Note : Today marks the first of what I hope will be many guest reviews of travel books here at Vagablogging.net. My first guest reviewer is Bill Jenkins, a world traveler, semi-retired social studies teacher, and regular columnist with the alternative weekly F5 Wichita . He is reviewing Martin Gurdon's Travels with My Chicken :...

This month marks the release of the latest edition in Houghton Mifflin's Best American Travel Writing series , edited by Jason Wilson , with novelist Jamaica Kincaid serving as the guest editor. As is the case each year, the volume provides a fascinating vicarious read for armchair travelers, and a nice sampling of great writing...

The Independent recently ran an entertaining review of Adam Jacot de Boinod's new book The Meaning of Tingo: And Other Extraordinary Words from Around the World . "Learning a foreign language is, of course, the surest and fastest track to becoming familiar with another culture," writes John Walsh. " But the words themselves offer hundreds...

My travels to Greece made me a little late in pointing this out, but my longtime friend Jen Leo is once again on book tour, promoting her third (underwear-themed) women's travel-humor book, The Thong Also Rises . A sequel (of sorts) to the bestselling Sand in My Bra and Whose Panties Are These? , Thong...

Lonely Planet just released its first-ever travel humor anthology, entitled By the Seat of My Pants . Edited by the ever-prolific Don George , it features funny travel tales from veteran scribes Tim Cahill , Jan Morris, Simon Winchester , Pico Iyer , David Downie, Jeff Greenwald , Doug Lansky , and Linda Watanabe McFerrin....

Elliott Hester , my fellow former Salon.com travel columnist, is currently touring in support of his new book, Adventures of a Continental Drifter : An Around-the-World Excursion into Weirdness, Danger, Lust, and the Perils of Street Food . Below is a rundown of his appearances in and around New York, Philly, DC, Chicago, San Francisco,...

Travel writer David Downie, who visited my Paris American Academy classes last month as a guest lecturer, will be touring the United States in coming weeks to promote his excellent new book, Paris, Paris : Journey into the City of Light (which contains photos by Alison Harris and an introduction by Diane Johnson). Anyone with...

Over the course of July's creative writing workshop at the Paris American Academy , I had the pleasure of working on fiction and nonfiction essays with several talented students. Many of these essays were stellar, including one that was picked up for publication before the workshop even ended (more about that soon). Many more stand...

Inspiration and L

[ Above : From a barge on the Seine, Paris American Academy students watch the opening of the Bastille Day fireworks at the Eiffel Tower. Rumor had it that this torch-like effect was meant to be a celebration of the Paris 2012 Olympics, but was instead used on Bastille Day when London landed the Olympic...

For writers of narrative fiction and nonfiction, a vital element in retaining the interest of the reader is story structure. Indeed, regardless of how well you construct your sentences, or how deep your philosophical musings, the reader will be more likely to keep reading if you structure your story and characters in an enticing manner....

While browsing a bookstore in Florida last week, I was startled to discover that my old college friend Gina Ochsner has just published a new collection of short stories, entitled People I Wanted to Be . Released by Houghton Mifflin (with the implication that a novel comes next), this new book is a followup to...

Michael Shapiro is still on tour promoting his excellent 2004 travel book, A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk About Their Lives, Craft and Inspiration . Upcoming California appearances are as follows: Santa Barbara : Sunday, May 15, 3pm . Shapiro will be in live discussion with Pico Iyer at Chaucer's Books in Loreto...

The May/June issue of Bookmarks Magazine has a feature on adventure travel books, and I serve as a panelist along with Jeff Greenwald , Laura Fraser, and Larry Habegger . My "Top Three" literary travel books are as follows: Walt Whitman -- Leaves of Grass This book deserves status as a travel classic -- if...

Travelers' Tales has just released their second-annual Best Travel Writing anthology, which includes selections from the likes of Pico Iyer , Murad Kalam, Mark Jenkins, Susan Orlean, and Michael Shapiro . I'm honored to announce that my Vietnam tale, "Circuit Broken", is also included in the mix. Though publicity for the book is just now...

The current issue of Transitions Abroad magazine is a great reference for those seeking to integrate short-term jobs with their overseas vagabonding experience. Much of this information is available online, including a great resource page for Short-Term Jobs Abroad , as well as articles on becoming an international aid worker , joining the Peace Corps...

This blog may be somewhat silent in coming days, since I'll be in New Orleans for the New Year holiday -- but before I sign off, I want to give away five copies of Vagabonding to interested parties . The only catch is that those of you who receive these copies of Vagabonding cannot keep...

I've been pleasantly surprised by the number of readers who've written me in recent days to tell me they are buying copies of Vagabonding as Christmas presents. Apparently, folks consider it a great gift for travel-inclined friends and family, since the dead of winter is when people are dreaming of escape and stoking their wanderlust....

If you live in the Bay Area, there are several upcoming book events worth checking out: Saturday, December 11 : Jen Leo will be reading from her new travel humor anthology, Whose Panties Are These?: More Misadventures from Funny Women on the Road , at Book Passage in Corte Madera. The event starts at 7...

Oliver Stone's Alexander should now be out in theaters (I can't be sure, since I am in Mexico at the moment and blogging in batches), so I'll post another outtake from Robin Lane Fox's historical biography Alexander the Great . This passage, I believe, is a good summary of who Alexander was as a man:...