This month at the RolfPotts.com Travel Writers page I interview Bob Shacochis , a contributing editor for both Outside and Harper’s , and the author of books such as Swimming in the Volcano , Easy in the Islands , and The Immaculate Invasion . Here are some of the highlights from our Q&A: "The biggest...

This month at the RolfPotts.com Travel Writers page I interview Tony D'Souza , author of the novel Whiteman (Harcourt, 2006), which draws on his experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cote d'Ivoire. Here are some of the highlights from our Q&A: "In my MFA, the first question one of the fellow students asked the...

This month at the RolfPotts.com Travel Writers page I interview Jeff Biggers , author of In the Sierra Madre and The United States of Appalachia : How Southern Mountaineers Brought Independence, Culture, and Enlightenment to America . Here are some of the highlights from our Q&A: "One editor once told me: Either give me silly...

With Valentine's Day approaching, Americans are once again getting ready to celebrate (or bemoan) the idea of romantic relationships. Much has been written about signs of partner compatibility, but few concrete activities test the validity of an incipient romance like traveling together. In packing your bags and hitting the road with your lover, you aren't...

Last month Justin Glow posted a call for new bloggers here at Vagablogging -- and we got quite a big response. Now, after a little preliminary screening, we've decided to debut seven Vagabloggers, starting tomorrow. Since a couple of my favorite online indie travel resources are TransitionsAbroad.com and BootsnAll.com , I recruited my first two...

This month at the RolfPotts.com Writers Page , I interview Tony Horwitz , author of Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before (Henry Holt 2002), as well as Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (Pantheon 1998), Baghdad without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia (E.P. Dutton 1991)...

If you're an independent traveler, packing light is essential — not only to reduce weight, but also to make sure that no clutter gets between you and the experience of your journey. Indeed, less gear means more freedom on the road, and the only downside to this principle is that it can be hard this...

This month at the RolfPotts.com Writers page, I interview adventure travel writer Lawrence Millman , who is the author of eleven books, including Northern Latitudes , Last Places , An Evening Among Headhunters , and Lost in the Arctic . His travel reportage has also appeared in such magazines as Smithsonian, National Geographic Adventure, The...

Back in September I wrote about Lonely Planet’s curious new guidebook, Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations ¸ by John Ryan, George Dunford, and Simon Sellars. This week over at Yahoo! Travel, Rolf caught up with John via email to learn more about the micronations of our world , and the necessary conditions...

This week at Yahoo! Travel, Rolf relives the rollercoaster ride that was expatriate life in Busan, South Korea , where he taught English as a second language. It wasn't all fun and games, however — long hours, cold winters, and bouts of loneliness almost sent him back home, but he stuck with it and came...

This week's Traveling Light column revolves around a question from Mark in Elk Rapids, who asks: I am about to embark on a trip to Eastern Europe. Should I be bartering over the cost of hotel stays? I tell Mark that it's worth the effort to bargain over your hotel prices anywhere in the world...

This week at Yahoo! Travel , Rolf relives his first visit to the Louvre in Paris, and subsequent lapse into the typical tourist rhythm at one of the largest art museums at the world by heading straight for the Mona Lisa. "In tourist terms, hurrying through hallways of miscellaneous masterpieces to seek out the Mona...

This month at the RolfPotts.com Writers page, I interview Eddy L. Harris , who is the author of four critically acclaimed books -- Mississippi Solo: A River Quest , Native Stranger: A Black American's Journey into the Heart of Africa , South of Haunted Dreams: A Memoir , and Still Life in Harlem: A Memoir...

Slate’s "Dispatches" column recently featured a four part series from Rolf on the expat scene in Busan, South Korea , where he spent a few years teaching English in the late 90s. By day, Rolf covers the Pusan International Film Festival (one of Asia’s biggest), but as the sun sets he heads out into the...

This week in Yahoo’s “Traveling Light” column , Rolf takes a nostalgic look at life before professional travel writing, when idle time was spent filling battle-scarred notebooks with muddled musings of far-away people and places. Reminiscing, of course, is the payoff. Leafing through the fragile travel journal of old memories extends the life of your...

One of the weird things about writing a travel column for a venue like Yahoo! News is that so many people read it. On one hand, it's great to have such a broad audience -- but on the other hand, having a big online readership invariably means that (at any given moment) a good percentage...

My Indie Travel Notebook this week at Yahoo! News focuses on the South African city of Cape Town, which is often mentioned alongside places like Rio de Janeiro, Paris and Sydney as one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Situated on a mountainous promontory, the city's two seaboards offer sprawling views of the...

This month at the RolfPotts.com Writers page, I feature an interview with guidebook writer Joanne Miller . In addition to four comprehensive travel books -- Moon's Pennsylvania Handbook , Moon's Maryland-Delaware Handbook , Moon's Chesapeake Bay Handbook , and Best Places: Marin -- she has contributed to Eyewitness Guides USA , Eyewitness Guides San Francisco...

My Traveling Light column this week at Yahoo! News deals with the perils of "going native" with your wardrobe as your travel. In addition to my own story of inadvertently "going native" in Burma, I give some pointers on how to 'go native' (in the fashion sense, at least) and still keep your dignity: 1)...

This week at Yahoo! News, my "Traveling Light" column focuses on international travel safety , five years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. My conclusion? That, for the most part, the real travel dangers are quite similar to the dangers travelers encountered before 9/11. That is, petty crimes and accidents are still more likely to be...