One of my favorite web tools is StumbleUpon , which allows me to randomly discover sites that suit my interests. Traveling is one of my listed interests, of course, so it was no accident that I literally "stumbled upon" the free online book "How to See the World: European Backpacking on $25 a Day or...

"Many of the greatest travel books of the late 20th century were about epic journeys, often by young men, conveying the raw intoxication of travel during a moment in life when time is endless, and deadlines and commitments are non-existent; when experience is all you hope to achieve and when the world is laid out...

When I’m choosing what book to take along on a trip, the destination always dictates what I’m inspired to read. The Moviegoer went with me on my first trip to New Orleans. Eduardo Galeano’s Memory of Fire trilogy has accompanied me throughout a handful of trips in Latin America. The Popul Vuh was in my...

Do you remember the first trip you took on your own? Mine was to France. I lugged a huge wheeled suitcase, far more cumbersome than today’s streamlined wheelies. Every night before I fell asleep, I worried about the next day: whether I could speak French well enough, would miss my train, or knew how to...

In her book, A Camera, Two Kids, and a Camel , Annie Griffiths Belt shares with us the rise of her career as one of National Geographic ’s first female photographers. At a time before National Geographic was the greatly respected publication it has grown into today, Belt was one of the first to get...

I’ve been accused of always finishing a destination-related book with the comment, “I want to go to … (the name of the destination).” Fiction or nonfiction, it doesn’t really matter. If it’s a good book, the text allows me to conjure in my mind what the place is like. If it’s not so great, I...

In his blog, The Art of Nonconformity , Chris Guillebeau often writes about his trips around the world and the travel hacks he's learned along the way. Most of his ideas, both about travel and life, are unconventional and worth looking into. Whether he's staying in his hometown or traveling around Southeast Asia, he always...