The travelers who penned the outstanding stories that feature in this week’s edition of Tales From the Road all seem to be in search of a single moment when they feel at home in the world, in tune with the music of the universe.

For Adam Karlin that moment comes under a banyan tree at the most sacred temple in Burma.
For Peter Develett it comes on acid in Tokyo, gazing at the lucid moon.
For Bruce Northam it comes after days of deprivation in the Utah desert, and then again on a sidewalk in Scotland.

Becky Timbers finds peace with sea turtles off the coast of Maui, and Mark Jenkins finds a window into the sky when a trucker stops to give him a lift on a stretch of lonesome highway.

As I write here in Buenos Aires, day-dreaming of the cabin I want to build in Vermont, it seems silly how we travelers race around the world, deliberately courting hardship and uncertainty in our search for connection.

Maybe it is only by breaking away from our familiar realities that we are able to place them in context, to take the moments of beauty we find on our travels and stitch them into something that resembles home.

Enjoy the stories.

1. “Under The Banyan Tree” by Adam Karlin

It’s been months since the military regime of Burma murdered Buddhist monks who were marching for political reform.

In this lovingly crafted travelogue, Adam Karlin takes us back to the streets of Yangon, still in the grip of stultifying repression but also overgrown with the richness of life. The narrative culminates with Adam kneeling on cool marble under a banyan tree at Shwedagon temple, a scene that unexpectedly made my eyes well up with tears.

2. “Strange Children” by Peter Delevett

“We’re at Tokyo Disneyland when I drop acid for the first time.” So begins Peter Delevett’s trip through Tokyo, a blur of drug-fueled epiphany that reads like a strange hybrid of Hunter S. Thompson and the haiku master Basho.

Everything in the story is “fresh and deep and meaningful” but also tinged with sadness and anomie as Peter grasps for the shining moon and sleeps on a gravestone.

3. “Do More With Less: Survival, Then Surviving Scotch” by Bruce Northam

Bruce Northam starves himself for two weeks in the brutal wilderness of the Utah canyonlands, then hops on a plane for Scotland to sip single-malt whiskey in a luxury highland lodge. It’s hard to say which experience is more strange – opposite ends of the weird reality of the world today.

4. “Life Is A Journey: Learn From The Sea Turtles And Take It Slow” by Becky Timbers

Ku Ku Kachoo, little dude! Becky Timbers hangs out with sea turtles off the coast of Maui and remembers to relax, take life slow, and just float at ease like the “Buddhas of the ocean”.

5. Hitching by Mark Jenkins

Mark Jenkins takes us along on a journey by thumb down the spine of the Rocky Mountains.

Most of the stories Jenkins writes are dispatches from high mountains in distant lands, but the ordinary Americans who feature in his highway tale are just as carefully rendered as the Burmese soldiers and Tibetan monks he usually describes.

The story ends with the most lyrical line I’ve read all week, like the the best of Jack Kerouac –

We made it to Santa Fe in two hours, riding through the velvet desert counting shooting stars.

Beautiful.

BNT contributing editor Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia and Traverse Magazine. Check out his Matador profile.

Sea turtle photo by Becky Timbers

Some of the selections are polished feature articles from Matador’s magazine, Traverse. Others are rough hewn blogs scattered with diamonds of humor and insight.

What makes all the travel stories on Matador special and unique is the possibility for interaction. Connecting with the people behind the words is as simple as checking out their profile, leaving a comment, getting in touch.

I’m stoked about Matador because it’s more than a magazine – it’s a community. It has a heartbeat. It’s a gathering point, a watering hole, a place for people to come together and share inspiration and advice.

Enjoy the stories!

1) “The Crazy List” by DeepSeaGangster

Commercial fishing is tough work, but the moments captured in Deep Sea Gangster’s “crazy list” makes life on the high seas sound as romantic and magical as anything in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel. A sampler:

-a bald eagle swooped down and snatched the skipper’s little pet dog off the bow.

-in a squall, hundreds of small, brightly colored birds seek shelter in the cabin of a fishing boat. the mate on watch can’t concentrate as they flutter all about and their tiny feet tickle his head and shoulders.

2) “Common Denominators: Soy Sauce and Chilies” by Noelljt

Noellejt writes from You Sabai, a hilltop cooking school near Chiang Mai that happens to be my favorite place in Southeast Asia. So maybe I’m biased. But the food descriptions in this blog will make anyone’s mouth water.

3) “Khoomei: The Ancient Art Of Tuvan Throat Singing” by girlgoesglobal

Politically Tuva is part of Russia, a wedge of Siberia on the northern border of Mongolia. Culturally it is a nation apart, its people worshipful of nature and deeply rooted to the land:

“Khoomei (throat singing) was birthed from a desire to speak the language of Nature, translating the earthly sounds of a whistling wind or gurgling brook into human tones.”

4) “Booty And Bootlegs: A Diary Of Baile Funk In The Favelas Of Rio de Janeiro” by Drew Murphy

I wasn’t quite sure what to think of this story – less a narrative than a collage of music, violence, sex and poverty. Here’s the first sentence – you can almost feel the heat and grime:

A marijuana-sweat stew boils in the walls. It’s 11am. The sun drags on the earth’s belt. Only now are the sounds of life emerging — cheap TV’s and radios pump the western world through bad reception and small speakers. Dylan’s universal words blare in mono over the boom-crash absurdities of Saturday morning cartoons.

5) “The Traveling Warrior” by Japanhoch

Journalism is often called the first draft of history, but the journalism of the 21st century is hardly confined to newsbites in the mainstream media. Blogs like The Traveling Warrior paint a picture of the everyday trials of soldiers caught in wars around the world, helping us to empathize with the people behind the headlines.

6) “Running With Zelda” by Tim Patterson

A blatant publicity plug: Running With Zelda is probably the funniest (and most embarrassing) story I’ve ever written. It’s published online as part of a contest, with the story that gets the most votes winning its author (and 2 voters) a trip to Martinique. Give it a read, and if you like it, please give it a vote too.

Have you found any great travel stories this week? Share in the comments!

BNT contributing editor Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia and Traverse Magazine. Check out his Matador profile.

I’m stoked. But as the date of the cruise approaches, I find myself questioning my motivations. Antarctica will give me the continental sweep – 7 for 7 – a feat I’ll be proud to work into cocktail party conversations until I’m old and gray.

Am I going to Antarctica to humble myself in the face of everlasting ice and snow, or to stroke my own ego?

Is knocking a continent off a checklist ever a good reason to travel? What does it say about our culture when wealthy travelers can collect remote and exotic destinations like trophies?

Travel is always an inner journey through the outer world, as the BNT tagline goes, but that journey should be one of discovery and self growth, not a status boost from one echelon of world traveler to another.

I’ll go to Antarctica. I’d be a fool to pass up this opportunity. But I’ll try to go with an attitude of humility and wonder. I’ll try to keep my mouth shut at cocktail parties. And I’ll always try to remember that travel isn’t a matter of how far you go, but of how carefully you strive to understand.

1) “Bragging Rights” by Marie Javins, Perceptive Travel

Marie Javins knocked Antarctica off her life-list years ago, and like me, she found herself questioning her motivations for going there. Honest perspectives like hers are few and far between – thank goodness for independent, non-corporate websites like Perceptive Travel, which have the guts to publish stories that dare to ask the question: Why?

2) “Into Uncharted Waters” by Jason Anthony, World Hum

Jason Anthony is an born story-teller, but this bullet of a piece on Antarctica isn´t a story – it´s a warning. Anthony reminds us that Antarctica is a cold, harsh world where humans cannot survive without extraordinary measures. With nearly 40,000 tourists setting sail for the continent each year, disaster looms around the corner. “Hope for the best,¨says Anthony, ¨”but don’t be surprised if grim news comes.”

3) “Yule And Me On The Nile” by Nils Bruzelius, The Washington Post

I love travel writing that is deep, raw and meaningful – not just a descriptive account of someone’s vacation. Sometimes, though, a vacation piece can be just what the doctor ordered. Nils Bruzelius’ account of his Christmas dinner on the Nile doesn’t break any new literary ground, but it’s an easy, pleasant read – one that reminds this somewhat jaded travel writer of the joy of a holiday in a far-away land.

4) “Moldovan Mothers” by Jason Spears, Peace Corp Writers

The Peace Corp is a fertile ground for travel writers. In this thoughtful and sharp-eyed piece, Jason Spears gives us a snapshot of a Moldova, a country adrift in the global economy, whose sons and daughters must travel to support themselves – at the cost of leaving their families behind.

5) “Golden Trout” by Tim Patterson, Traverse Magazine

Forgive me for ending with a little ego stroke. My latest story, from the high country of Wyoming, was just published in Traverse Magazine. It’s about fishing and friendship and mountains and America. I think it’s a good one, and I hope you enjoy it.

Any recent stories you’ve enjoyed? Post a link in the comments!

BNT contributing editor Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia and Traverse Magazine. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

“No,” I answer. “I didn’t.” And I’m not really a journalist either. Journalism is a noble profession, but as a species of writing it’s sometimes hamstrung by its own rulebook.

Here’s an excerpt from one of my Cambodia notebooks:

Why I’m a travel writer, not a journalist. I can follow a hunch, record hearsay, call an asshole an asshole, make an impression of a place that will be true for me, to this experience, something deeper than a dossier of facts and smellier than a press room briefing: truth in color. You’ve got to go, you’ve got to see, you’ve got to piss people off – you’ve got to float down a Cambodian river, and feel the heat of the sun.

Enjoy the stories.

1. “Bethlehem” by Michael Finkel, National Geographic

Michael Finkel is one of the most talented travel writers in the world. My admiration for his work is in no way diminished by the revelation that he created a composite character for a New York Times Magazine piece, a scandal that banished him from ever writing for the Times again. Their loss.

Finkel’s stunning portrait of a little scrap of Holy Land encircled by razor wire, hate and fear is one of those rare stories that not only captures a place in time, but holds meaning and insight on a far broader and deeper scale.

2. “My Biafran Eyes” by Okey Ndibe, Guernica

Winners may write the history books, but survivors of lost wars can still tell stories. Okey Ndibe was only a child during the Biafran War, but his descriptions of his family’s travails lose no poignancy to the passage of time. Few writers have captured the perspective of looking up to falling bombs so well:

From our hiding spots, frozen with fright, we watched as the bombs tumbled from the sky, hideous metallic eggs shat by mammoth mindless birds.

3. “Death Of An Adventure Traveler” by Rolf Potts, The Smart Set

“Death Of An Adventure Traveler” might just be the best story Rolf Potts has written to date. Rolf nails a theme I’ve been struggling to address in my own life and writing recently: the contrast between high-end “adventure travel” and the humble travelers whose lives are a series of adventures that can’t be picked out of a catalog.

“How did risking frostbite on a helicopter-supported journey to arctic Siberia constitute more of an “adventure” than risking frostbite on a winter road-crew in Upper Peninsula Michigan?” Rolf asks an editor of a “Major Adventure Travel Magazine”.

It’s an important question.

4. “Song Of Hypothermia” by Jason Anthony, Albedo Images

Jason Anthony, Bard of Antarctica, tells the story of a season shaped by wind, ice and companionship on the Odell Glacier, a landscape of isolation where “raw self swells to fill the emptiness.”

5. “Another End Of The Road: Still Searching For Surf In Centro-America” by Spencer Klein, Traverse

There are some feelings you just can’t capture in words. This is one reason why writing about sex is so, um, hard. Surfing is another act of communion that doesn’t lend itself to language, but man, Spencer Klein just about pulls it off:

There was only adrenaline and the thunder of the waves, and the warm colors above and the deep blue ocean below, and you had it, all of it, in the equatorial warmth, and there was no one and nothing out of place, just you and the waves and the feeling – the feeling was there – and you had it, the one you lived for and loved, and the very reason you traveled, the reason you surfed – it shot up your spine – and just when you had it a set would stack up on the horizon and you stroked hard and deep and everything in your body accelerated, and then wait, that wave there, and you turned and it really was just to that point where solitude is fine, to the point where a look over the edge gave you a rush, and a bit of anxiety, and the nerves came even more with the drop, and when you stuck it it felt good and you knew you had it, and checked out, forgot everything, and unleashed a fluid image onto that massive blue canvas, until you came out of it a few hundred yards later, and the after-feeling was there, still no one around, that sense of discovery and purity and timelessness, and all you could think to do was sustain it.

Found a good travel story lately? Share it below!

BNT contributing editor Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia and Traverse Magazine. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

This year is no exception: he begins with a report about a shark attack in New Jersey, an exceedingly rare event that led to the almost-instantaneous publication of helpful sidebars and advice boxes on How To Survive A Shark Attack in the local papers.

This leads Wilson to a discussion of the “If You Go” boxes that accompany most travel content: “Presumably, this information is there in case you want to duplicate the writer’s trip on your own.”

But the stories in his anthology – and, I think, the stories I’ve selected here today – come without any practical sidebars, because they can’t be replicated. And in Wilson’s words,

“That’s because, like all great travel writing, each of the stories collected here is born of a singular experience, point of view, and voice. Each of them is a rare achievement. Perhaps even rarer than a shark attack in New Jersey.”

Enjoy!

1) War Zones for Idiots, by Tom Bissell

Tom Bissell first caught my attention for some thoughtful stories about his travels in Vietnam with his father, a veteran of the war. In this World Hum dispatch he winds up in the middle of a present-day conflict, after walking across the Friendship Bridge from Uzbekistan and into Afghanistan in 2002, in the early days of the US-led invasion.

Bissell’s brutal honesty about his unpreparedness for war-zone reporting, in contrast to the hard-drinking, hard-bitten correspondents he is surrounded by, is as fascinating as his observations about the time and place that he finds himself in.

2) Cowboys and Indians, Thai-style, by Rolf Potts

I won’t go too far into the debate over eating fast food in foreign countries here, but I’ve always thought that an unexpected encounter with the familiar while traveling can be as eye-opening as any museum-going or “authentic” cultural excursion I might undertake.

I try to create those encounters with the familiar by stopping into a Burger King or a McDonalds, even if just to look, in almost every country I visit. In this story, Rolf Potts takes the idea much further – visiting a “cowboy resort” in Thailand to see their take on the American West. Hilarious and insightful as always.

3) Walking the Line, by Ryan Murdock

In this feature from Canada’s own Outpost Magazine, Ryan Murdock takes on one of the toughest walking trails in the North West Territories – and as in all the best adventure stories, the trip doesn’t turn out as he expected. Beautifully written, and mixing history in with the main narrative, the story also includes a spectacular shot of the Northern Lights as a bonus. Here’s a quick excerpt:

“The beauty of the North is cold and unforgiving. It isn’t malevolent, simply indifferent. The land is tolerating you and that’s all. You realize how easy it would be to die out there. You feel dwarfed by the land and by time, and you come to understand the folly of the day-to-day with its shallow self-importance. In the bigger picture, your existence doesn’t matter very much, nor do your hopes, dreams or schemes.”

4) Things Come Together: A Journey Through Literary Lagos, by Frank Bures

A night out at an author’s book reading might not strike most people as fodder for a good travel story, but this story by Frank Bures proves those people wrong. It is about a night in Lagos with some of Nigeria’s new literary elite, and it mixes history, literature, and some great dialogue with the young authors. Not to mention one of the more enticing descriptions of a city that I have ever read:

“In Lagos, there is a story on every corner, a novella standing in every doorway. The wind blows poems across the city like the bits of trash cover it. Lagos is a huge Dickensian space full of heartbreak and humor and millions of souls putting themselves up against the hard edge of the world. The city is pulsing with stories that flow through its streets.”

Hide your piggy banks, folks. If you’re anything like me, writing like that will make you want to book a flight.

5) Thailand, by Jim Benning

In yet another unexpected encounter with the familiar, Jim Benning spends an evening at a Sizzler restaurant in southern Thailand.

I had the pleasure of hearing Benning read this essay this past summer at the Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference, and it’s the best defence I’ve come across yet for my occasional forays into chain restaurants and fast food outlets around the world.

A thoughtful meditation on the familiar, the exotic, and the blurred lines between the two.

Have you come across any great travel stories recently? Share in the comments!

Eva Holland is a historical researcher and freelance writer based in Ottawa, Canada. She is a blogger for World Hum and for Rolf Potts’ Vagablogging, and her travel writing has appeared in The Ottawa Citizen, The Edmonton Journal, and Matador Travel.

By the time you read this roundup, though, I’ll be in Buenos Aires, struggling with Spanish and taking in a whole new world.

One of the glorious things about travel is the shift in perspective that accompanies a change in place. Seeing the world from a different angle is a revelatory experience that adds depth and wisdom to our lives. Ideally, the effects of this experience linger long beyond the trip itself, informing and contextualizing our idea of “home”.

To reproduce T.S. Eliot’s oft-quoted phrase, “the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

The best travel writing often takes the form of a journey home, a “there and back again” tale that comes full circle – but arrives at a very different place.

Enjoy the stories!

1. “The Insufferable Gaucho” by Roberto Bolano, The New Yorker

This epic story will take your breath away. A work of fiction, it is nonetheless a classic travel narrative – one that taught me more about Argentina in only a few pages than a whole bookshelf of guidebooks.

Although Bolano’s creation is rooted in a specific time and place, it grapples with universal human themes of family and loss, tradition and independence. If you only read one story all year long, this would be a good choice.

2. “A Game Journey” by Jason Wilson, The Smart Set

I’ve always thought of Jason Wilson as the editor of The Best American Travel Writing anthology, but it turns out Mr. Wilson is also an excellent writer himself. “A Game Journey,” which describes a boar hunt in France, is a fun, revealing read, complete with guns, hard liquor, red meat and snobbery.

3. “A Goat And Global Feminisms” by Sarah Burgess, Sarah in Cameroon

Here’s a short blog post by an American college student studying in Cameroon, who manages to sum up the central problem of well-intentioned foreign aid in a fun little story about a runaway goat.

4. “No Direction Home” by Matt Gross, World Hum

The good people of Worldhum.com have celebrated Thanksgiving by putting together a series of reflections about home that feature a couple of professional vagabonds – Rolf Potts and Matt Gross. Matt’s story is heart-felt, personal and true, a window into the travails of a successful travel writer. Also make sure to check out the audio slide show narrated by Matt and Rolf.

5. “Tales Of A Luggage-Less Traveler” by Jonathan Yevin, Budget Travel

I just got off the phone with Jonathan Yevin, a travel writer who, like me, will be working next month on the Fodor’s Guide to Patagonia. We talked about the tone we’re trying to hit with the guidebook and what we’re planning to pack – when I told Jonathan I’m bringing a tent, he laughed and said: “Dude, go light. I once traveled from Ecuador to Mexico with no luggage at all.”

Unbelievably, Jonathan’s story checks out – he even wrote up the experience for Budget Travel. Some travelers try to carry home with them on the road – others, it seems, are comfortable treating the world as their home.

BNT contributing editor Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia and Traverse Magazine. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

Photo by Mark Hochstetler

Read a great travel story lately? Leave a link below!

The good news is, most weeks I find 5 great stories. Some are buried in obscure blogs. Some are encased in the websites of elite print magazines like National Geographic or The New Yorker.

Others are published by feisty, low-budget online magazines, and it’s hardly a secret that these are the ones I find particularly encouraging.

What never fails to piss me off is when I read a truly outstanding, revelatory piece of travel writing in a print magazine or newspaper, a story that I want EVERYONE to read, a story with the capacity not only to change opinions, but to change the world…and go online to find that it is “only available to print subscribers.”

The arbitrary restriction of something so easily distributed as a simple story always strikes me as quaint and unfair. Sure, magazines need to pay the bills and writers need to eat. But I’d rather have that money come from other sources – like advertising – and have the story itself be freely available in the marketplace of ideas.

Yesterday I read an amazing travel story about the tar sands of Western Canada by Elizabeth Kolbert in The New Yorker. Only an abstract is available online.

It’s a real shame, because Brave New Travelers around the world deserve to read it. That’s why, this week Tales From The Road features only 4 articles…for #5, you’ll just have to e-mail the New Yorker and demand the keys to the library.

1. “Where The Roads Diverged” by Catherine Watson

The best travel writing is always about something other than travel – an issue, an emotion or a revelation expressed through the lens of a narrative journey.

Catherine Watson’s deeply moving story takes place within the framework of her stay on Easter Island, but it’s really about the ineffable qualities of attachment, and the loneliness that accompanies one’s realization that for all the possibilities in this world, we only have one life to live.

2. “The Least Expected Isle Of Scotland” by Michele McAlister

Here’s another story by a woman who stayed for a long time on a very small island. “For a month long visit to Scotland, I decided to hunker down in just one spot-on the remote and rarely visited Isle of Eigg,” begins Michele McAlister in this whimsical and smoothly written travel blog.

3. “Capitalist Roaders” by Ted Conover, The New York Times

Ted Conover is one of the best travel writers in the world today, and this piece – about car culture in China – is one of his most entertaining and revealing, by turns funny, ironic and deeply sad. If you missed my recent interview with Ted Conover, check it out here.

4. “Angkor: When It Rains, You Score” by Stephen Brookes

I lived in Cambodia for 5 months, but never during the rainy season. Stephen Brookes’ fine article in the Washington Post makes me wish that I had stuck around. It’s a great reminder of the benefits of off-season travel, and the rewards waiting for travelers brave enough to go against the flow.

5. “Unconventional Crude” by Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker

“It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.”
-Elizabeth Kolbert

Bold statement? Sure. Chillingly accurate? Yes. Want to read more about Elizabeth Kolbert’s journey to SYN-CRUDE pits of Northern Alberta? Too bad. The story is not available online.

Instead, you can read an excellent interview with Kolbert here.

BNT contributing editor Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia and Traverse Magazine. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

Read a great travel story lately? Leave a link below!

This sort of travel writing is often far more enlightening than even the best conventional, big-media journalism, which tends to lack both emotion and depth.

This edition of “Tales From the Road” features 5 stories that report from beyond the pale, and whose scope reaches beyond mere entertainment.

These aren’t travel guides or hotel reviews, but rather pure, unfiltered travel journalism with idiosyncratic twists.

1) “Lands Of Lost Liberties” by Michael Buckley, PerceptiveTravel.com

Michael Buckley’s penetrating and precise story in the latest issue of Perceptive Travel opens a window to several totalitarian countries, including Cuba, Burma and Iran, and tells travelers how they can let in a little more fresh air when visiting lands of repression.

2) “The Snap Revolution” by James Fenton, Granta

I had heard of the magazine Granta but never checked it out until tonight. Wow. Absolutely fantastic, in-depth travel writing and short stories.

James Fenton’s detailed piece about the Philippine elections of 1986 is an honest and deeply felt example of wide-angle travel journalism.

3) “40th Vallenato Festival” by Richard McColl, Traverse Magazine

Columbia is now a safe and popular destination for travelers. Even the cocaine capital of Medellin was recently written up in the New York Times travel section.

Despite its newfound popularity, however, Columbian politics and culture remain foreign territory for most outsiders. Richard McColl’s rollicking story about the Vallenato Festival is a view from the inside.

4) “Slick Torch” by Norman Solomon, Guernica

Norman Solomon’s tour of war coverage as practiced by the American media shines a spotlight on the biases and institutional laxity of mainstream journalism, and demonstrates how travel writing can be a last-gasp expression of truth and consequences in an era of sanitized brutality.

5) “A Woman’s Work Earns Her Enemies” by Nick Kristof, The New York Times

Nicholas Kristof is one of the smartest, bravest and most persistent travel journalists of our time.

Last spring he profiled courageous victims of state corruption and repression in Pakistan, telling their tragic story and sending a pointed message to General Musharraf, the dictator of Pakistan who recently suspended basic human liberties and the rule of law.

Mr. Kristof’s work is an example of how an excellent travel writer can also be an excellent journalist. It is a tragedy that there are so few American journalists like him.

BNT contributing editor Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia and Traverse Magazine. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

Read a great travel story lately? Add your comment and link below!

The best stories come from authors who are both ignorant and interested, who want to know, and simply report what they find.

Good travel writing is so much more than spa reviews and “8 Best Restaurants in Rome”.

Travel stories are windows to the far corners of the world; reports that have the freedom to dig deeper and paint more boldly than any filed by reporters for the Associated Press.

1) “Kolkata: My Entrance To India” by Queen Bee

Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, is a city that’s always hovered at the edge of my imagination, vaguely associated with heat, grime and Mother Theresa.

I never had a solid mental picture of Kolkata until now, after reading this fine travel blog by Queen Bee, who writes with just the right blend of candidness and curiosity.

2) “Cry For Me” by Ted Conover

Suffice to say, Ted Conover did not have a great time in Bariloche. Still, bad trips often make for the most entertaining travel stories. At least, unlike Ted, I won’t be in Patagonia for the southern winter.

3) “The Gift Of The Nile” by Chris Vourlias

To be perfectly honest, my favorite part of this story was the author bio at the end:

“Chris Vourlias…was last spotted on the coast of Kenya, losing dhow races and searching for free WiFi.”

Now that’s my kind of travel writer. And his story is pretty darn eloquent too.

4) “Feasting On Montreal’s Charms” by Erika Johnston

Maybe it’s because I haven’t had lunch yet, but this story really hit the spot. Nothing makes a travel story more rich, more voluptuous, than good descriptions of good food.

Give me an edge of the seat narrative about scaling the North face of K2 and I’ll be entertained, but tell me about four kinds of pork in one dish and you’ve won a spot in the roundup.

5) “A Short-Cut In the Hindu Cush” by Rob Lilwall

Way back in the first edition of “Tales From the Road” I introduced Rob Lilwall, the English cyclist who is in the midst of a multi-year bicycle journey from Siberia to England, via Papua New Guinea.

His recent blog about his ride through Northern Afghanistan is an excellent read, complete with a tremendous wipe-out on the far side of the Hindu Cush. (Which I always thought was spelled ‘Kush’ – what gives?)

At the end of this latest update, Rob writes “the end is (almost) in sight.”

Since I came home last week with my tail between my legs after failing to ride from Montreal to Halifax, I can only imagine the epic scale of a journey where a quick pedal from Tehran to London qualifies as the final lap.

BNT contributing editor Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia and Traverse Magazine. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

Read a great travel story lately? Add your comment and link below!

Since 1962, Burma has been ruled by a brutal, self-serving military junta, but recent news suggests the peace-loving people of Burma may finally rise up to demand an end to military rule.

Processions of Buddhist monks are courageously marching in the streets of major cities to protest the junta. These marchers risk torture, imprisonment and death, but they speak with conviction and carry their banners high.

Perhaps their courage will be rewarded. It’s crucial for the outside world to stand with the marchers of Burma.

If we turn a blind eye to their plight, the junta will be free to unleash a firestorm of violent repression. If we pay attention, even from a distance, the military may be unwilling to risk global outrage, and a peaceful resolution might be achieved.

This edition of Tales From the Road is focused on travel narratives from Burma, but I also encourage you to read and respond to breaking news. At the bottom of this page I’ve included links to some good news articles, and a Google News search will no doubt turn up others.

Your thoughts and comments are especially welcome.

1) “From Mandalay to Pyin U Lwin” by Sean McCarthy

Sean McCarthy’s rattle-trap narrative about his journey from Mandalay to the small town of Pyin U Lwin gives a good picture of what independent travel in Burma is actually like.

McCarthy’s writing isn’t as exact as it might be – he refers to the pro-democracy protests of 1988 as violent, when it was actually the repression of those protests which led to hundreds of deaths – a crucial distinction.

He does have an eye for telling detail, however, and writes with honesty and good humor.

2) “Lingering a Little Longer With the Lotus Eaters” by Michael Meadows

“Of all the countries I’ve traveled in, I’ve never enjoyed and respected a people as much as I do the Burmese,” writes Michael Meadows in this casually eloquent travel narrative.

Meadows displays a good ear for language and imagery, and although he sometimes falls into the trap of personal travel blogs – “we met plenty of other interesting characters and had a great night” – the piece reads smoothly and contains plenty of concrete observation and useful cultural context. Great photos too.

3) “Native Eye for the Tourist Guy” by Rolf Potts

Emperor of Vagabonds Rolf Potts once rode a bicycle across Burma, but this story is more about the oddities of backpacker fashion than the people and places he encountered along the way.

Rolf managed to destroy his pants during the ride and replaced them with a traditional Burmese skirt, or lungi. After an awkward initiation, Rolf was able to wear his lungi like a native – so why the laughs on Khao San Road?

4) “The Ghost Road” by Mark Jenkins

Wow. Nobody writes like Mark Jenkins. This heart-breaking adventure story about his attempt to travel through Northern Burma on the old Stillwell Road reads like a confession and rolls hard for 8 full pages.

Jenkins risked his life to write this story, but it’s the profiles of the people he met along the way that are most wrenching.

For decades the Burmese military has brutalized ethnic minorities. Their suffering reminds us how lucky we are, and how travel – even the most hardcore adventure travel – is ultimately a selfish luxury.

5) “The Walk From Burma to Northern India” by Jagjit Kohli

Jagjit Kohli is not a writer, so far as I know. In this essay, she simply tells her story, a tragic story of epic dimensions boiled down to a few hundred plain-spoken words.

Kohli became a refugee during World War II and fled through malarial jungles from Burma to Northern India. She then became a refugee for a second time during the creation of Pakistan.

“We were worse than animals in those days,” she writes. “But these things do happen.”

News articles about the monk-led protests in Burma:

On 9/26 the military cracked down on peaceful protesters, arresting hundreds and swarming the streets with riot police. The New York Times has a solid article.

Here’s a CNN article about the global reaction to the protests and crackdown.

And finally, here’s a short piece quoting an opposition leader who “fears more loss of life.”

Until next week…

Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia, Matador Travel and Common Language Project. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

“You’re sure?” I replied. “Thanks.”

And with a new tube in my rear tire, I pedaled off along the St. Lawrence in the general direction of Halifax.

It’s not the places you go, or the things you see when traveling that are most memorable. It’s the people you meet – the helpful strangers along the way who remain in your thoughts for years to come.

Last night, I had the great pleasure of staying with Claude LeMay of Baie St. Paul, Quebec.

Claude put me up in his house overlooking Isle Aux Coudres, and we stayed up late in front of his woodstove, talking about the artists of Baie St. Paul and the mining town in Labrador where Claude grew up.

A few hours before, Claude had been a stranger, a random profile on the hospitality sharing website www.couchsurfing.com. When we said goodbye this morning, he was my friend.

This edition of Tales From the Road is about people – soldiers, farmers, BASE jumpers, record breakers and a Lady in a Mountain. It’s dedicated to strangers, who, as we travel, become our friends.

1) “The Penitent Legionnaire” by Robert Ward

In this gem of a story from the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Northern Spain, Robert Ward writes of his encounter with a modern day penitent, a retired French legionnaire.

In conversations about his past – fighting in the jungles of Africa and trading gunfire with a Mossad agent in Lebanon – the former warrior shares the wistful sort of wisdom that comes from a life spent fighting secret battles in distant lands.

Ward’s careful use of detail and unassuming tone allows the story to unfold naturally, capturing not only facts and dialogue, but the feel of the encounter as well.

2) “Feeling Gravity’s Pull” by David Miller

In chapters 1 and 2 of a 4 part series, David Miller profiles the denizens of “Primal House,” a home-base for extreme athletes in Squaw Valley California.

Primal House is not your typical A-Frame – there’s both a climbing wall and a trampoline, and as Miller writes “the trick was to jump from the loft, bounce off the trampoline, then grab one of the holds, and stick it.”

David sticks the writing in this profile, serving up a dose of inspiration so strong you might just paint your face black and jump off the side of a mountain.

3) “Letter to a Volcano” by David Wallis

I always mean to write letters to the people I meet on my travels, but somehow my best intentions always fall prey to distance and lack of urgency. Not David Wallis.

He was so struck by his encounter with The Lady in the Mountain on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, he wrote her a letter – and published it too!

Of course, since the Lady in question is a volcano, I hope David isn’t holding his breath for a reply.

4) “Record Collector” by Tim Zimmerman

In all the media hullabaloo over Steve Fossett’s mysterious disappearance in the Nevada desert, a true portrait of the man and his motivations is lacking.

Tim Zimmerman rode shotgun with Fossett during his record breaking voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in 2003.

Zimmerman’s article, published in Outside Magazine, is a tightly written adventure story, but also a reflective profile of a man driven relentlessly toward risk, always pressing higher, faster, farther.

5) “Land, Farmer, Community: A Sacred Trust” by Lisa M. Hamilton

It’s not a travel story, exactly, but Lisa Hamilton’s elegant portrayal of Japanese farmers devoted to building World Peace through a mutually respectful and fulfilling relationship with Mother Earth really moved me.

When I lived in Japan, I met a man named Benzo who was 90 years old and lived in a house he built himself from the wood of trees he planted himself decades before. Everything Benzo ate, he grew in his garden.

Benzo is the happiest, most energetic and healthiest old man I’ve ever met. This article is about farmers like Benzo, and the deep joy and contentment that can be found by living with the land.

6) Bonus! “Backcountry Fly-Fishing in Yellowstone National Park” by Tim Patterson

As a little bonus this week, here’s a link to my latest story, a narrative travel guide to backcountry fly-fishing in the Lamar River valley, one of the most remote areas of Yellowstone National Park.

I hope you enjoy reading about my trip, and use the information in the guide to catch some trout in Yellowstone yourself!

Until next week!

Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia, Matador Travel and Common Language Project. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

These stories celebrate the joy of spontaneity, channeling the blazing roman candle spirit of Jack Kerouac, but they also take time to consider deeper themes: the effects of economic globalization on traditional culture and the proper place for trust and fear.

In the words of writer Ben Brazil, whose story from the jungles of southern Mexico rounds out this week’s edition, travel is most magical when it’s approached as an “unscripted journey open to chance encounters and random weirdness.”

So hit the trail, prepare for epiphany and hardship, rot-gut and revelation. Open your minds and hearts and trust in the power of the open road. Just remember the importance of trust, and the necessity of fear.

Happy reading!

1) “Let’s Spend the Night Together” by Chris Epting

There’s nothing like a good ghost story to raise goose-bumps on your arms. When a ghostly tale is combined with a travel pilgrimage and set to old-time rock ‘n roll, the result is a great story that will tingle your scalp and stoke your wanderlust.

Chris Epting tracks down the ghosts of music legends like Janis Joplin and Gram Parsons by staying up late in the motel rooms where they died, listening to their last albums and reading their most soulful interviews.

His story is one of the best in a terrific new edition of the online magazine Perceptive Travel, which regularly features smart, edgy and funny travel writing that you just can’t find in mainstream travel publications.

2) “The Distance Between Then and Now” by Bill Belleville

Worldhum.com is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of “On the Road,” Jack Kerouac’s inspirational Beat manifesto.

The exuberance of On the Road still resonates today, but like an exploding Roman candle, Kerouac’s fiery brilliance burned out too fast.

Bill Belleville’s reminiscence about a not-quite Kerouacian road-trip of his own is a great story, not just because it’s an entertaining travelogue, but also because Belleville writes about his spontaneous road-trip from a perspective Kerouac never achieved: the content nostalgia of responsible middle-age.

3) “Learning From Ladakh” by Josh Kearns

Bravenewtraveler.com contributor Josh Kearns just completed a home stay program in a remote farming village at 12,000 feet in the Northern Indian province of Ladakh.

I’ve been waiting for a blog from Josh for a long time, and “Learning From Ladakh” doesn’t disappoint: it’s hands down the best thing I’ve read in months.

Josh offers a sweeping critique of the global economic system, informed and contextualized by his experience living and working among traditional farmers in Thailand and Ladakh.

The article is long, but stick with Josh until the end – his is an important, articulate and truly inspiring message.

4) “The No Fall Zone” by Dave Hahn

What does it take to ski down Mt. Everest? Experience, oxygen, cash and “the right mix of fear and confidence.”

Mountaineering guide and travel writer Dave Hahn was on top of the world when Kit and Rob Deslauriers and photographer Jimmy Chin strapped on skis and carved down the summit ridge to the Hillary Step.

You don’t need to ski down Mt. Everest to have a great trip (or write a great travel story), but it certainly doesn’t hurt.

5) “Chiapas, Without Reservations” by Ben Brazil

Putting together Tales From the Road each week, I’ve discovered some travel writers who I can always count on for a a great story. Ben Brazil is rapidly becoming one of my favorite story-tellers.

He seems like the kind of guy I’d like to travel with – someone who isn’t afraid of sticking out his thumb and seeing where the road will lead.

In this story about traveling the Chiapas Highway with his new wife, Ben celebrates the thrill of spontaneous travel, setting off on an “unscripted journey open to chance encounters and random weirdness.”

Until next week…

Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia, Matador Travel and Common Language Project. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

It comes from breaking out of routine and finding yourself some place new, where anything can happen.

The feeling is a silly sort of glee, a giddy wave of adrenaline that tickles your stomach and crinkles the corners of your eyes and makes you want to yell and wave your arms and act like a fool.

Of course, all travelers are fools of one sort or another. Who in their right mind would fly halfway around the world to sit on a cranky camel and eat sand soup in the Sahara?

And yet, we keep chasing that rush, bumbling on to new adventures and grinning all the while.

I found a wonderful quote while putting together this round-up. It’s by a traveler named Peter Fleming, who went to Xinjiang in 1935:

“He who starts on a ride of two or three thousand miles may experience, at the moment of departure, a variety of emotions. He may feel excited, sentimental, anxious, carefree, heroic, roistering, picaresque, introspective, or practically anything else; but above all he must and will feel a fool.”

This week’s roundup goes out to traveling fools, to all wayfarers chasing enlightenment and glee.

1) “My Best Holiday Experience” by Pico Iyer

Pico Iyer is the unofficial poet-laureate of travel writing, a master of language and insight who has captured sights, sounds, smells and flavors in countless corners of the globe.

In this essay, Iyer recounts the first moment travel seized him and would not let go. Playing hooky from an office job in New York, Iyer set off for Asia and found himself utterly enraptured.

Few of us have traveled as widely as Iyer, but we can all relate to that exhilarating feeling of wide-eyed wonder he describes so well.

2) “Yurts, Yak-Hair Patches, and a Wary Uighur Separatist” by Greg Grim

This is the last and best installment in a 5 piece travel narrative entitled “Three Knuckle-Headed Guys Cycle the Silk Road.”

I love to travel by bicycle; it’s slow enough to notice interesting details, fast enough to cover serious ground and hard enough to generate plenty of endorphin epiphanies.

Grim and his buddies rode from Istanbul to Western China, and the resultant tale is equal parts ridiculous and sublime.

At the end, Grim stares into a mirror somewhere in the vast frontier of Western China. He’s sunburned, chapped, wind-blown and wild-eyed, but he’s still smiling. Read the story, and you will be too.

3) “Jay Peak: Redefining the Ride” by Chris Weiss

I love finding great travel stories in obscure blogs – it’s like stumbling across a terrific hole-in-the-wall restaurant in a new city.

“Redefining the Ride” is the story of a snowboarder desperate to salvage a season lacking in snow, who convinces an erstwhile friend to join him for one last trip to the mountains.

The two set off from New York City at 8 pm and drive through the night in a blinding snowstorm all the way to Jay Peak, a blue-collar resort at the Northern edge of Vermont. Luckily, powder awaits at the end of the highway.

“The atmosphere at Jay was a rich, rare treat,” writes Weiss. So is this story.

4) “Escape to Mount Kenya” by Matthew Powers

As Matthew Powers discovers, climbing Mt. Kenya is no easy feat. But for three Italian prisoners of war captured by the British and languishing in a prison camp, climbing was the easy part.

Before attempting the mountain, they first had to break free.

Few readers of this column are prisoners of war, but anyone working in an office can relate to the impulse for adventure that led the Italians to embark on their audacious gambit:

“In order to break the monotony of life one had only to start taking risks again.”

5) “Burma or Bust” by Mark Jenkins

There are better writers than Mark Jenkins, and there are more daring adventurers too. But there aren’t very many people who are superior in either category, and none who can top him in both.

“Burma or Bust” is a classic adventure tale, an ambitious and illegal trek across Eastern Tibet to Northern Burma, with the goal of making the first ascent of a peak called Hkakabo Razi. Whether or not the journey is successful or not is somehat beside the point.

As Jenkins notes:

“I’ll be the first to admit that this expedition to Burma was half-mad from the beginning and that the chances of success were perhaps small. So what? If you’re sure you can do it, what’s the point?”

Anyone up for a road-trip?

Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia, Matador Travel and Common Language Project. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

It can be an exploration of animosity, or a ride to the chapel on your wedding day.

This week Tales of the Road explores a brutal jungle of hidden, festering horrors; a moral wasteland where blood-sucking fiends skulk in the shadows, a place so nightmarish that the author who explored its darkest corners is unwilling to identify himself.

That’s right…prepare to venture into the world of the American business traveler!

Oh – and there’s also a lovely article from the jungles of Papau New Guinea, where American soldiers once battled malaria and the Japanese Imperial Army.

“I would have taken an enemy bullet before going back into those mountains,” said one veteran after hiking across Papau New Guinea on his way to the battlefield.

As for me, I’d rather slog through the leech-infested jungle than press flesh in Shanghai.

Read on, and make up your own mind…

1) “Of Courtesans and Kings” by ‘The Professor’

I’m intrigued whenever an author hides behind a pseudonym. A refusal to identify oneself with a story is, ironically, a mark of honesty in my book, a tell-tale sign of truth shrouded in the darkness of a confessional space.

Just think how many juicy stories start with a furtive dart of the eyes and the disclaimer: “You didn’t hear this from me, but…”

‘The Professor,’ as our mysterious truth-teller is known, is an American business traveler who specializes in China. Few people have more influence over our global future than deal-makers in the Pearl River delta, but their’s is a secretive world.

Backpackers spill every mundane detail of their trips in blogs, but when was the last time you read a tell-all account of a business trip to Shanghai?

‘The Professor’ doesn’t spill any sensitive trade secrets, but he happens to be a fine writer, and his story provides a small window into the pin-striped universe of the business traveler.

2) “A Lake of Pure Sunshine” by Scott Calhoun

Scott Calhoun does not fit the typical profile of a flower-peeper. In this rollicking narrative about searching for wildflowers in California, Scott dishes on everything from immigration policy (let immigrants who open good restaurants stay) to Motel 6 (”we’ll flip over the ashtray for you”).

He even compares Joshua trees to Keith Richards (”I’ve had a long night, sweethearts, but I’ve managed to send up these fabulous bayonets for your enjoyment. God I need a nap.”) This story is pure, sunny enjoyment.

3) “Walking Off the Karakoram Highway” by Jeffrey Taylor

Worldhum.com has published some absolutely terrific travel stories recently, which makes my job a lot easier!

“Walking Off the Karakoram Highway”, by the renowned adventurer Jeffrey Taylor, is a gutsy, meaningful travelogue that spares no descriptive detail yet doesn’t waste a single word. In tone, content and literary quality, it reminds me of Rory Stewart’s incredible book about walking across Afghanistan.

Taylor doesn’t just travel off the beaten path; he ventures into places where the danger is real, and writes well enough for those of us back home to feel traces of his wistful uncertainty and gnawing fear.

4) “Chasing Ghosts” by James Campbell

Outside magazine consistently serves up some of the finest adventure travel writing in the world. “Chasing Ghosts” is no exception.

Campbell’s story recounts his experience as a member of an expedition that retraced a brutally difficult hike through the wild, mountainous jungles of Papua New Guinea – a trek undertaken by American soldiers during World War II.

If the first paragraph doesn’t suck you in, I don’t know what will:

“I’m lying in a bark hut surrounded by strange men. One sits smoking pungent tobacco rolled into a long, fat spear, a caricature of a Rastaman’s joint. Two others chew betel nut, their mouths a bright, frothy red. Curled up in the corner, my friend George Houde is sleeping the sleep of the dead while rats play at his feet.”

Sounds like fun, right? Well, at least it makes for a good read!

5) “Eloping, Italian Style” by David Farley

A couple of weeks ago I had the great pleasure of meeting travel writer David Farley and his lovely wife Jessie in a bar on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

David and Jessie are actually both writers, who split their time between New York and a medieval Italian hill-town.

It seems like most travel writers are a friendly bunch – to survive in this business, you need friends – but David and Jessie stand out as especially accessible, funny and genuine.

“Eloping, Italian Style” is David’s story of their wedding – it’s a great read that will make you laugh, make you a little mushy and no doubt leave you smiling.

And as a little bonus – here’s Jessie’s story of how she met David, which was recently published in the Modern Love section of the New York Times:

6) “A Friendship Too Tight for Breathing Room” by Jessie Sholl

Until next week!

Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia, Matador Travel and Common Language Project. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

Get down on your hands and knees and poke around, dig into the muck-heap, grab on to something and pull it out into the light.

After you wipe off the grime, you might just see a buried treasure, a story full of hope and resonance and truth that most people would never think was there.

This week Tales From the Road gets down and dirty, hitting up backpacker ghettos in Hong Kong and Bangkok and diving deep into the garbage dumps of Cairo before swinging back to the Americas and passing out at a Jamaican reggae concert.

The roundup wraps up with an emotional punch, a tribute to the mothers of Argentinian activists who were tortured and killed by a military dictatorship during the “Dirty War.”

Got all your shots? Then come down from that sterile tour bus, breathe in the stink, dirty your hands and open your mind. There’s wonder to be found….

1) “Hope and Squalor at the Chungking Mansion” by Karl Taro Greenfield

I’ve never been to Hong Kong, but friends assure me it’s an absolutely stunning metropolis, the sort of place where you can meet just about anyone and do just about anything in the process of fulfilling all sorts of fantasies.

If Hong Kong is a gleaming city of the future, then Chungking Mansion seems like the grimy flip-side of the new utopia, a vertical slum of endless possibility, a melting pot forgotten on the stove, full of bits of charred, unidentifiable and probably carcinogenic (but still delicious) scraps stuck to the bottom of the pan.

Greenfield’s profile of the Mansion is as hectic, uncomfortable and appealing as the place itself. It’s rare for a writer’s style to match the character of the place he describes, and when it happens, it makes a good story shine brighter than a diamond.

2) “Goodbye, Khao San Road” by Rolf Potts

When Emperor of Vagabonds Rolf Potts gets in a contemplative mood, the resultant essay is always a special treat. In this article, penned in a cafe on Khao San Road just before leaving Southeast Asia, Potts waxes philosophical on the new demographics of travel in the 21st century.

Khao San is “a place that slithers inside its own stereotype,” writes Rolf, “an apt symbol of a travel revolution that began a decade ago and has almost been completed.”

Indeed, Bangkok’s famous backpacker ghetto is a phenomenon that has transcended the very idea of authenticity, and no one analyzes the atmosphere of contradictions better than Emperor Rolf. This story should be required reading for all backpackers.

(P.S. Don’t miss my previous interview with Rolf Potts).

3) “Future’s So Bright” by Sascha Matuszak

Here’s an uplifting story from an unlikely place – the garbage heaps of Cairo. The zebaleen are a community of Coptic Christians who work as garbage collectors and pig farmers in the modern Egyptian capital.

“In overwhelmingly Muslim Egypt, Christians are tolerated, garbage collectors despised and pig farmers abhorred. The combination of all three kept the Zebaleen on the fringes of society.”

But as Matuszak documents, the children of the zebaleen are moving up in the world through a concerted program of education. I finished this story full of respect for the garbage collectors of Cairo.

Matuszak’s excellent article is proof that great stories often turn up in unlikely spots, if you just take a moment to look beneath the surface.

4) “Excerpt Bob Marley? Everything is Everything in Jamaica” by Victoria Brooks

A friend of mine makes a good argument that Bob Marley is the most popular musician in the world. It’s true that the sweet notes of reggae music can be heard just about everywhere these days – from Thai beaches to South African nightclubs to Ivy League fraternity parties.

But nowhere is Marley’s legacy more alive than in his native land of Jamaica. Victoria Brooks has written a flawless, languid travelogue that floats through a history of Marley’s career, touches the concrete floor of a Jamaican concert hall and walks nervously through the fearful alleyways of Kingston.

Like any true travel story, the picture Brooks paints isn’t black and white, but shaded and confused, tinged with uncertainty and a peculiar sense of nostalgia.

5) “As Long as We Live: A Profile of the Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo” by David Miller

During Argentina’s Dirty War, thousands of young political activists were kidnapped by the military government and whisked away to secret detention centers, never to be seen again.

To this day, the mothers of the disappeared march through the Plaza de Mayo in their children’s memory. Why do they march? “That there is no more bloodshed.” How long will they march? “As long as we live.”

This is the sort of story that weighs on your soul, that descends to the depths of human depravity and rises back up to demonstrate our capacity for redemption, and remind us that there is nothing in this world so strong as a mother’s love.

Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia, Matador Travel and Common Language Project. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

My roommates in Colorado went to Patagonia last year, and kept talking about this one valley, a place like paradise that was so beautiful they almost couldn’t leave.

Then, last Monday, I met up with MatadorTravel.com editor David Miller, who told me about a fertile valley south of Bariloche, with trout streams and breweries.

As it turned out, both David and my roommates were talking about the very same place. The next day I booked a ticket to Buenos Aires with the last of my frequent flier miles. Home for the (Northern) winter will be a small cabin casting distance from enormous rainbow trout in the valley of El Bolson.

Despite my vague impressions of tango, steak, pampas, trout and mountains, I know very little about Argentina. What better way to get a sense of the country than by reading travel stories?

Thus, I give you the first single country edition of Tales From the Road. Who knows – maybe reading these 5 great stories will convince you to migrate south for the winter with me….

1) “Does This Guy Look Like a Model To You?” by Ben Brazil

In 1999 Ben Brazil was “looking to postpone life and have an adventure.” His strategy was basic – as in basically non-existent. Ben “simply got on a plane and moved to a different hemisphere.”

As it turned out, two weeks after his arrival in Buenos Aires, Ben scored a gig as an international fashion model – despite being “built a bit like a rubber chicken.” His story is absolutely freakin’ hilarious, chock-full of all the random, weird events that make travel such an unpredictable and exhilarating adventure.

2) “Aconcagua: the Whole Empanada” by Ross Borden

I love stumbling across travel stories where the writer’s enthusiasm comes through loud and clear – the sort of breathless narratives that are banged out in dingy Internet cafes by someone traveling hard, in the zone, who is just getting the story down while it’s still fresh and alive.

Ross Borden’s mountaineering tale about his assault on the highest mountain outside the Himalayas on his 23rd birthday isn’t the most polished travel literature you’ll ever read, but his enthusiasm and honesty pour right off the page.

Ross’ description of the struggle up Aconcagua makes me feel like I’m right there with him – braced against 80 mph gusts of wind and watching the setting sun light the sky on fire.

3) “Making the Most of Those Long Argentine Nights” by Matt Gross

My nemesis has done it again: Matt Gross beat me to Argentina by 6 months. To make matters worse, he wrote a terrific story about the awesome Buenos Aires nightlife.

I don’t know whether to gnash my teeth because Matt got there first, or to get even more excited to experience a night out in a place where the party doesn’t really start until 2 in the morning.

4) “Real Happy Feat: Penguin Cruise” by John Flinn

Shackleton he’s not, but John Flinn evidently had a great time on his cruise to the end of the earth. Of course, it can’t have hurt his mood to drink Johnie Walker on the rocks at 8:30 in the morning while chilling with penguins and elephant seals.

Mr. Flinn’s gorgeous description of the landscape of Tierra del Fuego are enough to awaken the inner explorer in all of us.

“It’s a world of almost unnerving beauty and tempestuous grandeur,” he writes – “of ribbony waterfalls streaking down misty mountainsides, of stone fingers thrusting into the clouds and colossal glaciers tumbling to the sea.”

Umm, word. Pass the whiskey, Mr. Flinn.

5) “Expatriate Games” by Allen Salkin

OK – this isn’t exactly a travel narrative, but it IS a terrific piece of travel journalism that explains why Argentina, and Buenos Aires in particular, are so appealing to North American ex-pats.

With the Argentine peso still recovering from an economic crisis, it’s possible to live well in Buenos Aires for a fraction of the cost of expensive cities like New York, Vancouver or London. Of course, there are lots of cheap destinations in the world, but as Salkin discovers, few places can match Buenos Aires for rocking nightlife, vibrant culture and functional urban design.

The only drawback? Apparently hearty bacon ‘n egg breakfasts are hard to come by in Argentina. Guess I’ll have to get used to sweet pastries.

Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia, Matador Travel and Common Language Project. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

First Rory Stewart’s instant classic about walking across Afghanistan kept me from getting a wink of sleep last night, then David Farley’s Bulgarian Beach Odyssey made me laugh so hard I strained a stomach muscle and got weird looks from everyone in this coffee shop.

But I don’t mind the risk, because digging up the very best travel writing on the web is just too much fun. I learn all sorts of interesting facts about everything from hermaphroditic tropical fish to how one can treat a jelly-fish sting to the genitals.

Take a deep breath, buckle your seat-belts, stock up on coffee and make sure no one will be overly startled when you begin to giggle, gasp and guffaw.

Ready? Dive in….

1) “From Montana to Wyoming on Foot” by Matt Gross

Matt Gross is my nemesis. Last year, we were both in Cambodia. I caught amoebic dysentery; Matt scored a regular travel writing gig with a mildly prestigious publication called The New York Times.

Last month, Matt and I were both backpacking in the wilderness around Yellowstone National Park. I lost my lucky hat; Matt went skinny-dipping and drank scotch with a “little 20-year-old” named Mary Ellen.

Matt is a hopelessly untalented writer of dubious integrity and will no doubt be out of a job and searching for cubicle work by the end of the summer. Enjoy it while you can, Mr. Gross.

2) “Counting Fish in the Caribbean” by Elisabeth Eaves

“Counting Fish” is a classic ‘laugh-and-learn’ travelogue, a story that goes down easy, cracks you up and leaves you awash in tidbits of knowledge about spotted scorpion fish and flying gurnards.

Eaves is a likable traveler from the start. Even when she strays into the travel writer’s morass of self-analysis you can’t help but commiserate. After all, who wouldn’t envy the golden hamlet, a happy little hermaphrodite “that’s capable of mating with any other member of its species.”

(For another perspective on the island nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, check out Sebastian Junger’s masterpiece “The Whale Hunters,” which I included in the second edition of Tales From the Road.

3) “The New Civil Service” by Rory Stewart

“You are the first tourist in Afghanistan. It is mid­winter — there are three meters of snow on the high passes, there are wolves, and this is a war. You will die, I can guarantee. Do you want to die?”

The next time a well-meaning loved one tries to discourage you from traveling somewhere dangerous like Colombia, Zimbabwe or Saskatchewan, give them a copy of Rory Stewart’s magnificent travelogue “The Places in Between“.

Stewart walked across central Afghanistan in January of 2002, just after the fall of the Taliban. “The New Civil Service” is an excerpt from the book, which is hands-down the best travel narrative I’ve read in years. I started it last night at 10 pm and turned the last page as the sun came up this morning. It’s that good.

4) “The Coast of Bohemia” by David Farley

Maybe it’s because I haven’t slept in the past 30 hours, but I had a fit halfway through this story. I’m in a busy coffee house so it was kind of embarrassing. The fit started with this line:

“I’ve been bitten by–how do you say–fish of the jelly–in the penis!”

I recovered from that, but then the next line set me off again until everyone in the shop was wondering if I needed help. I think I’ll go somewhere else to finish this round-up. You’ve been warned – Farley’s Bulgarian Beach Odyssey is dangerously funny.

5) “A Story From the Naked Country” by Robin Andrea

“Everyday so many things happen, little things and big things, things that take our breath away, things that compel, delight, or make us scratch our heads and wonder. There are more stories than we can tell, so most of the time we don’t tell any of them at all…”

This heartfelt little story is a reminder that great travel writing is a product of curiosity, empathy, honesty and attention. You don’t need to go to Mongolia to be a travel writer. You just need to open yourself to possibility, cultivate your natural sense of wonder and take a walk – down the street or through the woods or even just as far as the backyard.

Think about what you see and feel and write it down as truthfully as you can. That’s all there is to it.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s edition of Tales From the Road! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need a glass of water and a nap.

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, I have a great deal of respect and admiration for Matt Gross. I just want his job, that’s all.

Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia, Matador Travel and Common Language Project. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

An example: Are Bonobos really the grooviest, most sexually liberated primate? In this edition of Tales From the Road, Ian Parker travels to the depths of the Congo to answer exactly that question.

Some travelers don’t embark with specific questions and are spurred to explore foreign lands by a vague sense of curiosity and wanderlust.

Joe Reynolds decides to bike across El Salvador on a whim; Joshua Kurlantzic wanders from the discos of Ulaan Baattar to the high steppes of Mongolia.

Together with gems of nature writing from Iraq and an interview with Pico Iyer, their stories make this one of my favorite editions of quality travel writing yet.

1) “Swingers” by Ian Parker

The New Yorker magazine’s Far Flung Correspondents consistently deliver some of the most intriguing and tightly-written travel stories of our time. In “Swingers” Ian Parker attends a Manhattan Bonobo fund-raiser to “Save the Hippie Chimps.”

Curious about the mysterious Bonobos, said to be peace-loving and bi-sexual, Parker travels Heart of Darkness style deep up-river to a research camp in the Congo rainforest. His companions include a dour German primatologist and his assistant, “a devotee of the annual Burning Man festival” whose “equipment included a fur hat, a leather-bound photo album, an inflatable sofa, and goggles decorated with glitter.”

2) “Birding Babylon” by Jonathan Trouern-Trend

Previously, I linked to the best feature I’ve read about Iraq since the war began almost five years ago.

“Birding Babylon” stands out as a close second, if only because it’s such a refreshing change from hard-bitten journalism about body counts, political corruption
and corporate misconduct.

Reading Trouern-Trend’s lovely descriptions of warblers, storks and wood-pigeons provides a whole new perspective on the Land of Two Rivers. It’s a welcome reminder of nature’s remarkable capacity to produce beauty amidst the ugliness of human folly.

3) “Mongolia: No Tourist Hordes” by Joshua Kurlantzic

Wow. I need to go to Mongolia.

Joshua Kurlantzic’s terrific article gives a complete portrait of Genghis Khan’s old stomping grounds, pulling the reader along from discos crammed with Russian mobsters to “high alpine cirques where the Tsaatan live in teepees.” Forget Burma. Anyone in the mood for mutton?

4) “Cycling Across El Salvador” by Joe Reynolds

“On a whim, with no previous training, I decide to ride a bicycle across El Salvador…”

Roadjunky.com is a great place for honest, entertaining travelogues that feature half-baked schemes and misadventures all of us can relate with.

Joe Reynold’s story about touring El Salvador on a balky bike named Mamacita Rita is one of my favorite Roadjunky tales, and judging by all the gushy reader comments, I’m not the only one.

5) “Pico Iyer is Lost” by Mark Mordue

OK. I cheated. “Pico Iyer is Lost” isn’t a travel narrative. But when one of my all time favorite contemporary travel writers gives a terrific, thought provoking interview, I can’t resist sharing the news.

Iyer is one of the most thoughtful and eloquent of travel writers in the world today, a master of precise, polished prose. If you love to travel and love to read, this is one interview that’s well worth your time.

Hope you enjoyed this week’s edition of Tales from the Road!

Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia, Matador Travel and Common Language Project. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

When we travel, we step beyond our comfort zones, into a realm of uncertainty. For a writer trying to capture the essence of a place, it can be tempting to assume a tone of artificial confidence. Jangly nerves, upset stomachs and genuine observations are lost in favor of breezy, artificial suavity.

When that happens, as one contributor to this week’s round-up says, “the bullshit comes right through on the page.”

The stories below stand out not only for literary quality, but also as examples of true writing. One piece, Bill Simmon’s “Queasy in the the Big Easy,” was so honest it almost got him lynched in New Orleans.

Sometimes, true writing stands out in descriptive details, like Bruce Northam’s precise paragraphs about sea gypsy culture in Burma’s Mergui archipelago.

Other times, true writing requires the acknowledgment that human motives are never clear, and epic journeys, like walking across America, can lead to more questions than answers.

I hope you enjoy this week’s selections and look forward to comments!

1) “Around the Globe With No Clothes On” by Michael Yessis

I once lived near Canadian World, a bankrupt and abandoned theme park in rural Hokkaido, Japan. It was downright weird to explore the dusty, overgrown grounds of Canadian World, but Michael Yessis’ experience in Osaka ups the weirdness ante dramatically.

Yessis visited Japanese renditions of Italy, France, Finland and Greece in only 3 hours. And he was naked the whole time.

2) “Lost in America: Steve Vaught’s Staggering Journey To Find Redemption” by Steve Friedman

Regular readers of this column know I’m a big fan of the Best American Travel Writing series. “Lost in America” was recently selected for inclusion in the 2007 edition of the Best American anthology, but it’s still available online for free.

It’s the story of a troubled, intelligent and overweight man who decides to walk across America, and whose journey leads to fame, fortune, poison oak and, above all, to more questions – about happiness, commitment and moral wisdom.

Steve Friedman’s writing strikes exactly the right tone, and although this is a long article, it will hold you to the end.

3) “Burma: Drifting With Sea Gypsies” by Bruce Northam

I’ve always been fascinated by the Mergui Archipelago, a vast island region in the Indian Ocean, off the southwest coast of Burma. Bruce Northam’s outstanding article about the Mergui islands and the sea gypsies who live there is heartfelt but not sappy, descriptive but not too wordy, informative but never boring.

It’s easily the best piece of writing on the Mergui islands I’ve encountered, and now I’m more excited than ever to explore those deserted beaches, mangrove forests and sea gypsy encampments. Anyone up for an island adventure this winter?

4) “Growing Queasy in the Big Easy” by Bill Simmons

Babbling Bill Simmons is easily one of the most entertaining and successful Internet writers, a master of conversational, witty blog posts that make for ideal bathroom reading.

Simmons started out making cracks about the Red Sox and Celtics on his own tiny website, and is now one of the most popular columnists on ESPN.com. A few years ago Simmons went to New Orleans to cover a Super Bowl and ended up writing an article that nearly got him lynched at the time, but now stands as a poignant monument to pre-Katrina New Orleans.

5) “Arkansas River Notes” by David Miller

David Miller’s latest blog proves that you don’t need to venture too far from home to write a great travel story. Sometimes, a trip can even be a way of coming home again, finding yourself naked and grinning by a river in a field of wildflowers.

If you missed my interview with David last week on BNT, check it out here.

Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia, Matador Travel and Common Language Project. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

You’ll laugh your way through a lesson on orgasm control and learn how NOT to deal with inflated charges for hotel room pornography, but like all great travel writing, these stories mix education with entertainment.

Why do Japanese high-school baseball players take the game so seriously? Is it really such a big deal to order afternoon cappuccino in Italy? And what is the secret of tantric sex?

Read on and get in the know!

1) “Miami in Heat” by Dave Mondy

Poor, pale Dave Mondy is stuck on Miami Beach, “sautéing all day long in a slow simmer of lust.”

Bedazzled by the beautiful beach people, he hopefully wanders into dance clubs and swank hotels, nearly gets picked up by Hillary Duff’s sister and ends up paying $72 for hotel-room pornography.

Dave’s story is honest and self-deprecating in the comic tradition of David Sedaris and Bill Bryson. “The trouble is,” he writes, “I’m stupid and hope springs eternal.”

2) “Horse Latitudes” by P.J. O’Rourke

Kyrgyztan makes P.J. O’Rourke “run out of adjectives.” Readers familiar with O’Rourke’s hilarious travelogues know that he rarely has trouble finding the right word, but we can cut P.J. some slack this time.

After all, it’s not easy to engage the mental thesaurus when stuck on a hillside somewhere beyond the Hindu Kush, with camp and vodka supplies on the wrong side of a landslide.

The sentiment he finally manages is sparse, but evocative: “I wasn’t dead. And I wasn’t dead in a magnificent place.”

3) “One in 4,000: High-School Baseball in Japan” by Scott Lothes

When I lived in Japan I sometimes practiced with the baseball team at the local high-school. It was embarrassing, because even the tiny 9th graders hit better and threw harder than I could. Scott Lothe’s perceptive article makes me feel better about myself.

In Japan, baseball is taken very, very seriously. The 9th graders who politely schooled me in every aspect of the game had been taking batting practice and fielding ground balls for years before I arrived on the diamond.

No wonder Daisuke Matsuzaka and Ichiro Suzuki play with such focus and intensity.

4) “When in Rome, Don’t be a Slave to Common Wisdom” by John Flinn

Ordering an afternoon cappuccino in Rome? Laughable! Barbaric! Only the most ignorant of tourists would consider such an inappropriate beverage! Everyone knows that. Right?

John Flinn arrives in Italy determined to challenge conventional cultural wisdom, only to realize that tourists get more worked up about coffee than the locals do. When in Rome, the truly wise will chill out and drink what they want, when they please.

5) “Tantric Sex for Dilettantes” by Rolf Potts

I’m not the first critic to appreciate the combination of raw humor, lush description and acute insight into traveler culture that makes “Tantric Sex” one of Rolf Pott’s very best stories.

You’ll also find it anthologized in the 2006 edition of Best American Travel Writing. Only Rolf can write a story about sex, monkeys and urination that makes you feel smarter, not dumber, by the end.

Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia, Matador Travel and Common Language Project. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

Despite Cheney’s fetish for secrecy, I’ve tried to learn more about places he wants to keep out of the public eye.

What better way to gain an understanding of what’s really happening in spots like Guantanamo Bay Prison and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge than by reading great travel stories written by some of America’s most eloquent voices of truth…and a few Red Sox fans.

I hope you enjoy this week’s picks. Comments are welcome!

1) “The Road to Guantanamo” by Ted Conover

Ted Conover is one of the most perceptive, successful and important travel writers of modern times.

Unlike most journalists who approach an issue or place from the outside, Conover is a participatory journalist, a traveler who actually gets inside the cultures he explores.

Conover assumes an identity – Mexican migrant worker, prison guard, hobo – for months at a time, then writes about the experience with tremendous honesty and insight.

Conover wasn’t undercover when he visited the U.S. prison camp and military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but his story is the most vivid account of Gitmo I’ve encountered to date.

The surreal Orwellian double-talk Conover reports is blood-chilling.

2) “Inside the Endangered Arctic Wildlife Refuge” by Peter Matthiessen

Peter Matthiessen is not just a great travel writer; he’s one of the best writers of the 20th century, period.

In this heartfelt article on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Matthiessen expresses the beauty of place and nature with great clarity and depth of prose. Hands off, Halliburton!

3) “Babylon by Bus” by Ray LeMoine and Jeff Neumann

Two college dropout Red Sox fans need an adventure and decide to move to Baghdad:

“We wanted to go somewhere that mattered, a place where we could observe, firsthand, that holographic concept known as the Global War on Terrorism.

Thus, through a combination of political curiosity, a willingness to work for nothing, and our enduring love of bad schemes, we got serious about going to Iraq. I recall saying to Jeff, ‘We can stay home and do nothing-blow money at bars and sleep until noon. Or we can go see what interests us most.’

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Hemingway didn’t stay home. Orwell didn’t.’ A date was set. We’d spend New Year’s 2004 in Tel Aviv, then press on to Iraq.”

4) “Unmentionable No Longer” by Hank Stuever

Talk about undercover journalism! Hank Stuever reports from Salt Lake City, Utah on the deeply mysterious issue of….Mormon underwear.

I’m not sure whether this piece quite qualifies as travel writing, but I figure it’s too hilarious and edifying to matter.

5) “Dangerous Minds” by Wendy Knight

The U.S. State Department warns against travel to Colombia. Wendy Knight’s friends can’t believe she’s planning to take her teenage daughter to the land of kidnapping and cocaine wars.

Of course, government paranoia turns out to be overblown and mother and daughter have a blast in Cartagena, a lovely old city on the Caribbean, but it’s Knight’s account of what happened when she arrived back in New York that really hits home.

BLATANT SELF PROMOTION ALERT!

6) “From the Ground Up: Planting Seeds in Northern Thailand” by Tim Patterson

I’ve got an extra story for you this week – one of my own!

It’s about a lovely little village at the edge of a National Park near Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. The village is home to a group of organic communities and natural building centers.

It’s a place I felt truly privileged to find – one of my favorite spots in all of Southeast Asia – and I share it with you in the spirit of mutual trust and good will.

Until next week!

Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia, Matador Travel and Common Language Project. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

The web has enabled a budding renaissance of quality travel writing, with sites like Worldhum.com, PerceptiveTravel.com and MatadorTravel.com leading the revolution.

Of course, you can still find first-rate travel writing in the traditional print media. Outside, New Yorker, Get Lost! and Wend are four examples of traditional magazines that regularly feature outstanding travel narratives.

Even better, many magazines archive some or all of their stories online, freely available to anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Then there’s the travel blogosphere. Finding well-written travel stories in this boggling bubblebath of breathless blogs can feel like panning for gold in the Mississippi, but there are at least three great things about finding a compelling story on a little known blog:

1. No hidden agenda - you get the story straight up, unedited and honest.
2. Ease of conversation – bloggers will almost always appreciate and respond to comments or questions.
3. The thrill of discovery – finding a great story on an obscure blog is like exploring a Thai island and stumbling on a hidden white sand beach.

Each week in this column I’ll link to five quality travel stories I’ve discovered online.

Whether you’re in the office, at home or checking e-mail in an Internet cafe in Nairobi, these stories will stoke your wanderlust and keep you entertained. So without further ado:

1) “A Very Long Way to the Hong Kong Cafe” by Daisann McLane

Daisann McLane’s story about her discovery of a Chinese restaurant – and a Chinese chef – among the sled-dog pens of Ilulissat, Greenland is a prime example of a detailed, perceptive and entertaining travel story that so rarely makes it into the pages of certain mainstream magazines and newspapers.

2) “A Day of Discovery” by Richard Preston

Take it from me, Northern California’s massive and majestic redwood trees are even more awe-inspiring than man-made wonders like Angkor Wat, St. Paul’s Cathedral or the Great Pyramids.

In this story from Orion Magazine, two naturalists bush-whacking through dense rainforest in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park discover a previously unknown grove of titan trees. Richard Preston takes you there and makes you feel their sense of wonder.

3) “Journey to Dolpo” by Michael McCarthy

Ever since I read Peter Matthiessen’s classic travel narrative “The Snow Leopard” I’ve been intrigued by the Dolpo region of Nepal, one of the most remote places on Earth and a last refuge of Tibetan culture.

Michael McCarthy undertook an epic journey of his own to Dolpo recently, trekking over high passes and dodging Maoist rebels to reach the impoverished villages of Upper Dolpo.

McCarthy was on a mission to collect children for an orphanage in India, a cause that makes me uncomfortable, but regardless of the moral implications of his journey, the tale makes for an excellent read.

4) “India” by Jeff Vize

Jeff Vize sets off for India on the bus from Kathmandu, scared and tantalized by the sensory assault that lies ahead. His thoughts will be familiar to any traveler who has contemplated a journey to the sub-continent:

“India occupied a legendary position in my mind. It was the place everyone talked about; the place we all simultaneously loathed and loved. Mere mention of its name evoked groans of ecstasy and pain. One traveler would sit you down, look you in the eye and beg you not to go; another would swear that somewhere among its seething mass of humanity there existed the key to enlightenment. India. I couldn’t figure it out, so I had to go.”

5) “Wish You Were Here” by Mark Surkin

Here’s an off-beat leftover from last week’s Pink Floyd themed edition.
The first paragraph made me scratch my head, the second made me smile, but by the third I was grinning and nodding along. Kind of like listening to The Wall.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s round-up. If you come across a great story with a travel theme, please contact us for possible inclusion in next week’s edition of “Tales From the Road.”

Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia, Matador Travel and Common Language Project. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

If these stories “make your head explode with dark forebodings,” I also threw in a light-hearted tale from the legendary Pink Palace, where my older brother Andrew Patterson once set a record for ‘most plates broken over one’s head at a time.’

1) “Dark Side of the Moon in Iran” by Rory MacLean

Rory MacLean arrives in Isfahan, Iran hoping to experience the same emotion the great travel writer Robert Byron expressed after his visit to Isfahan – a “rare moment of absolute peace, when the body is loose, the mind asks no questions, and the world is a triumph.”

Instead, MacLean runs into some local Pink Floyd fans, possibly associated with the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, who gleefully remind him – “If your head explodes with dark forebodings too / I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.”

2) “Last Photographs” by Ashley Gilbertson with Joanna Gilbertson

Wow. “Last Photographs” is far and away the best story I’ve ever read about the Iraq War. For Gilbertson, who has chronicled the war for over 5 years, Iraq is an obsession. His story hit me hard, right in the gut, and when I finished reading I wanted to throw my laptop against the wall.

3) “The Whale Hunters” by Sebastian Junger

In this Outside Magazine classic Sebastian Junger chronicles the last of the Caribbean whale hunters with writing as hard and sharp as the blade of a brass harpoon. Whatever your thoughts on the practice of whaling, it’s impossible to read Junger’s vivid description of the whale hunt without being awed by the sheer audacity and practiced grace with which the whalers pursue their magnificent prey.

4) “Kick Boxing for Pride and Peanuts: Muay Thai Fighters in the Sticks of Thailand” by Antonio Graceffo

Who says tough guys aren’t sensitive? Antonio Graceffo whirls and kicks and punches his way through a small time kick-boxing tournament on the Thai/Burmese border, but it’s the end of his story that brought tears to my eyes.

5) “A Greek Romance” by Rolf Potts

Emperor of Vagabonds Rolf Potts reports from the legendary Pink Palace party hostel on the Greek island of Corfu. Amidst shots of pink ouzo and flying shards of broken plates Potts comes to a deep realization:

“Some people travel the world for spiritual reasons; others travel to shop exotic markets or take interesting photos. But a great many people, most of them young, want nothing more than to drink and flirt and make noise on a warm beach far away from home.”

I hope you enjoy my selections and I’d love to hear your comments. If you come across a great travel story online, contact us for possible inclusion in next week’s edition.

Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia, Matador Travel and Common Language Project. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

We all love a great travel story, but the truth is that truly inspiring and entertaining reads are few and far between. And who has the time to search out the diamonds in the rough?

You can hit the bookstore and pick up a hard copy of the Best American Travel Writing series, or you can keep reading this post and check out the five stories with the links below.

Some are by established writers and originally appeared in well known magazines; some I culled from the depths of the blogosphere. All have one thing in common: quality.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading these travel stories as much I enjoyed finding them.

1. “My Chinese Clown” by KateMonster

MatadorTravel.com recently announced the winners of their first travel writing contest. “My Chinese Clown” received an honorable mention. It’s the story of a romance between a young American woman living in Beijing and her new crush – who happens to be a clown.

The story gets better and better with each sentence, building to a tender conclusion. “Beautiful, deceptively simple storytelling,” said one commenter. Also check out Matador Editor David Miller’s piece “Notes on Los Pitayeros: Surf, camping and hallucinogenic cacti on the Pacific Coast of Baja.”

2. “The Path of Apprenticeship: The Zen of Yellowstone” by Mark Jenkins

Mark Jenkins is one of the best adventure travel writers on the planet. His article about cross-country skiing in Yellowstone National Park leads into a profound discussion of skill, balance, pace and craftsmanship. The writing is so freaking good that I want to excerpt every single paragraph – here’s one:

“Through this motion, this mantra of muscle, I slip into a state of grace. Everything fits. The darkling sky mirrored in the violet snow. The snow feeding the trees and the hidden creek. The creek cutting the mountains. The mountains and me. We all dovetail together.”

3. “Turbulence” by David Sedaris

David Sedaris is one of my all-time favorite writers, a genius at crafting poignant, funny, self-deprecating stories from everyday experience. “Turbulence” was originally published in The New Yorker magazine. It’s awkward, perceptive, hilarious and witty – Sedaris at his very best.

4. “Stranded in Kathmandu” by Josh Kearns

While we’re on the subject of air travel, here’s a well-considered rant from a traveler waiting for the Royal Nepal Airlines plane to Bangkok. Royal Nepal only has two planes, and one is in the shop for repairs.

Josh has plenty of time to ramble about everything from Kathmandu cafes to airport “security ogres” to high maintenance British women with “freshly painted claws” before bringing it all back around to how air travel relates to Buddhist teachings on egotism. A terrific, rollicking read.

5. “Some days in the life of a Siberian Cyclist” by Rob Lilwall

Rob Lilwall is in the midst of a multi-year bike ride from Eastern Siberia to his home in England – via Australia. His journey is awe inspiring, but the post above is especially noteworthy for its spare understatement.

Like the explorers of old, Rob and his partner endured absolutely brutal conditions, but Rob relates the whole epic Siberian experience in barely 1000 words.

Got a story that blows my picks out of the water? Do tell! Post the link and a short introduction as a comment below, or e-mail us for inclusion in the next edition of Tales From The Road!

Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia, Matador Travel and Common Language Project. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.