Few travel writers evoke such strong reactions as Paul Theroux. Readers often find him cruel and cold or disarmingly honest and wickedly funny. Regardless, few would deny that his first travel book,
The Great Railway Bazaar, published in 1975, gave travel writing a much-needed shot in the arm—and many insist that with it, Theroux single-handedly […]
The situation: It’s Sunday, and after a night out in Lima, Peru, you’ve found yourself in a cevicher?a. It’s more, you discover, than a mere place to order ceviche. It’s a cultural institution where lime juice abounds, and the events and misadventures from the previous night are discussed, reenacted and celebrated. Here’s your primer.
When to […]
The German scientist and satirist Georg Lichtenberg once famously remarked, “A book is a mirror: If an ass peers into it, you can’t expect an apostle to look out.” So it is with travel: what you make of the places you’ve been says as much about you as it does about the places themselves. By […]
When a curiously titled book called “The Sex Lives of Cannibals” quietly appeared on bookshop shelves in 2004, little did we know that the author, one J. Maarten Troost, would pen some of the most memorable and laugh-out-loud travel prose since Bill Bryson began jotting down his travel experiences. In his book, Troost managed to […]
In 2000, Douglas Preston and his family moved into a rented Tuscan farmhouse with dreams of happy strolls, old paintings and a languid existence of the kind so often written about by people in love with Italy.
Preston landed, in other words, in a fictitious place: a country that existed in his mind, but not in […]
Colin Kisembo—dairy farmer, poet—wanted to read me a story. He rifled through a weathered accordion file, pulling out two legal pads and reams of wrinkled looseleaf covered with his fastidious handwriting. Outside, the wind gusted, branches thrashing against the windowpane. Colin adjusted his glasses, cleared his throat. He prefaced his story with apologies and asides—nervous, […]
I am standing on the Charles Bridge. It is early October, a crisp, cool night, and the castle glows above me. Couples line the bridge, smudged by the dim lighting, and gaze dreamily down at the Vltava flowing below. I look intently up at the young Australian standing beside me, waiting as he shifts his […]
Whether it’s a brief liaison sparked between strangers in a strange land or a full-blown intercontinental relationship complete with text-messaging bills and regularly scheduled airport departure-lounge drama, a foreign fling is an affair to remember.
In the beginning, at least, an international romance can play out with all the subtitled allure of the best foreign film—full […]
Stretching my legs after a cramped bus ride from M’bour, Senegal, I waited for the porter to throw my backpack down from the roof. I had a bus transfer in the small village of Samba Dia on my way to the Sine Saloum Delta. I was in search of ripe mangoes and lush mangroves, or […]
Dear Rolf,
I want to go backpacking for a year around the world, but as a woman, I’m always wondering how safe it is. Can I realistically jump on a plane now without too much fear for my safety?
– Sandrine, U.K.
Dear Sandrine,
Traveling the world as a female shouldn’t be a problem. These days, women travelers go […]
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