I get annoyed when people say they have visited a country when they: Have been there only on layover. Go there for business. Have only flown over the country (yes, I have had the misfortune of meeting such people!) So what does constitute a genuine visit to a country? A very valid question addressed recently...

I just read a great piece in this month's edition of Perceptive Travel where travel-writer Bruce Northam narrates his tormenting experience of a 14-day, 200 mile desert survival training session in Utah. He talks about wiping his backside with red sand, starving, drinking water that is also home to tadpoles, seriously blistering his feet and...

Next month at the RolfPotts.com Writers page, I interview John Gimlette , who authored At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig (about Paraguay) and Theatre of Fish (about Newfoundland). Unlike many of my other travel-writer interview subjects , Gimlette has keeps a day job -- as a lawyer in the U.K. "Being a lawyer, I...

I must admit I hadn't heard of the journal either, until recently. But the quarterly literary magazine has actually been around since 1925, and has featured the writing of some of my favorite authors, such as H.L. Mencken, Bertrand Russell, Thomas Mann, William Carlos Williams, and Thomas Wolfe (whose novels You Can't Go Home Again...

[Above, noblemen play Jeu de Paume in 16th century Paris.] My latest article for The Smart Set , " Jurassic Tennis ," recounts a journey into a lesser-known corner of Paris to play the ancient French racquet sport of Jeu de Paume. Though similar in many ways to modern tennis, Jeu de Paume is a...

In my last post I talked about how it's tough to keep tab of the millions of new online travel tools added by the second. It's useless to keep tab if you can't distinguish the ones with credibility from the others, but spending hours looking through them and testing their functionality is overwhelming and oh-so-mindnumbing...

Last month, the Columbia Missourian ran a story called Off the Map , which was about the international travels and travel-plans of local residents. I was interviewed for a sidebar called "Awakening Your Inner Vagabond," and I'll reproduce some of that advice (much of which comes from my book ) here: Slow down! “Many people’s...

I'm lucky that all the blogging I do is for travel-blogs. All a different audience, but in the same industry so I like to think I'm up to speed with the vast and rapid changes that happen on the web. Apparently not. A recent article from AP listed a set of new online travel-tools making...

Next month at the RolfPotts.com Travel Writers page, I interview Kate Siber , who has written for Outside , National Geographic Adventure , Men's Journal , and The New York Times . A memorable snippet from our Q&A is this account of how she first broke into travel writing: I talked to an alum from...

I came across this article on Go Nomad that I'd like to call 'Operation Vagabond', without meaning to sound silly. For those of you who are worried about having the finances to take extended time out and travel without worrying about becoming destitute in the process, this article gives you details on how to plan...

Until I read the 2006 edition of The Best American Travel Writing , I wasn't all that familiar with the nonfiction work of George Saunders , author of fiction tomes like In Persuasion Nation and Pastoralia . As it turned out, there was a reason for this: His story in the anthology, a dispatch from...

Next month at the RolfPotts.com Writers page I chat with Eric Hansen , author of travel books such as Stranger in the Forest, Motoring with Mohammed, and The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer . Hansen's articles have appeared in the New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, Outside Magazine, Men's Journal ,...

Be it the New York Times Travel section, Guardian Travel, Time Magazine, or the Telegraph (to name a few), the online travel publishing world, doesn't seem to get enough of 'top 10's and 20's'; and frankly, neither can I. This is for a few reasons: 1) for the mere kick of being familiar with at...

This month at the RolfPotts.com Travel Writers page I interview Gary Lee , who writes for the Washington Post travel section. Here are some of the highlights from our Q&A: "When I arrive at a destination, I like to have a plan for what I want to focus on: music in Salvador Bahia, Brazil, art...

Sometimes, all you need to finalize that payment for your trip, is some questions answered. Sometimes, you hesitate to ask questions before, during, or after you travel, from fear of seeming ignorant or merely sounding silly. Sometimes, not asking these questions is what makes us not do something we otherwise would have done; if only...

I recently came across Mark Moxon , a traveler who has had his share of the rat race, and now juggles his life between vagabonding, freelance web developing, producing and writing. Pushed into it by the utter fear of having his own perfect peach bathroom, he quit his 'proper' job in 1995 as an escape...

With the countless number of travel websites sprouting in every nook of the world wide web, it's hard to find pages with genuine, personal and useful content. Having said that, finding Go Budget Travel was a delight. Although the name sounds like the usual commercial 'Go Madrid!', 'Go Dubai!', 'Go Yankees!' portals, the site is...

This month at the RolfPotts.com Travel Writers page, I interview L. Peat O’Neil , author of Travel Writing: See the World, Sell the Story (2nd edition, Writer’s Digest Books, 2005). Here are some of the highlights from our Q&A: "I tend to do too much research and then lose interest in the story because I’ve...

This month at the RolfPotts.com Travel Writers page I interview Tahir Shah , who has authored ten books, including The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca , and In Search of King Solomon's Mines . Here are some of the highlights from our Q&A: "Before I ever wrote a magazine article, I wrote a book....

This month at the RolfPotts.com Travel Writers page, I interview Anastasia M. Ashman and Jennifer Eaton Gokmen , who co-edited the nonfiction anthology Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey . Ashman's advice to aspiring travel writers is to read the bulletin boards at Travelwriters.com . "[There's a] lot of very fundamental...