This month at the RolfPotts.com Writers page, I interview Outside Magazine adventure travel columnist Mark Jenkins , who has written three award-winning books: The Hard Way , To Timbuktu and Off the Map . Jenkins' foray into writing started after he graduated college with a philosophy degree, "only to realize that I was a couple...

Don George will hold the first of several June Travel Writing events tonight (Monday the 6th) at the Left Coast Writers Literary Salon at Book Passage (51 Tamal Vista in Corte Madera). The event starts at 7:00 pm; for more information call 415-927-0960. Other June Travel Writing events include: Wednesday, June 15, 5:30-7:00pm : Travel...

This month at RolfPotts.com, I interview J. Maarten Troost , author of the hilarious 2004 travel book The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific . Having recently read this book, I can say I appreciated the fact that Troost skewers the conventions of travel books from the opening pages: "It's the nature...

Today I'll give a sneak preview of my April interview with Canada's National Post travel columnist, Cleo Paskal . As a writer, Cleo has contributed to everyone from The Economist to the (better paying) Weekly World News . Along the way she has hosted BBC radio travel shows, appeared in several anthologies, wrote an Emmy-winning...

Lonely Planet Travel Writing author Don George was intereviewed by World Hum this week. Here's my favorite outtake: "When I first realized that I could make a living as a travel writer, one of the things that most appealed to me was that travel writers are in a way the last great generalists. You can...

This blog was recently included among "Six of the best" travel weblogs by The Guardian (UK). Other blogs listed include BootsnAll Travelblogs , World Hum , Gridskipper , Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations , and The Long Trip Home . The full Guardian " Blog Watch " column for this week can be found here .

Jen and Carl beat me to this days ago, but in case anyone missed it, I did want to point out Tim Leffel's " Seven Myths of Being a Travel Writer " article at Transitions Abroad online . Leffel references several of my RolfPotts.com travel writer interviews from past months, and his myths include such...

Last year I blogged about the Marine Corps' primer on cultural sensitivity in Arab lands , which seemed to resemble the kinds of tips one might find in the front of a Lonely Planet guide to the Middle East. Now I've read reports that the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA), has distributed thousands of "...

This month at the RolfPotts.com Travel Writers page, I interview legendary Bay Area travel editor Don George , whose how-to book Travel Writing will hit bookstores in a matter of days. Don was my editor and mentor back in my Salon.com days , and he has since gone on to become the Global Travel editor...

If you or anyone you know is still looking to get money or other aid to tsunami-affected areas of Thailand, LA-based journalist Shanti Sosienski is leaving for Phuket, Koh Phi Phi and Koh Lanta beginning March 10th. She has already gathered tons of stuff from the outdoors industry (shirts, hats, socks) to give away, and...

I recently got an email from Jason Gaspero (who pops up in my book, in the "Vagabonding Voices" section), who passed along this hilarious video that was made by a young vagabonder named https://www.wherethehellismatt.com/">Matt Harding . Essentially, the video is a montage of Matt doing a goofy dance at various spots around the world (including...

[The irrepressible Jennifer L. Leo, with a Valentine's Day bidder.] In honor of Valentine's Day and the week that follows, my longtime friend (and editor of many travel anthologies, including the bestselling Sand in My Bra ) Jen Leo is auctioning off a night on the town (with herself) at her blog . Proceeds from...

This month at the RolfPotts.com Writers page , I interview Canadian-English writer Rory MacLean , whose travel books include best-sellers Stalin's Nose and Under the Dragon . Reflecting the concerns of many of the travel writers I've interviewed, MacLean pinpoints finances as one of the ongoing challenges of being a travel scribe. "Even though I've...

Although it has been over a month since the December 26th tsunami destroyed large swaths of the south and southeast Asian coast, the people who live in those regions are still living with the aftermath. Although U.S. news coverage has largely given way to Super Bowl hype and Michael Jackson trial coverage, there is still...

At Crabwalk yesterday, Josh Benton had an interesting entry about travel-writer/novelist Bruce Chatwin. "Chatwin occasionally made things up," Benton writes. "Parts of his books were fabricated. At times he tried the old dodge that a certain amount of fabrication was, well, expected by readers . Some of his books he labeled fiction in hidden places,...

I've been encouraged in recent days by the amount of grassroots effort on the part of travelers to help the victims of the south Asian tsunami. I'm sure I've been told of only a fraction of the personal fundraising efforts going on, but examples include vagabonder Andrea Johnson's Phi Phi Rock Climbers' Blog (created with...

This month at the RolfPotts.com Writers page , I interview Larry Bleiberg , who has been travel editor of The Dallas Morning News since 1999. Having spent his entire career in traditional newspaper journalism, his perspective is especially useful for those who are interested in writing for the travel section. "Often the people that pitch...

This month at the RolfPotts.com Writers page, I interview freelance writer and editor Wendy Knight . Wendy contributes travel stories to the New York Times , and she recently edited an anthology, Making Connections: Mother-Daughter Travel Adventures (Seal Press, 2003) that won a 2004 Lowell Thomas Award for Best Travel Book. Wendy's advice to potential...

Have you had an interesting adventure in the Czech Republic? Editor David Farley is searching for funny, quirky, meaningful, adventurous and personal nonfiction tales based in Prague or its environs in the Czech Republic for an anthology of travel stories, to be published by Travelers' Tales . For the full submission information, check out Jen...

Yesterday, I learned that my longtime friend Mike Marlett, who publishes an alternative newspaper called F5 , has had his publication banned from the newsracks of Starbucks coffeeshops in Wichita, Kansas. Since Kansas has a reputation for being one of the more conservative states in the nation, one might assume that the decidedly left-leaning F5...