"There is nothing I love more than traveling to a place where I know nobody, and where everything will be a surprise, and then writing about it." --Ariel Levy, " Thanksgiving in Mongolia ," The New Yorker , November 18, 2013

"I always get terrified right before I travel. I become convinced that this time will be different: I won't be able to figure out the map, or communicate with non-English speakers, or find the people I need in order to write the story I've been sent in search of. I will be lost and incompetent...