East and West in the 1980s, Iyer’s literary debut is an answer to all...

World Hum 's, (somewhat subjective) countdown of the top-30 travel books of all time has now entered the top ten. Earlier this week, I reviewed Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard (#11) , of which I write: Matthiessen’s Zen-flavored masterpiece is as much a classic of nature and spiritual literature as it is of travel writing....

Over at World Hum , the (somewhat subjective) countdown of the top-30 travel books of all time continues. My latest contributions to the roundup include Tony Horwitz's Baghdad Without a Map (#26) , and Tim Cahill 's Road Fever (#21) . Of Road Fever , I write: A founding editor of Outside magazine, Cahill has...

This month, World Hum will be counting down (a somewhat subjective list of) the top-30 travel books of all time . Frank Bures , Thomas Swick , Michael Shapiro , Tom Bissell , Terry Ward, Michael Yessis, Jim Benning and I will be contributing the reviews. My first review, of Jeffrey Tayler 's Facing the...

Travelers' Tales' annual Best Travel Writing anthology is out in bookstores now, and -- as usual -- it's a fun read that's filled with great examples of quality travel writing for those interested in the craft (or a vicarious journey). Contributors this year include Alain de Botton, Patrick Symmes , Tony Perrottet , Jeff Greenwald,...

. Elliott Hester’s Adventures of a Continental Drifter : An Around-the-World Excursion into Weirdness, Danger, Lust, and the Perils of Street Food Reviewed by Bill Jenkins Elliott Hester's account of his yearlong round-the-world trip has plenty of moments common to most travelers. Who hasn't spent an uncomfortable day at a legendary destination, distracted from the...

. Paul Theroux’s Dark Star Safari Reviewed by Tom Davis Paul Theroux’s most recent travel narrative, Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town (Houghton Mifflin, 2003) is a vivid reminder that there are two types of travel. In one form, a person can be transported from the familiar to the foreign quickly, and...

By request -- and following on to this week's post about meeting poet Billy Collins at the Key West Literary Seminar -- here's the Collins poem that served as the original epigram for my website in 1998. Dancing Toward Bethlehem By Billy Collins If there is only enough time in the final minutes of the...

Newley Purnell recently posted his annual Bloggers’ Favorite Books listing, which includes favorite 2005 reads from the likes of Malcolm Gladwell , Boing Boing , Instapundit , and MoorishGirl . Newley also queried me about the most intriguing books I read in 2005, and this is what I told him: Three of the most enjoyable...

It's once again winter holiday season, and once again I'm getting feedback from readers who are buying copies of Vagabonding as Christmas presents. I think that's great, and I'll reiterate that Vagabonding makes a great holiday gift for: College or high school students nearing graduation. Twenty- and thirtysomethings who don't like their jobs, are currently...

Don George recently told me that he's begnning to assemble Lonely Planet's latest collection of travel stories, Tales from Nowhere . If you have a travel story that might fit the bill, check out the submission requirements below and send it in! Call for Submissions: Tales from Nowhere We’ve all been to Nowhere. It might...