Earlier this month I had an essay appear in The Smart Set , a new online arts and culture magazine out of Drexel University in Philadelphia. My story, Le Musée du Fumeur , explores Paris's " Museum of Smoking " on the eve of a law that will ban indoor smoking in the city. I...

Above : Rolf hams it up with old pal Jen Leo at the Book Passage Travel Writers' Conference in San Francisco . Those who regularly follow Vagablogging will notice that new posts have slowed a bit in recent weeks, as most of the folks who blog here have been off on their own travels. I...

Earlier this month, while passing through New York, I had an opportunity to speak about Vagabonding and long-term travel at the Google office in midtown Manhattan. Google has since posted a video of this presentation at YouTube , and it's a nice encapsulation of my typical book-tour subject matter (including a high-school graduation picture of...

Tom Chiari, a journalism student at the University of Connecticut, recently contacted me with some questions about vagabonding, the attitude one takes into a journey, and my own experiences as a world traveler over the past decade. Here is the transcript of our email exchange: You write that vagabonding is an attitude. Growing up in...

While Jen Leo ran off to Vegas for a 7-07-07 wedding, Rolf took over her spot at the LA Times Daily Travel Deal blog to cover a range of vagabonding-related topics, including: Conquering your fears and living your travel dreams How much money for a dream trip? Travel abroad safer than staying home? What if...

A reader named Cliff, who is preparing to leave on his own extended vagabonding journey, recently contacted me with a few questions about travel and travel writing. Here's a transcript of our exchange: Before you set out on your first world trip, did you know you'd end up writing a book, or having a world-renowned...

Late last year, Harvard student Melanie Tortoroli interviewed me for a paper she was writing about travel writing and American identity. Here is our exchange: Where were you born? Wichita, Kansas. What were your parents' nationalities? Both of them are American. In what place have you spent the majority of your life (or the most...

This past weekend, I was the subject of an hour-long interview on Rick Steves' radio show on NPR. Though Rick is primarily known as a guru for independent vacations in Europe, his expertise comes from a vagabonding background, and he has deep travel experience in other parts of the world. And, considering that he had...

My July Paris writing workshop is currently sold out for the summer, and time is running out to apply for my travel writing classes at SLS in Russia next month, but it's still possible to catch me this summer at the 16th annual Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference , from August 16-19 in...

[ Above : Contestant Justin Pitts gives props to Vagabonding .] Last month, while I was traveling in Cuba, several readers sent me emails saying that a contestant on the syndicated game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" had told host Meredith Viera that -- if he won money on the show -- he...

The Japanese cover of Vagabonding I have a few new writing items to share this week: First, I'm happy to announce that Sony Books has finally released the Japanese translation of Vagabonding . Entitled ????! (which Babelfish tells me means Appear in the Traveling! ), it was translated by Robert Harris , a Japan-based writer...

For the past seven years, I've been asking my various travel writer interview subjects how they got started writing. Frank Bures recently asked me that same question for a travel-writing class he's teaching, and this is what I told him: My writing aspirations can be traced back to about age 13, when I started writing...

Journalist Kate Siber recently interviewed me for a AAA article about traveling solo. I have yet to read the article itself (which came out this spring), so for now I'll just share our Q&A: What have been some of your best experiences traveling solo? I've had so many great experiences traveling solo that it's hard...

The fifth and final installment in Rolf’s latest Well-Traveled dispatch, " Going Native in the Australian Outback ," is on-line at Slate.com. In the series, Rolf sets out in Australia’s outback on a hunt for a “meaningful experience of Australian aboriginal culture," and finds that while it may go against the spirit of independent travel,...

Creative Writing Workshop at the Paris American Academy July 2 nd through the 27 th , 2007 I'll be teaching an intensive, month-long creative writing workshop this summer at the Paris American Academy . College credit is available for this hands-on English-language writing program, which includes courses in: Fiction Poetry Travel Writing Memoir Screenplays and...

Next Tuesday, February 27th, I will sit in on a Rick Steves radio recording session, wherein Rick and I will discuss strategies for long-term world travel. The official title of our segment is Making Your Dream Trip Come True: Tips for Making Long-Term Travel a Reality with Rolf Potts . Listeners looking to call in...

I have a new travel story, entitled "A Subjective Guide to the Budget Hotels of the Orient," in the latest issue of the literary journal Swink . In keeping with the meta approach of my recent stories Tantric Sex for Dilettantes and The Art of Writing a Story About Walking Across Andorra , this new...

As I think I've mentioned before on this blog , college students researching journalism, travel literature, and Americans abroad interview me quite frequently. I rarely see the final result of these academic research projects, but I always find the interview process interesting -- and hence I will share some of these interviews in coming weeks....

Although the Books page of RolfPotts.com outlines my contributions to a number of literary travel anthologies in recent years, it doesn't mention my appearance in three small-press fiction anthologies between 1999 and 2002. This is because, until recently, I never even knew these books existed. All of the stories in question were originally written when...

In addition to my regular creative nonfiction classes at the Paris American Academy this summer, I will also be teaching a two-week course in travel writing at the Summer Literary Seminar in St. Petersburg, Russia from June 17th through the 30th. Since this program has in past years featured instruction from writers such as Denis...