Feature Photo by Hljod Huskona. Photo Above by eflon

To me, this means curling up with a hot beverage and a travel memoir so I can live vicariously through someone else’s adventures. I’m partial to travel memoirs written by women, rather than men, because I can usually relate to both their inner and outward journeys more.

I have found a few good options beyond the ubiquitous Eat, Pray, Love. Here are some suggestions:

Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World by Rita Golden Gelman

During an impending divorce, Rita Golden Gelman makes her first solo journey to Mexico. This trip transforms her. After her divorce is final, she decides to give up everything to become a global nomad and does not settle for observing cultures from a distance.

She finds a way to become a member of each community she visits as she travels from palaces to jungles and everywhere in between.

She shows us that as long as one’s spirit remains young and open, there is no age limit for adventure. Gelman allows us to see deep inside her evolution from a timid traveler to a confident adventurer ready to take on the world.

This is a great read for anyone needing the inspiration and courage to travel independently.

Adventure Divas: Searching the Globe for Women Who Are Changing the World by Holly Morris

In this memoir, Holly Morris recounts her story of the creation of the Adventure Divas documentary series. The Adventure Divas project highlights powerful and unconventional women around the world who are doing amazing things for their communities.

Parallel to the inspirational stories of the women interviewed in this book is the author’s own journey. Morris reveals the intimate details of the struggles and triumphs she encounters while striving to achieve her goal.

On the first Adventure Divas trip, Morris and her crew illegally venture into Cuba where she interviews female rappers, a Santeria priestess and the American activist in exile, Assata Shakur. From there, she travels to India, New Zealand, and Iran.

Most of the women interviewed are people you’ve probably never heard of, but they are all positively impacting small areas in major ways. This book will inspire you to travel and make beneficial changes in the world.

Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure by Sarah MacDonald

After Sarah MacDonald first traveled to India in her early 20s, she vowed to never return again. Several years later, her boyfriend takes a job in India and she apprehensively decides to join him. Upon her return, she still finds India to be a challenge.

But this time, rather than letting the country exasperate her, she fully takes on the challenges India presents. She travels around the country to learn about its unique culture and experience its diverse array of religions.

She dabbles in both major and obscure faiths with a self-deprecating sense of humor and an open mind. This is a hilarious and insightful account of the two years she spent in India and how she finally learns to accept the country as it is.

Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik: One Woman’s Solo Misadventures Across Africa by Marie Javins

Marie Javins goes boldly where few travelers have gone before. In this memoir, she writes about her journey from South Africa to Egypt which was part of a year-long challenge to travel across North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa without using airplanes.

On her trip, she was particularly captivated by Africa. As she treks through remote villages, wilderness, and buzzing cities, she strives to share all of what she sees, not just the typical images of war, disease and wild animals.

While this memoir was not the most poetic read, the author still managed to draw me in with unique tales of her exciting off the beaten path adventures.

Kite Strings of the Southern Cross: A Woman’s Travel Odyssey by Laurie Gough

This is a wonderfully descriptive and passionate account of traveling in the South Pacific and South East Asia. Like Gelman, Gough is not content to be a spectator. She spends time living, working, and immersing herself in the cultures of the countries she visits.

She maintains a strong sense of self while exploring different ideas and ways of thinking. Gough is a travel writer who writes for travelers. Her words beautifully express what continuously draws relentless journeyers to the open road.

Reading this memoir is a fantastic way to fill the space between your travels. Not only does Gough make you feel as though you’re alongside her on her adventures, she lets you know that your infatuation with travel is well understood.

What are your favorite travel memoirs written by women? Please share them below.

Matador Member – PeteMcKeown

Photos by PeteMcKeown

Why I Travel:
I want to gain a greater global perspective, and selfishly follow my inner urge to see as much of the Earth as I can. I want to make a difference by making people laugh and get a reprieve from responsibility with my articles.

Be sure to check out PeteMcKeown’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Gates of Fire, Lord of the Rings, The Great Gatsby, A Separate Peace, Watership Down, Azincourt.

All photos courtesy of author James Workman.

“Some Bushmen told me that if you listen carefully your can hear the stars, and one night in the Kalahari silence it seemed possible.”

-from Heart of Dryness by James Workman

This is the only book I’ve ever read that made me thirsty. It made me conscious of the glass of water on my nightstand, of where that water came from, and of the water I flushed down the toilet so many times that day.

Heart of Dryness begins in the Kalahari. In 2002, soldiers from the Republic of Botswana drive into the desert, destroying the Bushmen’s water supplies, acting on orders given by President Festus Mogae.

The act is an attempt at forcing them out of their rightful and legally protected homeland.

What follows is an intimate and emotive account [Workman traveled to the Kalahari, visiting, and living with Bushmen on and off for 7 years] of a small group of Bushmen who, in spite of being ‘forced’ from their homeland, decide to resist, to stay.

Cut off from water supplies, they must draw on their ancient wisdom and knowledge of how to survive in one of the driest places on earth.

The book is an amazing synthesis of compelling narrative writing and insights / analysis on the ever-increasing scarcity of potable water worldwide. In the interview at his website, Workman notes:

Even if we stop all carbon and greenhouse gas emissions, the world will keep warming. As it does, sudden deluge will alternate with longer, hotter, droughts. Floods let us store less; droughts leave us less to store. These extremes affect irrigation, depleting food supply.

The lack of water also cuts energy production, depleting power supply. So climate adaptation literally boils down to water adaptation. And there is no civilization better adapted to doing more, with less water, than Kalahari Bushmen.

The book’s thesis is that “We don’t govern water; water governs us.” Workman explores what this principle means in practice, both for the Bushmen, and how it might look for “us” if we were to adapt their strategies for survival.

I admit, when I first saw this title, I thought the easy reference to Conrad’s masterpiece seemed facile. I didn’t know what to expect. As soon as I started reading, however, I forgot about anything else besides the characters and their struggle, something so heroic, you have to keep reminding yourself ‘this actually happened.’

The title galvanizes the whole book, when after the narrative’s climax, we see how Qoroxlooo has made sacrifices almost impossible to imagine.

This book is timely and vital for people everywhere. I strongly encourage you to read it, and, if possible, to contact James Workman with any opportunities to read, speak, or present. He’s doing some of the most important work of anyone I know.

Community Connection

Please visit James Workman’s website for more information, and to order Heart of Dryness.

Also, be sure to read some of his original stories on Matador.

Matador Member – LittleRaven525

Photos by LittleRaven525

About me:
I will sometimes travel light with minimum supplies but I typically like to work seasonal jobs in amazing places. 8 months here. 7 months there. There is nothing like being able to go climb a mountain and go back to your cabin all in the same day. I don’t like to just pass through.

Be sure to check out LittleRaven525’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle, Brave New World.

Matador Member – elasticfate

Photos by elasticfate

About me:
I want to make a difference by volunteering on different project wherever I go, educating people about living in harmony with the earth & their souls & inspiring people to walk their own walk.

Be sure to check out elasticfate’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Critical Path by Buckminster Fuller, The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk, The People of Paper by Salvordor Plascencia, The Alchemist, No More Prisons and so many more.

I wondered if the author could pull off writing about two different travel experiences and a love story without losing the narrative, but author Eve Brown-Waite engrossed me with a style that is refreshingly down-to-earth.

First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria is a compelling story of a woman who falls in love—in more ways than one—in Ecuador and Uganda.

The book opens at a logical beginning, when Brown-Waite meets John, the Peace Corps recruiter she tries to woo at least in part by joining up. The Peace Corps assigns the self-described “pampered city girl” to Ecuador, where hilarity—and some serious stuff, too—ensues. Brown-Waite finds a worthwhile project when she begins returning lost boys living in an orphanage to their families.

Destinations

Community Connection to Uganda

But Ecuador wasn’t meant to be. Circumstances change and Brown-Waite returns to the U.S. She marries her Peace Corps recruiter but laments her unfinished work in Ecuador.

Brown-Waite gets a chance at a karmic finish to her Peace Corps work when she and John move to unstable Uganda. As expected, more hijinks follow.

In Uganda, Brown-Waite hopes to finally live out her self-professed dream of becoming another Angelina Jolie. She admits she feels the need to prove herself after being unable to complete her stint in the Peace Corps.

As her husband begins his humanitarian work, Brown-Waite must again find her own purpose while an entertaining cast of characters and situations bombard her life. She eventually begins to work on AIDS education and prevention, which opens up yet another set of challenges.

She and John start a family, battle critters in their home, work and live amid political instability, and get caught in a civil war before their Ugandan adventure ends. And, as expected, she contracts malaria.

Brown-Waite’s story offers a refreshing balance between the struggles of Western humanitarians in the third world and self-deprecating humor. The result is a relatable story any reader would enjoy. Brown-Waite includes letters sent to friends and family while living abroad at the end of each chapter, which further enriches her narrative.

While some may be grossed out by the mushy love story, the book provides fascinating insights into both Peace Corps and ex-pat life in developing countries. Brown-Waite vividly relays scenes that are both humorous and heartbreaking. She manages to convey the severity of the problems in Ecuador and Uganda while remaining upbeat for an engaging read.

The book provides a hard look at what it means for a Westerner to try to heal the wounds of developing countries while facing the cultural divide and adjusting to a jarringly different lifestyle. Brown-Waite’s honesty and wit make real those conflicts.

After reading First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria, I’m eager to read more about the Waite family’s adventures. For now, though, I’m content to follow her at her blog.

First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria is a must-read for anyone considering joining the Peace Corps or working in a developing country. It’s one that will resonate with anyone who has dreamed—maybe a little naively—of saving the world.

Matador Member – Kirsten1981

Photos by Kirsten1981

About me:
A former ex-pat with a case of wanderlust. Originally from Boston, I lived and worked in Ireland from 2006-2009 and I’m back in the States now but I miss Europe and return every time I have the chance. I’ve traveled to four continents so far and hope to eventually visit all seven.

Be sure to check out Kirsten1981’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Badlands, Ruinair, On The Couch, A House in Fez

Matador Member – Giramonda

Photos by giramonda

I want to make a difference by writing, sharing, giving, volunteering, exploring, learning, discovering, developing sustainable, socially-minded projects, living…

I’m living out my dreams everyday… I’m already doing it!

Be sure to check out giramonda’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Santaram; Eat, Pray, Love; The Red Tent; Tale of Two Cities.

Photo by Terry Wha

From their impressive list of photojournalists (Paul Fusco, Megan Lewis, Jack Picone, Masaru Goto, Gerhard Joren, Ed Kashi, Gary Knight, Marcus Bleasdale, Adam Ferguson, and many more), one particular name in the mix drew me to the event.

Ed Kashi.

His unprecedented access to and coverage of the oil business and its social repercussions in the Niger delta has always fascinated me; a volatile area of Nigeria which even her citizens understandably avoid. His book, 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta, is filled with powerful and evocative photographs that chronicle the country’s violent love-hate relationship with the oil industry.

Here on Matador, we’ve covered the struggles and issues surrounding big oil in articles like The Trouble with Black Gold: 7 Sins of Oil Production and Big Week Ahead for Big Oil, where we followed the proceedings of the Wiwa vs. Shell case, and spotlighted advertisements against Chevron’s environmental impact.

While many aspiring photojournalists may never reach those difficult regions Ed Kashi has been able to navigate, pick up one of his books below to travel along and delve into some of the world’s most challenging stories to tell.

Matador Member – justdanny

Photos by justdanny

I want to make a difference by working hard and trying to be a credit to my god and my country.

Be sure to check out justdanny’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Anything by Kurt Vonnegut, The Kite Runner, Crime and Punishment, and of course, Into The Wild.

Adventure Cookbook Author Sofia Brandon

“I wasn’t always so interested in every detail of what went into my food; a few dramas shocked me into it,” writes Sofia Brandon in The Adventure Cookbook. In a completely fresh form–part memoir, part travel book, and part cookbook–she reveals how, after a decade in the corporate world she “pushed the eject button.”

A pair of traffic accidents and then a prolonged recovery period (where she discovered she was pre-diabetic) forced her to reconsider everything about her life. She writes:

For my entire life I’d been sporty and attentive to weight, so I had never imagined that I could get into such a mess in my early thirties. I had the kind of disease one suffers from when their life priorities are upside down. Instead of of spending time in nature and with people I loved, I had been working myself into oblivion, ignoring my needs, squeezing in five minutes of sunlight during lunch breaks. My body was giving me the finger.

Sofia Brandon in Istanbul.

Sophia was able to treat and ultimately reverse her conditions without pharmaceuticals by strictly monitoring her diet.

This process became her point of entry into a new way of life based on clean food (food made with fresh, local, and chemical-free ingredients), self-discovery, and travel, all mixed together.

Travel

The Adventure Cookbook follows Sofia over the next 6 years as she goes all over the world—India, Tibet, Turkey, Tunisia, Thailand, Australia, Italy, and Provence—living with and learning how to cook from locals.

The scenes will be familiar and oftentimes hilarious to anyone who has ever spent extended time living abroad: counting silent victories at the market after the vendors give you the local price, struggling to maintain cleanliness in a hostel kitchen, and having small culinary miracles occur in a single pot on a camping stove.

Recipes

I love how the recipes are presented in this book. Each one comes at the end of a chapter, a kind of reflection, a way of bringing together the adventures and experiences in each place. Many of them are influenced by the spices and culinary tradition in Provence, where Sofia writes and essentially narrates the book from.

Sofia starts with the simplest possible recipes, things you ‘assemble’ more than cook (such as an olive oil and fresh herb dip, or spicy tofu spinach salad), then progresses through more involved dishes such as Fusilli Perisillade with Mushrooms:

Fusilli Persillade with Mushrooms

“I could kneel at the feet of the immortal genius who first came up with the idea of sautéing garlic with parsley. This magic alliance, known as persillade, is called upon by the Provençal to accompany fish and meat. . . ”

Ingredients

*1 pound wholegrain fusilli
*1 pound button mushrooms, coarsely chopped
*4 medium garlic cloves
*1/2 bunch Italian parsley
*3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
*1/4 lemon for corrections
*sea salt and cracked pepper to taste

The recipes are all accessible in terms of ingredients, implements, and level of cooking experience. Instead of esoteric, multi-step meals, Sofia focuses on the classics. She teaches you how to make Tabouleh. She shows you how to make Thai Green Curry. Paneer. Yogurt. Raspberry Jam. A fail-safe “formula” for “The Wow,” a one-pot meal with nearly endless variations.

The Adventure Cookbook is all about fresh,

accessible recipes.

There are also great general information sections, things like what makes extra virgin olive oil better, how to cook pasta al dente, how to improvise when things go wrong, and how to balance tastes.

Throughout all of the chapters is a tangible sense of Sofia’s intention. She’s not writing to impress you with her cooking skills or food knowledge; she wants you to begin building a new relationship with food.

Nutrition

“I don’t wear a string of initials like MD, MSC, PHD, but I’ve read from people who do that raw food injects us with vitamins and minerals. They’re also loaded with the fibers we need for transit and the enzymes that fuel digestion and give us vitality. Then there’s the theory that that disease simply cannot take hold in an alkaline body. Apparently, raw foods make your body less acidic, more alkaline.”

-Chapter 5 “Some Like It Raw”

One of the things I appreciated most about The Adventure Cookbook was the way Sofia explores the nutritional and health benefits of various foods without coming off as preachy or didactic.

She gives you the sense that she’s a student of nutrition rather than a teacher–writing hilariously about detox programs in Thailand, ‘fruitarians,’ and extreme ashram diet ‘experiments’ turned into extended love sessions. It makes you want to go out and learn more.

Mind, Body, Spirit

It’s unusual for a book to hit me on so many levels. I may appreciate the information or enjoy the writer’s style, and in rare instances I’ll find myself emotionally absorbed in a story. But with The Adventure Cookbook it went beyond these things. Since reading this book I can honestly say I’ve begun to consider more about the way I eat, and how we cook as a family.

For the most part, my family and I eat organic. My wife and daughter are vegetarians. But we find ourselves cooking up the same pastas, rices, and omelets. We always use the same spices. We don’t eat enough raw food. And we spend way too much money on yogurt and other foods that we could begin to make ourselves.

At its core, The Adventure Cookbook is about connection. No matter where you are, traveling or at home, what you eat reflects your relationship to (or lack thereof) the place and the people you’re with. This book inspires you to bring it back to the kitchen, to have fun with it, to bring it home.

Community Connection

Please visit The Adventure Cookbook website for more information, and to get the book.

Matador Member – deuglish

Photos by deuglish

I feel the most immersed in a foreign culture when I take the time out to ask the locals questions, learn a bit of the language, and at best, live and work among the natives to get a sense of their wants, worries and self-proclaimed identities.

Be sure to check out deuglish’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Anything from T.C. Boyle or Haruki Murakami.

Photo by Fauxen

There’s something appealing—especially to Matador readers—about the narrative of someone who has it all—the coveted job, a nice house that’s been paid for, a satisfying social life—chucking it to explore a completely different path.

Most of Matador’s editorial team has done just that, as have a number of our community members and MatadorU students, including JoAnna Haugen and Amiee Maxwell.

So we tend to like books like Lucinda Fleeson’s Waking Up in Eden, a memoir of her transition from a respected big city reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer to her time as a cottage-dwelling employee of the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Kauai, Hawaii who wasn’t welcomed warmly or easily by her peers.

The best part of this book isn’t Fleeson’s own story, though — even the part where she gives herself over to a brief but passionate sexual fling with a local surfer.

Instead, it’s the parts where she takes a journalistic approach to the other subject of the book, the Eden referred to in the title. Hawaii’s plant life—its story of invasion, resistance, and near extinction—is a metaphor for Hawaii’s social and cultural history, over which Fleeson demonstrates a knowledgeable command.

She’s able to choose some of the best anecdotes about the islands’ people and plants to help make this history real to readers and, importantly, to make Hawaii matter to a country that has often allowed the geographic distance of the islands translate into a distance of identity and relationship as well.

It seems particularly appropriate that Fleeson’s book was published this year, the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s incorporation into the U.S. as the country’s 50th state. Perhaps her gentle insistence that Hawaii is worth our attention as more than a vacation destination will encourage readers to nurture a deeper interest in the islands.

And that would be the very best part of her book.

Matador Member – Ms Lala

Photos by Ms Lala

I love to laugh and converse into the night with complete strangers. I cry and dance when I listen to music. I don’t let my skin color stop me from carrying a tray of brownies and crashing a party full of locals. I’m always embarrassing myself.

To me, the most attractive thing in a man is…his mind. If you can outwit me, then you got me.

Be sure to check out Ms Lala’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Alphabet of Manliness, The Lorax, The Poisonwood Bible, Everything Is Illuminated, Musicophelia, Anthropologist on Mars, The Razors Edge, The Unbearable Lightness Of Being.

Feature Photo by Cessna 206. Photo Above by reurinkjan.

The only time I find the desire or need for travel damning is when I am without the means to do so but with the desire to do so. It’s in moments like these that I am forced to seek solace in others who have suffered before me and done the great service of recording, with pen and paper, their experiences.

William Henry (W.H.) Hudson

A quintessential writer of travel per se who captures the romantic novelty of foreign places and Quixotic escapades of wandering in distant lands, W.H. Hudson personifies the alluring spirit of roaming abroad.

Although marginalized by some of his contemporaries during the late 1800s and early 1900s, Hudson was popular enough to have his book, The Purple Land, mentioned in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.

The Purple Land is a tale of elopement – fleeing Buenos Aires and seeking a new life in the once tumultuous but now semi-docile Uruguay.

The book is without doubt my favorite oeuvre of Hudson’s even though it’s not very well known. Hudson himself has largely been neglected—a real pity as most people who read him savor the experience.

The one book of his that may be remembered is Green Mansions, a tale of an Englishman in Venezuela who falls in love with a woman from an endangered tribe of natives. I’ve always felt it was misclassified as ‘fantasy’. The terms ‘romantic’ or ‘transcendental’ would have better reflected the spirit of the late 1800s and Hudson himself.

Harold William “Bill” (H.W.) Tilman

Being a staunch realist however, there is only so much romantic writing I can enjoy without wanting to delve once more into harsh reality.

Perhaps H.W. Tilman might be considered more of an adventure writer than a travel writer, however his Shackleton-esque accounts of sailing and climbing would be impossible without travel.

A slightly eccentric Englishman, Tilman spent a fair amount of his life sailing around the world aboard his own ship, making landfall at unclimbed mountains, climbing to the summits, and filling in the lacunas of mid-20th century maps when at all possible before returning home.

The compendium, The Eight Sailing/Mountain-Exploration books, has a very self-explanatory title and is the perfect introduction to tales of adventure and misadventure in Patagonia, Greenland, and Antarctica.

Tilman knew and worked with Eric Shipton doing reconnaissance in the Himalaya. Shipton was well-known in the world of climbing and was the original candidate for the famous 1953 Everest Expedition in which Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzig Norgay summitted the peak.

Heinrich Harrer

Not unlike Shipton and Tilman, Austrian climber-turned-writer Heinrich Harrer was no stranger to the Himalaya, other high peaks, and the precarious in general.

Although best known for his Seven Years in Tibet, Harrer was by no stretch of the imagination a ‘one-hit wonder’.

White Spider is a classic in the world of climbing dealing with the infamous Eiger’s north face.

For those not interested in climbing, he wrote Return to Tibet, his condemnation of Chinese-occupied Tibet stemming from a 1983 return to what he called ‘his second country’, and a photography collection entitled Lost Lhasa.

In addition to his climbing fame, Harrer explored the Amazon with the former king of Belgium, Leopold III. While adventurous and exciting, his works are more than thrill and peril, and Harrer himself would have surely been the first to admit the importance of culture and the conflict of juxtaposed culture.

Chinua Achebe

Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe was another who knew that lesson well. His masterpiece Things Fall Apart is most certainly a required read for anyone traveling to a former European colony, especially in Africa, and definitely Nigeria.

Although a ferocious critic of Joseph Conrad—citing Conrad’s racism towards Africans—Achebe could also be included in that group of authors who dealt with the imperialism of Europe’s past. But from an astonishingly refreshing point of view, Achebe writes from the side of the subjugated.

Strictly speaking as an author, Achebe doesn’t fit the profile of a travel writer, but the lessons he teaches about cultures collocating and even competing is something paramount for anyone who travels abroad.

With the litany of tales, opinions, and books available, this small list of authors is just the tip of an iceberg.

That travelers are capable of maintaining their sanity while trying to choose the perfect location for the next sojourn is utterly amazing. Even more amazing is the fact that armchair travelers don’t become insane from jealously and envy.

Maybe the prospect of a forthcoming trip provides some meaning to normal life.

Matador Member – Neha

Photos by Neha

I write because it keeps me sane. I travel because it gives me something to write about – a circle that conspires to keep me busy and broke.

Be sure to check out Neha’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: The Handmaid’s Tale, My Name is Red, City of Djinns, The Piano Tuner, Maximum City, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Atonement, The English Patient …

Matador Member – Kcarriedo

Photos by Kcarriedo

I’m a capricorn–with that, I mean I really justify what it means to be a capricorn! I’m driven, ambitious, very frank sometimes and doesn’t want to be stuck in one place–my feet itches.

Be sure to check out Kcarriedo’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: All Mitch Albom books, A Walk to Remember, Love in the Time of Cholera, Water for Elephants.

Photo by Lola Akinmade

I loved rediscovering Idealist.org all over again – the leading network that connects volunteers, students, and professionals with nonprofit organizations, groups, campaigns, and programs all over the globe. Last October, I’d already touted their benefits over at Travel Channel’s World Hum, excerpted below:

….as I started compiling my ever-expanding list of possible 2009 volunteer locations (now at letter “M”—Mongolia, Mozambique, etc.) for some photojournalism work, I needed a one-stop shop to help centralize my search efforts.

Opportunities offered through the site range from volunteering as photographers with local Red Cross satellite offices to executive management of nonprofit and aid programs across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. It fed my wanderlust—and served me a heartwarming spoonful of service and volunteerism.

So when I found out they’d published a handbook, grabbing a copy for review was imperative.

Brief Overview

The handbook is divided into three distinct parts:

Part I. And Idealist is Born delves into the whole concept of idealism, helping readers discover why they want to volunteer.

It also breaks down how nonprofit organizations are structured and how they operate, and it also suggests the best fits based on your experiences.

Part II. Taking Action moves to the next level, teaching you everything you need to know about volunteering, serving on boards, and personal philanthropy.

Part III. Idealism at Work shows you how you can start small – from volunteering through your workplace to changing the world and actually making a career from it.

A juicy Appendix A thrown in talks about the Nine Types of Nonprofits – from organizations dedicated to arts and culture to those covering environmental issues and health.

Why I love it

What I loved about this book is that it doesn’t assume there’s one particular reason why people choose to volunteer which usually is “I want to make a difference” or ”I want to give back.” Rather, it outlines 14 other possible reasons such as honing leadership skills, exploring new career options, and even, “just for the fun of it!”

This all inclusive tone lies beneath the entire book as you browse through chapters, driving home the message that idealism comes in various forms. Edited by Stephanie Land, the book is peppered with links to organizations you can connect with right away and personal anecdotes and empowering stories in blurbs called “Idealism in Action” that showcase real world examples.

One of my favorite quotes is from Cliff Landesman, a donor and volunteer.

One of my lifetime goals is to be as generous as I can be. I am not the most brilliant thinker in the world, so I am not going to push forward the frontiers of human knowledge. Nor am I especially ambitious in my career, so I am not going to be the CEO of the next Google.

However, I do have moral ambition. I would like to stretch myself to be the most generous person I can be. I think that is in my power.

Even if I fail, it can’t hurt to try…..Cliff Landesman

Some Criticism

The first few pages, besides the introduction to what Idealist.org is, start off really basic. It assumes that someone picking up the book for the first time is extremely clueless as to why they want to volunteer.

While this was probably done for mass appeal, chances are a first time volunteer flipping through knows what they would like to do but is mostly looking for advice on how to execute it.

Conclusion

Idealist Handbook is a thorough journey of self discovery which uses questions to help you uncover key pieces of your persona and identify your particular brand of idealism, and how those parts can be appropriately channeled to leave a mark on the world.

It leaves you with a section “Stay True to Your Passion” that implores you to stay the cause and the timeless adage “Action Speaks Louder than Words”, that challenges you to take the plunge now that you’ve been armed with all the information.

I consider this book an excellent blueprint for building a better world…and building a better you.

Matador Member – ErthDrift

Photos by ErthDrift

I believe we should allow ourselves the freedom to be surprised and amazed by whatever beauty, irony, tragedy, or humor each new day brings.

We should allow our senses to experience these things with a childlike wonder and curiosity, and we should let the daily newness profoundly and constantly change us.

Be sure to check out ErthDrift’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Anything by Bill Bryson, My Antonia by Willa Cather.

Matador Member – Boya

Photos by boya

I like to travel without an agenda ( or a camera) and take my time to enjoy the moment.

Be sure to check out boya’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: American Pastoral, Naked, Their Eyes Were Watching God, An Omelette and a Glass of Wine, The Bell Jar.

Photo courtesy of Rick Steves

I’ve never thumbed through one of his guidebooks. My introduction to Steves–who’s been in the travel business for the past 30 years–was through his latest book, Travel as a Political Act, published in April by Nation Books.

The title appealed to me, suggesting that Steves shares many of the beliefs the Matador community is built upon.

I wasn’t disappointed.

The book opens with the author’s vivid recollections of powerful moments from a lifetime’s worth of travel, reaffirming how profound a journey is for both the person taking it and the people being visited. These stories draw the reader in and lead to Steves’ direct statement of the book’s premise: “that thoughtful travel comes with powerful lessons.” By sharing some of his lessons, he hopes to “inspire others to travel more purposefully.”

Over the course of nine chapters, Steves takes his reader to his favorite European countries, as well as El Salvador, Turkey, Morocco, and Iran, and shows what traveling more purposefully means. In each country, Steves compares what works, what doesn’t, and what we can learn about our home countries as a result. He is honest about the experiences that confuse or frustrate him but is always motivated by the desire to understand others and himself more fully.

By sharing all of his experiences candidly, he helps the reader to be more thoughtful about his or her own travel.

Steves describes the common thread binding all of his business ventures–the TV and radio shows, the guidebooks, the tours his company hosts–as his desire to teach people how to travel. And he’s good at doing that: what’s so engaging about this book is Steves teaches through example.

When he talks about “letting an impression breathe,” to open ourselves up to experiences that stretch us and challenge us and to be willing to revise our conclusions about what we see, the reader understands what he means because all of his stories show exactly how to do that.

And what about the “political act” part of the book?

Steves views travel as a way to go out into the world and learn and then to come home and live more purposefully. He provides lots of tangible examples about how his travels have shaped his activities back home in the U.S.: his advocacy of drug policy reform, his voting habits, his commitment to remain in a church that’s not particularly progressive rather than move to a congregation more aligned with his politics.

He doesn’t tell you how travel should become a political act in your own life– that’s not his style. Consistent with his teaching method throughout the book, he just shows you what he’s done, what works for him, and motivates you to make decisions that resonate with your own values. And he doesn’t leave you hanging at the end of the book; you can continue on to the Travel as a Political Act blog he’s set up on his website.

Travel as a Political Act would be an especially good read for someone who’s new to travel, but it’s just as likely to be enjoyed by experienced travelers because Steves’ lessons–while familiar, maybe–will invite you to reflect upon your own travel memories and the ways they’ve shaped your life.

Photo: Dave Bezaire & Susi Havens-Bezaire

“Having been mostly disappointed with my university classes, I needed my internship to be meaningful, educational, and an experience that would prepare me for my future.”

–K. Angel Horne, “Finding Sanctuary,” a chapter in The Voluntary Traveler

Full disclosure: I just received this book and am still finishing it. It’s huge, nearly 500 pages, almost two dozen stories from around the world. What I’ve read so far I’ve loved.

Although the structure of each chapter (a firsthand account of volunteer / travel experience followed by program and contact information) is the same, the stories themselves are remarkably diverse. There are tales of everything from playing with street kids in India to teaching in the Caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica to helping street dogs in Lebanon.

One thing which interested me in particular was the different motivations behind people’s decisions to begin their volunteer experiences. For some it was the love of a certain place. For others it was missing a certain place, such as contributor Colleena McHugh. She missed her native desert southwest, saying “Even though I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, I still have cactus in my heart.” She writes about how, after a quick online search, she found Los Médicos Voladores and was, literally, flying down to Mexico just two days later, where she was able to help administer dental care to local people in Hidalgo.

For others it was the simple but profound recognition of–as Matador’s own Julie Schwietert articulated–”just how integral service is to the well-lived life.”

But regardless of their motivations, everyone in The Voluntary Traveler seems to be having a damn good time, or at least staying positive and keeping a sense of humor even when dealing with places, situations, and issues which are super serious–poverty, environmental degradation, lack of education and opportunities.

The only drawback with this book is that it’s so voluminous, packed with so much information, much of it would simply be easier to utilize via internet. It would be helpful to have a cd-database that was included with the book.

That said, The Voluntary Traveler gives wonderful insights into life as a volunteer traveler as well as what it means to face up to real problems and issues at ground level. Most importantly, it provides great points of entry into some of the most inspiring programs (and people) around the word.

Community Connection

Please visit Dog’s Eye View Media for more details on this title, and to purchase, please click here.

Sure, learning a language can get you closer to a culture, but mastering its local lingo can speedtrack you right into its heart.

That’s what the Speaking Boricua! series accomplishes.

Penned by Jared Romey, an American expat who has lived in Chile, Argentina, and Puerto Rico; Jared has compiled the unique words and phrases of Puerto Rican Spanish into two books which we will be giving away.

We will pick two winners and both winners will receive copies of the following books: Speaking Boricua! (Puerto Rico) and Speaking Phrases Boricua! (Puerto Rico).

Be sure to check out Matador review’s of Speaking Boricua! (Parts One & Two) as well as Jared’s 6 Tips for Sounding Like a Local.

AND THE WINNERS ARE…

@photogjenn and @catauskali.

We’ll be contacting them directly to send them copies of the books.

Want to win more free stuff from Matador? Follow us here @matadornetwork and keep your eyes peeled for the next contest!

Photo by René Ehrhardt

“Damn sex tourists,” I thought, spinning out my own narratives about the two sleazebags… and the women they’d ultimately take up to their hotel rooms.

Their motives seemed clear enough to me: these comparatively wealthy men were in Cuba for a sex holiday, looking for the most exotic Cuban beauties they could find and willing to spend whatever they were asked to fulfill their fantasies.

Mother-daughter writing team Annika and Annabella Ardin took a more objective approach after observing similar scenes in Thailand’s girl bars.

Having spent a good bit of time in the country, the Ardins noticed that scores of Western men seemed to fall—and hard—for Thai women. So hard, in fact, that men would often upend their entire lives in order to see or be with these women time and again.

The Ardins saw the phenomenon as something more complex than a form of prostitution.

They also considered the phenomenon to be sufficiently different from other forms of sex tourism around the world, and so they set out to answer a few questions:

What makes Thai women so alluring to Western men? Should the Western world consider these women victims?

And, as they ask early in the book, “Could it be that we Western women have lost our ability to communicate with the opposite sex, and is it…us [sic] who are driving our men to our Asian sisters?”

To find out, the Ardins spent lots of time talking to Western men in girl bars.

This is one of the shortcomings of the book, as the Ardins themselves concede: their methodology involves talking mostly to men, not women, resulting in conclusions that are rather one-sided.

While their observations are often interesting, they also become redundant the farther one wades into the book.

And their entire chapter devoted to developing a typology of the kinds of Western men who go to Thailand looking for love is tempting to adopt (after all, I was doing the same categorizing on that hotel patio in Havana), but it’s also terribly stereotypical and seems to undermine the very purpose the women set out to achieve in writing this book.

Still, the book—a quick read—is an interesting attempt to understand the dynamics of Western-Thai “love.”

The final explanations offered by the Ardins, which you’ll have to read for yourself, failed to convince me that the kinds of situations the authors describe are significantly different from your garden variety sex tourism anywhere else in the world, which is always characterized by the desire to experience “the exotic.”

That being said, though, the book is an honest attempt to reflect critically on one’s observations by trying to look beyond superficial scenes rather than assuming we understand what we see and making up stories about it.

Matador Member – phishtopher

Photos by phishtopher

Before I die, I’d like to set my heels to every nation’s soil and raise children who make a difference in the world.

Be sure to check out phishtopher’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Road, On The Road, The Idiot, The Trial.

Matador Member – Janet

Photos by Janet

I want to make a difference by educating people, via travel writing and photography, to appreciate the beauty of the natural world, so that people may be inspired to value and preserve it.

Be sure to check out Janet’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Feature photo by R.P. Piper. Photo above by pashasha.

The Matador Team started us off with the Top 7 Summer Road Trips in the US/Canada, highlighting various regional routes such as Southwest classics that take travelers through national parks as well as a Nova Scotia Loop itinerary.

You can follow Matador members and brothers, Josh & Dustin Johnson as they hit Yellowstone National Park and other iconic spots on their Montana Road Trip as well as Roads Scholar Kyle Smith as he dispatches along the way – most recently from Zion National Park.

In Roadtrip Australia, Matthew Lynch takes us through the alternative scenic drive from Melbourne to Sydney along the Sapphire Coast.

If you’re ready to hit the road, here are 8 ways to save money on a U.S. cross-country road trip.

Can’t hit the road on a long haul journey this summer? Pick up one of these books about great road trips and ride along with the authors.

I don’t think I’ve come across any other book, though, that combines those two favorite themes as enjoyably as David Farley’s An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church’s Strangest Relic in Italy’s Oddest Town.

The book follows Farley, a New York City-based travel writer (and Matador member) as he journeys to an isolated Italian village with his wife, Jessie, and trusty chihuahua, Abraham Lincoln, for an extended stay.

The reason for the expatriation? Calcata, the village in question, is home to a bizarre Christian relic, the foreskin of Jesus Christ. Or rather, Calcata was the relic’s home – until it was stolen.

What follows is an entertaining, endearing and, yes, educational mix of history, conspiracy, humor, and personal travelogue.

There are two main threads running through “An Irreverent Curiosity”.

First, the story of the Holy Foreskin, how it came to be placed in and then stolen from Calcata’s church, and, more broadly, how the Catholic Church came to revere and then downplay a whole array of holy relics over the centuries.

And secondly, how Farley managed to settle in a small village, learn Italian, and gain the trust of the locals in order to pursue his quest.

That first thread could easily have become dry and academic, or oversimplified, but Farley is able to keep the sections on the history of relics approachable and entertaining without ever dumbing them down.

On the other side of things, Calcata’s odd assortment of characters – the hilltop medieval village was re-settled by artists and other “freaks” after a bureaucratic twist pushed all the original residents out – could easily have become cartoons, quirky foils for Farley’s story. Instead, the residents who pop up most frequently feel fleshed-out and real.

David Farley, Author

While it’s still clear that many locals are decidedly unusual, Farley’s humor and self-deprecation means that the reader never feels as though the Calcatans are being mocked or their hospitality abused.

I’ll be honest: I’m a bit of a church history geek. So I suppose it’s possible that not everyone will find the story of the relic itself as absorbing as I did.

Luckily, though, the various elements of the book are woven together so tightly it’s not likely that anyone will have time to get bored, no matter how disinterested they think they are in relics.

Before that happens, Farley will be off on another sneaky research trip to the Vatican Library (where he once introduced himself to a priest as Gary Coleman), or drinking dangerous quantities of wine in a Calcatan cave, or recalling his high school days in the “special ed” class.

Bottom line: “An Irreverent Curiosity” is the story of an unlikely holy relic, true, but it’s also the story of a very unlikely village, and of one man’s (very funny) obsession with both.

Go ahead, snicker and make an off-color joke if you will, but for my money there should be more travel books like the tale of the holy foreskin.

Community Connection

Be sure to check out Matador’s exclusive interview with David Farley about “An Irreverent Curiosity” at The Traveler’s Notebook.

Matador Member – Zuke of the North

Photos by Zuke of the North

Before I die, I’d like to set foot on all 7 continents…learn new languages, live in a place that that would make my friends say “why the hell would you want to live there?”

Be sure to check out Zuke of the North’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Desert Solitaire, Into the Wild, Into Thin Air.

Matador Member – bearshapedsphere

Photos by bearshapedsphere

I travel to engage my five senses, to become honest with myself, to reduce myself to the three true needs (food/drink, sleep, bathroom), and to lose contact with mirrors, appearance, egotistical trappings of home.

Be sure to check out bearshapedsphere’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Animal Dreams.

Photo courtesy of Little Passports

Even in the digital age, is there anything more exciting for a child than a package arriving in the mail? And if that package is from an exotic, far-off country, all the better! The creators of Little Passports use a combination of real, tangible items and interactive online games that are guaranteed to get kids excited to learn about our neighbors around the globe.

As a Little Passports member, your child will receive a package every month from “Sam” and “Sofia”, their traveling friends. Each package will include a personalized letter describing their current location, as well as local souvenirs and fun activities. And the fun doesn’t stop there! Also included is a collectible boarding pass with a secret access code, which kids can use to log into a “Boarding Zone” online with lots of country-specific games.

For their first year with Little Passports, Sam and Sofia will guide children through countries like Japan, Brazil, Mexico, China, France, Australia, Egypt and South Africa.

The founders of Little Passports are determined to help the next generation of Americans become more globally aware.

In addition, the company proudly donates 1% of its sales to non-profits working to improve the conditions of children around the world such as SOS Children’s Villages – USA and Ubuntu Education Fund.

Price: $10.95/month

Matador Member – steph_360

Photos by steph_360

I’m fired up on learning new things everywhere, reading anything and everything (I’ve been really into travel narratives recently), cooking for and with my closest friends, seeing new movies and re-watching favorite ones, taking pictures everywhere, spending time with my family.

Be sure to check out steph_360’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Realm of Possibility, by David Levithan. A Year in the World, by Frances Mayes.

Matador Member – Jules Atkins

Photos by Jules Atkins

I want to make a difference by sharing myself and my life with others. Listening to their stories. Spreading peace one person at a time.

Be sure to check out Jules Atkins’ Matador profile.

Favorite books: Soldier of the Great War, Saturday, Son of the Circus, Huckleberry Finn, Still Life with Woodpecker, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, A Fine Balance, Behind the Scenes at the Museum.

Matador Member – Migrationology

Photos by Migrationology

I’m also fired up on meeting wonderful people, being addicted to the internet, taking lessons from cultures around the globe,

Be sure to check out Migrationology’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: The Black Swan, Made To Stick, The Consolations of Philosophy, Collapse, The 4 Hour Work Week

Matador Member – KatieHammel

Photos by KatieHammel

I’m learning to cook and am addicted to truffles. I read at least a book a week, thinks maps are the most beautiful art man has made, and survive each workweek by planning my next trip.

Be sure to check out KatieHammel’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Unaccustomed Earth, The Time Traveler’s Wife

After browsing through our readers’ comments submitted as part of our latest book giveaway, Keith Jenkins‘ comment below instantly transported the Matador editors right there with its ripe descriptions and thus made him our winner!

I find Bali very therapeutic.

It can be very hectic & the traffic is sometimes horrendous (especially around the main tourist areas) but there’s something about the charm and grace of the Balinese, the enchanting scenery and temples, and the amazing spas (the concept was probably invented there!) that I find absolutely soothing.

Sinking my feet into the cool sand of Jimbaran or Seminyak with a cold beer and a lobster platter while watching the sunset is my idea of bliss!…Keith Jenkins

He wins a copy of the new book Travel Therapy: Where Do You Need To Go? – filled with stunning photos of exotic locations from around the world.

Check out the accompanying mouthwatering photo essay on Matador Trips that spotlights locations described in the entries.

Thanks for participating!

Photo by Lola Akinmade

Overview

The driving assumption of Travel Therapy is that you–a stressed out female reader–need a break. You’ve got relationship, work, or health problems (or worse, all three) and you just need to get away– “change your attitude by changing your environment,” as the author says.

Realizing this, the author has put together a quiz-based approach to help you decide what type of vacation you need, and then offers a menu of options about destinations and activities that would fulfill your specific needs.

It’s an approach that isn’t likely to appeal to most Matador readers– check out our community members’ profiles and you’ll see that most don’t have any lack of ideas about where they want to go or what they want to do– but perhaps it works for some women.

Verdict

Travel Therapy is a pretty book, with glossy pages and enticing photos.

But it’s loaded with exclamation marks and cliches that might turn off the seasoned traveler.

If you’re really stymied about where to go on your next trip or what kind of getaway you need, then this book might be a useful place to start.

But you could get even more varied ideas just by hanging around Matador for a while.

Contest Giveaway

Where’s the most therapeutic place you’ve ever been? What place helped you wash your blues away?

Post a link to a photo of the place that blissed you out and a short description of its therapeutic qualities by midnight on Thursday, June 11 PST.

We’ll pick our favorite and give away a copy of Travel Therapy. We’ll also feature the photos on Matador Trips.

Community Connection

Want to know more about travel therapy? Head over to Brave New Traveler for our interview with author Karen Schaler.

Matador Member – YpsiJo

Photos by YpsiJo

I’m currently deciding between life as a teacher or a marine archaeologist despite the fact that my only two encounters with large bodies of water ended badly!

Whatever I do though, I know it has to involve plenty of travel.

Be sure to check out YpsiJo’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: The Count of Monte Cristo, Captain Blood, The House of the Dead, and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

After browsing through our readers’ vacation tips and their top family getaway spots submitted as part of our latest giveaway, Carol S’s comment below was randomly selected.

Our family’s favorite destination so far has been Washington DC-all the sights and history is incredible and it is so green!…..Carol S

She wins the slick new book from National Geographic – The 10 Best of Everything Families – full of valuable information for planning her family’s next adventure.

Carol S’s submission in addition to a couple favorites are featured in a spectacular photo essay on Matador Trips.

Thanks for all your tips and suggestions!

Matador Member – MarquiseBrack

Photos by MarquiseBrack

I’m just a girl. I like to travel minimally, with fewer people, possessions, and plans.

Be sure to check out MarquiseBrack’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Anything by Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac.

Matador Member – MichelleS

Photos by MichelleS

I play the steel drum, a beautiful instrument native to Trinidad and Tobago. I’ve played with the Desperados steel band in Trinidad and was a member of One Credit Hour, a steel band in the DFW area, for six years. Here in Seoul, I’m in a reggae funk band and a jazz combo. I also love writing and just finished my first science fiction novel.

Be sure to check out MichelleS’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Hitchhiker’s Guide, His Dark Materials, Harry Potter, anything by Roald Dahl.

Photo by mikebaird

This elegant book compiled by author Susan H. Magsamen for National Geographic pays homage to the whole institution of family travel and is laid out like a buffet of vacation ideas that can easily keep you planning sample itineraries for months.

The Layout

Succinct and to the point, the first section of the book (Part One) breaks down the entire US into manageable chunks of travel spots.

From the Best 10 local farmers’ markets to buy fresh strawberries to favorite pastimes like amusement parks, focused within each region of the country.

It also includes top 10 ice-cream spots and other regional specialties to try such as Po Boys and Key Lime Pies when visiting the Gulf Coast, along with mouth-watering, instant hunger-inducing photographs.

Price: $21.95 | BUY from National Geographic Online

I quickly flipped to the section on Mid-Atlantic travel to see if they’d missed anything and was pleasantly surprised to see local favorites like Rita’s Ice in there.

Chapters are broken down into interests such as sports, parks, and outdoors including best of lists like the Ten Best Beaches and Shorelines, Ten Best Bike Trails.

There are tons of vacation ideas for planning family reunions, extreme adventures, or even workout vacations.

Part Two focuses on personal enrichment through travel with emphasis on “traveling to learn” with chapters such as the Ten Best Peaks, Ten Best Depths, Ten Best Deserts, etc. Was definitely happy to see the dramatic Na Pali Coast on the island of Kauai, Hawaii under the Ten Best Coastal Cliffs.

The Chesapeake Bay also gets its very own chapter.

In addition to travel information, there are resource chapters from preserving memories using photography and video to scrapbooking, writing journals, and making photo albums. There are packing lists, planning and wishlist worksheets, and every (well, almost) imaginable family travel tip you can think of.

What I Liked

Besides the fact that the book is square (my favorite shape), like with all National Geographic publications, it’s aesthetically pleasing in its layout with lots of photographs and a clean presentation.

It can be tricky when trying to sum up the rest of the world under a Ten Best list, but Magsamen and team approached it sensitively, breaking the interests down by culture and not necessarily pitting one culture against another.

Photo by Lola Akinmade

For example, Ten Best African Gatherings, Ten Best Hispanic Experiences, and Ten Best Native American Ways focuses on where to experience these within the United States.

There is also a short “See the World” section which focuses on what to see on each continent, and I’ve definitely added a few to my running list from the book.

Lots of countries were left off the list and I had to constantly remind myself that the book is geared towards family vacations especially with young children so classics like trekking the Inca trail were rightfully left out.

Under Africa, Kruger National Park wasn’t included which made me wonder if there are age-limits.

Intermittently sprinkled throughout are also random travel quotes and vacation stories from everyday folks which definitely answered my initial questions about how the book was compiled.

As if already anticipating this question from their reader, the entire compilation and research process is laid out in detail at the end.

Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography

Minuses

Because it tries to be an all-in-one resource, it does jump around in terms of information delivery.

Finding a random recipe for making s’mores under the “Ten Best Ranches” threw me a little, and then I found more randomly inserted pieces of information (though important) like “Safety Rules for Biking” squeezed in under the Ten Best Bike Trails.

So I would have to specifically bookmark that page if I needed to find that random tip later on.

Short biographies of local personalities are also randomly inserted in various sections, so initially, I wasn’t sure if they actually contributed to the book, were being spotlighted as regional celebrities, or both.

Summary

With this book, you’ll definitely be flipping back to the table of contents every time you open it up for reference because it’s literally chock full of pretty solid information.

But then again, with an all encompassing title – “Best of Everything” – I guess that was the point all along.

If you’re planning on some family travel this summer, rest assured, this is all you’ll need (besides plane and hotel reservations) to plan your most memorable family adventure to date.

Giveaway – The Book

Have a favorite family vacation tip or favorite travel location for your family? Share it with us below by Friday, May 22, 11:59 PM PST and a winner will be randomly picked to get the review copy of this book.

After browsing through some spectacular submissions as part of our Book Review + Giveaway – Nepal: 25 Classic Treks and 12 Climbing Peaks, your Matador editors have picked their favorite shot:

The Khopara Ridge in Nepal – Shot by photographer Andris Bjornson

He wins the slick new book – The Andes – which outlines 26 treks and 18 climbing peaks around the region.

Andris’ shot, in addition to a couple favorites will be featured in an accompanying photo essay on Matador Trips.

Stay tuned!

Photo by Eric Lon

And, upon arriving in Kathmandu, many realize that such a trip really is like a dream: Disorienting, chaotic, confusing, and dizzying. Sorting out itineraries, finding the best gear, acquiring the necessary permits, and hiring a trustworthy guide or porter are difficult tasks to complete on the busy streets of Thamel.

Distractions from touts and other travelers abound, and rumors of weather conditions, permit situations, Maoist activity, and thefts circulate continuously.

It quickly becomes clear that simply getting to Nepal is the easy part. Organizing your trek and pulling it off safely and successfully requires foresight, planning, and preparation.

Nepal: Trekking and Climbing, 25 Classic Treks and 12 Climbing Peaks is an excellent resource for that planning stage.

With beautiful photographs, color maps, and detailed information about Nepal’s most popular and least traveled trekking routes, the book helps would-be trekkers prepare for their dream trip.

From adequate albeit brief introductory sections on Nepal’s history and culture, to special features on low-impact trekking and mountain photography, Nepal: Trekking and Climbing has all the requisite introductory information in addition to detailed overviews of 25 outstanding treks.

The best part of this book, however, is the treatment it gives to less-traveled routes and regions.

Of the nearly 100,000 people that apply for a trekking permit in Nepal each year, most of these people, as many as 60 percent, head into the Annapurna region to complete the classic Annapurna Circuit, the trek into the Annapurna Sanctuary, or any number of other shorter treks in the area.

Of the remaining trekkers, 17 percent visit the Everest region and 13 percent visit the Lantang region.

This means that only 10 percent trek in all other parts of the country.

Photo by Eric Lon

While Nepal: Trekking and Climbing covers the classic Annapurna, Everest, and Lantang treks extensively, it also details treks like the Mount Kangchenjunga circuit and those in the Mustang and Dhaulagiri Himal regions.

This makes the book appealing to both first-time visitors to Nepal and hardened trekkers who have already completed the popular classics.

Summary

While the book does a superb job providing background and information to trekkers, it falls short when it comes to climbing.

Though brief profiles of 12 of Nepal’s most popular “trekking peaks” are provided, they are really too superficial to be of value in planning a mountaineering trip.

Ultimately, a book like Nepal: Trekking and Climbing should do two things: Provide the basic information needed for the early planning of a trek and inspire travelers to pursue the trip of their dreams. This book does both, making it a valuable resource and an excellent addition to any trekker’s library.

Price: $13.60 | Buy

Giveaway: Win A Copy of The Andes: Trekking + Climbing!

Have a favorite photo that captures a memorable trek or climb you’ve taken? We want to see it!

In fact, we will be publishing our favorite shots provided in a photo essay on Matador Trips.

To win a copy of The Andes: Trekking + Climbing book which spotlights 26 classic treks and 18 classic climbs in the region,

1) Submit a link to one of your trekking or climbing photos in the comments below. You can upload your photos via Flickr.

2) Leave a short caption telling us the location and a little about your experience.

3) Complete this by Monday, May 11th, 11:59 PM EST

The Matador editors will pick their favorites for the photo essay and the standout shot will win the free book.

Matador Member – SierraKiloEcho

Photo by SierraKiloEcho

Before I die I’d like to live unconventionally. Travel unconventionally. Sail across an ocean.

Be sure to check out SierraKiloEcho’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Three Cups of Tea, Tuesday’s With Morrie, Maiden Voyage.

Feature photo by Ben Fredericson. Photo above by Mussels

Squirting on inordinate amounts of antibacterial sanitizer. Doubling up on face masks. Incessantly washing hands. Covering mouths with both hands to protect a sneeze.

Daily rituals such as handshakes and simple hugs are being limited as an extra level of precaution, and swine flu is already leaving a huge dent on international travel as Julie Schwietert describes.

This got me thinking.

How would locals that greet each other with a cultural kiss adapt? What other norms would be affected by this latest health scare?

Ironically, we’ve been talking a lot about common etiquette this week. From taking your shoes off while visiting homes to keeping your cheesy grins at bay, Chris Tharp introduces us to 10 Korean Customs To Know Before You Visit Korea.

Along the same lines, Turner Wright rounds up ten Japanese customs you need to know – from table manners and wearing masks, to taking baths and using chopsticks correctly.

Rachel Turner describes 5 Common American Gestures That Might Insult The Locals, and in his classic post, Put Some Damn Clothes On!, Tim Patterson implores us to show a little respect when dressing abroad.

Want to know what other cultures consider common etiquette? Check out some of the essential reads below.

Photo by thivierr

7 años secuestrado por las FARC (Spanish Edition) by Luis Eladio Perez, December 29, 2008

Luis Eladio Perez’s account of his time in captivity was released scarcely a few months after his liberation and cornered the market to begin with.

This account shines due to the politician’s clarity and sincerity and can be recommended to any Spanish speaker who wishes to understand further the situation in Colombia.

Cautiva (Spanish Edition), Clara Rojas, October 2009

Perhaps this could be the memoir that sheds light onto all of the happenings in the jungle regarding Clara Rojas, the birth of her son Emmanuel, Ingrid Betancourt and Luis Eladio Perez and of course, the three American hostages.

While the book is not yet for sale in stores, pirated editions have been spotted on the streets of Bogota.

News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, May 1997.

A sobering take on the state of play in Colombia in the 1980s and 1990s when kidnapping was a very real threat to people of every social strata in Colombia.

Garcia Marquez combines brilliant journalism with his abundant literary talent and creates a novel that moves every reader.

The Cloud Garden: A True Story of Adventure, Survival, and Extreme Horticulture by Tom Hart Dyke and Paul Winder, December 1, 2005.

Published a few years ago, this is a recommended true story written by two travelers – perhaps somewhat eccentric – who decided to cross the notorious Darién Gap from Panama in Colombia on foot.

For an interesting and perhaps different take on captivity, be sure to pick up a copy…after all, how many people have you heard of that created orchid gardens to remain sane?

Of course the big seller will be Ingrid Betancourt’s memoirs of her time in the jungle as a captive if and when it comes out.

The former presidential candidate is said to be working on her account and it will likely answer many of the questions put to her from the other books written by her fellow hostages.

Photo by George Donnelly

Over the past few years of living here in Colombia, I have seen all of the Harry Potter novels presented to me at intersections and stop lights in major cities, but last week, remained surprised when the vendor approached our window with a copy of Fuera de Cautiverio (Out of Captivity) translated into Spanish just a week and a half after it was shipped here in English.

I guess it should not be too much of a shock really as the book – put together by Gary Brozek and three Americans (Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell, and Tom Howes) who were kidnapped by Colombia’s notorious FARC guerrillas and held for 5 years and 4 months – is presumed to offer so much in the way of answers and shed some light on various questions surrounding their captivity and the captivity of other notable figures.

To a casual reader, Out of Captivity provides an insight into the horrendous conditions that “prisoners of war” in Colombia are subjected to, the illnesses they suffer, their struggle for sanity, comprehension of events and some information about their captors.

To a Colombian, and therefore revealing why it needed to be translated so fast, the book serves to try and unravel some of the great questions about the enigma that is former Colombian Presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, her character, her politics, her survival.

Of course, the whole story is not revealed in the slightest and the book takes the form of three separate narrations from each of the protagonists during similar and eventful periods of their captivity.

Great emphasis is placed upon their own thoughts and spirituality as it should be, in particular their thoughts for their families.

Perhaps there are two great gaping holes in this body of work and these come in the form of lack of information about the Dutch FARC guerrilla who the three contractors met early on during their stay in the jungle and whose diary was discovered after a bombing raid on a FARC encampment in the southern jungles.

Photo of Ingrid Betancourt courtesy of Wikipedia.org

In addition to this, there is no firm speculation about who the father of Clara Rojas’ child Emmanuel is.

For those who are in the dark as to who Clara Rojas is, she was Ingrid Betancourt’s campaign manager who became pregnant while in captivity. The saga of her son Emanuel – born in captivity, taken from his mother and then after months, delivered to Colombian social services – became a cause followed all over Colombia.

Not for genuine interest in the humanity of the situation, but rather, it became a somewhat farcical soap opera in which the only thing people seemed to really care about was the identity of the boy’s father.

Could it be a high ranking FARC official, was she raped, was it one of the Americans?

Operation Check Mate (Operacion Jaque), the daring and now legendary rescue of the Americans, Ingrid Betancourt and other politicians, is addressed as the closing finale to their Colombian sojourn. It makes compelling reading but ultimately leaves one wanting…as it should and as we should expect from the very beginning.

After all, there is a long running civil war in Colombia and the present government will have done everything in its power to stifle the distribution of any classified information.

Classic literature Out of Captivity is not, but a riveting and compelling read it surely is – entailing the personal struggles of the three hostages, the politics and conniving nature of the FARC and the struggles of the guerrilla themselves.

This is a book that can be read cover to cover within a sitting and will leave the reader astonished at the hardships endured by those who have undergone similar experiences.

Keep this work circulating as it will serve to remind the authorities in Colombia that there are an estimated 2,000 people still in captivity in this country.

Matador Member – Tsraveling

Photo by tsraveling

I enjoy watching people and learning how communities work, and then communicating what I learn in creative ways.

Be sure to check out tsraveling’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: The Deluge, Pilgrim at Tinker’s Creek, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Endurance.

Matador Member – Beth (bethdod)

Photo by bethdod

I am restless. I have always been this way, even as a child. I cannot stand to be in one place too long. I feel that the world is too large to not want to constantly explore it and see what else is out there.

Be sure to check out Beth’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Memoirs of a Geisha, I am Charlotte Simmons, Getting Stoned with Savages.

Matador Member – Heather (heathercarreiro)

Photo by heathercarreiro

My ideal place to watch the sunrise is on a rooftop hotel in the Moroccan city of Fez, on the morning of Eid-al-Ftr when the Muslim fast is broken.

Be sure to check out Heather’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Afghanistan: Where God Only Comes to Weep, anything by Khuswant Singh, William Dalrymple, or Salman Rushdie

Library of Congress Photo retouched by 20after4

Montana: Portrait of a State

This catalog of vivid photographs shot by musician-turned-photographer Vasapolli covers rustic landscapes of the state including Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks.

Price: $11.53 | BUY

The Montana Cowboy

A powerful photographic essay that takes us behind the scenes of life as a cowboy on the range and the century old history behind this iconic slice of Americana. This collaborative effort pairs photographs taken by David R. Stoecklein with narrative text written by Pat Dawson, a native of Montana, and illustrations from renown artist, Buckeye Blake.

Price: $42.00 | BUY

Montana: A Scenic Treasure

In Scenic Treasure, Photographers John Lambing and Wayne Mumford go in search of hidden Montana – its remote lakes and scenery, historic monuments, and “elusive wildlife”.

Price: $16.47 | BUY

Montana Wildlife Portfolio

Wildlife photography requires an inordinate amount of patience and for photographer Donald M. Jones, it pays off in this collection of over 140 color photographs spotlighting Montana’s varied wild animals in their habitats.

Price: $18.96 | BUY

Photographing Montana 1894-1928

For vintage shots of early Montana, this book with more than 150 of Evelyn Cameron’s photographs shows early pioneer settlements within the state. The shots include landscapes, farms, cattle and horses, and other glimpses into turn-of-the-century lifestyle.

Price: $25.55 | BUY

Matador Member – Jon Brandt (jgbrandt)

Photo by jbrandt

The things I’ve seen and done, the people I’ve met in my travels, all have led me to believe that there’s something great out there worth experiencing while it’s possible. And the best part I’ll keep for myself.

Be sure to check out Jon’s Matador profile.

Favorite books: Fight Club, 1984, Catcher in the Rye, anything by Hemingway

Well…for the downloadable travel guide that is.

This comprehensive eBook provides solid information to help you prepare for your European adventures – from visa requirements and transportation to accommodation and money matters.

It includes chapters covering solo and family travel written by contributing authors.

And now for the low price of $5.95, you can pick up Travelling Europe – a practical travel planner published by the award winning Indie Travel Podcast team.

Travelling Europe is also available in audio form for $5.95.

Price: $5.95 | $9.95 (+ Audiobook) | BUY

Photo by Taro Taylor

In the hilarious, off-the-wall public events in Finland article compiled by Carlo Alcos, we’re introduced to the up-and-coming sports of swamp soccer, wife carrying, and mobile phone throwing.

Via a breathtaking essay shot by Taro Taylor titled Wild Places Exposed: Papua New Guinea in Photos, we journeyed through this mysterious South Pacific island.

In Melbourne: A surprise awaits you at every turn, Carlo takes us around this laid back, down to earth yet vibrant Australian city.

Want to try couchsurfing in Petrozavodsk, Russia? Words from Russia: A Couchsurfer’s Take on its Culture also penned by Carlo is worth a read.

So if you’re thinking of island hopping around the South Pacific or exploring the vast Arctic north, check out these travel guides to whet your appetite.

Photo by garryknight

This review will not begin with a description of the book’s cover, the title page, or the table of contents, and it will not end with an evaluation of the index.

I will not start by telling you I received the envelope in the mail and I will not end by illustrating the room from which I now type. This would be tantamount to beginning a travel narrative with the plane’s takeoff and finishing with a description of returning home.

Avoiding this kind of narrative arc is a classic first lesson of travel writing, one that the author of Backpacking with Brian has unfortunately not learned.

Instead of telling you about how the book was packaged for mailing, I will begin with a question: What is the value of a travel journal?

We know that keeping a journal while traveling is important. Documenting the details of your trip, from the clothing of people you see to the food you eat for each meal, allows you to relive the experience years later.

Photo by swimparallel

By writing your thoughts you can gain perspective. It creates an opportunity for otherwise obscured connections to arise. Beyond helping you remember your travels, a journal helps you understand them.

So, if it is important to keep a journal, what do we do with these personal tomes once they are completed?

The first impulse, I believe, is to share it with others. Lending your journal to family and close friends is one way. Using it to tell stories at the pub is another. You can put it online.

You can even use it as an archive of information that could be transformed into more polished articles and narratives. You could also publish the journal in whole and, if an editor takes an interest, join the ranks of some great authors.

If an editor does not take an interest, there is the option of self-publishing, and it is this that finally brings us back to Bryn Parry’s Backpacking with Brian.

The journal of Parry’s travels through Europe is intriguing mostly for all it does wrong. It begins with a trip on a bus from the author’s hometown and takes us, hour by hour, day by day, through the rest of the journey.

It lacks real character development in a way that, at the end of the 319 pages, we are left still wondering who Brian even is.

It suffers from awkward and elliptical writing…”the inverted image which I was thereby treated to was of the salivating jaws of a ‘highly conditioned’ Jack Russell Terrier.”

The manuscript uses non-standard formatting, misuses quotations to the point of confusing the story, and has an overabundance of ellipses “I NEEDED a treat (of the highly sugar-rich, comfort-fodder kind)!…….”

That said, there is much to admire.

The simple fact that Parry got the story, all 300-plus pages of it, onto paper is certainly one. The way he portrays himself in the narrative is honest and self-effacing in a way that is reminiscent of Bill Bryson’s at his best. The one-sided correspondences with Cathy, a love left at home, are tender and the highlight of every chapter in which they appear.

If you find yourself ripping through online travel journals and wishing you could take one along when away from the computer, Backpacking with Brian will be a quirky delight. It is, perhaps by virtue of the text’s raw nature, an intensely personal account.

It may not illuminate new corners of Europe, or win a great award, but it does give the reader the feeling that the author, a close friend, has invited her to read his personal journal.

For what it’s worth, I am grateful.

Thank you Bryn, keep writing.

Price: $17.99 | BUY

Photo by Lola Akinmade

After a full day of binging on shopping mall food in Bangkok Binge Eating 101, Tom Gates aims to appease his pasta craving in Random Restaurant Review: Authentic Italian In Bangkok.

Ross Tabak goes in search of the best barbecue around the world and Hal Amen follows the waft of garlic, chilies, and ginger into a Korean store in Mexico City.

To wash down your grub, Juliane Huang even explored the benefits of drinking tea over coffee in Tea v. Coffee: Which One is Better for You?.

Want to try your hand at bringing a taste of the world home? Catherine Melton gives us 7 Reasons To Take A Cooking Class.

Not ready to jet off quite yet or sign up for a class? Why not pick up an international cookbook and experiment?

Photo: vanz

Four weeks ago I was doing a Google search for “literary writing + web 2.0.” I found the name Tao Lin. I started reading his stuff. I started reading his friends’ stuff.

They all seemed to write like each other but different from everyone else. It reminded me of a crew of skaters all going off on variations of the same style.

I got the feeling they tried to make everything they wrote sound like it was just scribbled down super fast when actually they spent hours editing.

Tao started a publishing company called Muumuuu House in October 2008. Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs, by Ellen Kennedy, is the first title they’ve published (3/09). There was a stain on the press release Tao sent with the book, and a handwritten note pointing to the stain that said “beer”.

The night I started it I’d been up since 5:20 am writing and editing then worked a full day laying bamboo floors. When I got to one poem I started reading:

I am going to make boxes and put things in them and then
write your name and addresses on the boxes, then bring them
to the post office to be mailed to you

okay?

and I thought I could feel the entire universe slowly expanding in the white space between those last two lines.

A lot of people will be repelled by this book. Or not repelled: they simply won’t ‘get’ it. It’s not safe and comfortable. (I’m thinking of something Miles Davis said in an interview: “I can’t be around comfortable people.”)

There are lines about ordering a pizza with no cheese and feeling alienated. Stories about Norm MacDonald wondering if he should commit suicide. Poems about nipples the size of cds. Scenes of kids in the car with their parents on the way to Walmart. A world constructed out of people with various levels of alienation sitting around refreshing their Gmail inboxes.

As with everything that means anything, its what’s between the lines that matters. I could try and dissect it here. I could come up with names and comparisons like Raymond Carver or Amy Hempel. But all of that feels like turning something off.

What matters is the the ‘overall effect’. Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs makes you want to give Ellen Kennedy a hug.

To give somebody a hug. Your girlfriend or wife or dog. To eat better. To write better. To have sex. To have sex in some public place like the characters in her poems, and realize if anyone is watching “it will just make their lives more interesting and maybe help them reevaluate what really hurts people.”

Visit Muumuu to order this book , or hit up the amazon link above.

Photo by pocketwiley

I need a travel book for getting around and a history book to help me understand what I see. Your average backpacker book provides some historical and cultural explanation.

However, the balance of hostel details compared to location background information never sits right with me.

So I was excited to find the On the Road Histories book series, which takes the opposite approach, and I’ve just finished reading South Carolina, by Kenneth Townsend.

The bulk of South Carolina reads like a popular history book. That makes sense; the author is a professor of American History who lives in Myrtle Beach.

The book is written in chronological order and provides a good overview of the state’s history. It starts out with the Native Americans and leads us up through the present day.

Photo by humbertomoreno

There is little mentioned about recent decades. This makes the end feel abrupt. However, I think more people are interested in what happened during times such as the American Revolution and the Civil War.

Maybe I assume too much, but I know I don’t really care about the South Carolina of the 1980’s.

While proud of South Carolina’s history, the book doesn’t sugarcoat negative aspects.

For example, while recounting the life of native son Andrew Jackson, the author doesn’t hide Jackson’s part in causing the Trail of Tears, calling it “among the most deplorable actions perpetrated against Native Americans”.

What makes it a book for travelers are the highlighted sidebars that point to historical places to visit.

“Must-See Sites” are scattered throughout most of the chapters, along with modern and historical photographs, famous battles, festival descriptions, and celebrated South Carolinians.

I would still want to pick up a traveler’s guidebook (or rely on the web) for information about common tourist items – where to eat, where to sleep – but this book is a great way to get to know South Carolina, whether you are a visitor or a resident.

If a visit to South Carolina isn’t in your future, consider other books in the On the Road Histories series: Alaska, Mississippi, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Michigan, Texas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

Price: $15.60 | BUY

Thanks to Planet eBook, I can finally finish up Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy without having to lug around a 700+ page beast of a book.

Planet eBook touts itself as the “home of free classic literature”. A generous collection of classic novels have been provided in downloadable, high-quality PDF documents.

Titles available for download (amongst its 70+ online novels) include:

• Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne
• Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
• Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
• The Odyssey by Homer
• The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Worried about copyright infringements?

The electronic books published by Planet eBook are out of copyright and are within the public domain.

Can’t find your favorite literature classic on their site?

You can actually suggest a book.

Price: FREE | Visit Planet eBook

I wasn’t going to make it. I didn’t know how to drive a stick shift. That accident at the construction site just outside Auckland Airport marked my first day in New Zealand.

Photo by Robyn Gallagher

Memories long forgotten but instantly revived when I picked up my worn out travel journal one lazy Sunday afternoon.

This week, we put out a call for submissions to the new Notes from the Road series over at the Traveler’s Notebook, inviting you to dig up those travel journals and send us engrossing narratives.

And you did.

Eric Warren takes us on a poignant romantic journey in On the other side of the world.…..

In a prolific piece that spotlights race and class in a non condescending way, Julie Schwietert explores racial dynamics during the world renown Carnaval in On the Ropes.

With a fresh contributor’s copy of Fodor’s Patagonia in hand, David Miller is instantly transported back to that sandy coastal road en route to Bahia Bustamante, and we ride along in his Econobox Ford.

Photo by sukhjeet

Notes from journals and travel memoirs make us voyeurs – peeking into the lives of others as they navigate and grow through life and at the end, we find ourselves enriched as well.

Recommended by Matador members, here are three travel collections and memoirs definitely worth picking up.

The World: Life and Travel 1950-2000 by Jan Morris

Jan Morris is quite possibly the greatest travel writer of our time – and certainly among the all-time greats.

The essays in here span Morris’ entire storied career, from her big break, at Everest Base Camp for the Hillary expedition, to her thoughts on Hong Kong’s return to Chinese control at the end of the last century…..Eva Holland

In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin

In Patagonia is one of the few travel books I’ve read while actually traveling through the place being described…and the descriptions were so spot on, and so poignant, that it felt like I couldn’t decide which was more real, the landscape or the book.

Chatwin manages to make his writing very real and very simple; no exaggerated descriptions or depictions of local characters. …..Sarah Menkedick

West With The Night by Beryl Markham

The tales in this book chronicle Beryl Markham’s life in Africa – from childhood encounters with tigers to buzzing trees as a bush pilot.

It’s told in a way that can make anyone envision Africa perfectly, even if that person has never seen a picture taken on the continent.

West With The Night is one of those few books that can be read at different points in your life, possibly swerving your brain in a direction that it didn’t pivot upon the last pass…..Tom Gates

Have a favorite travel book or memoir you’d like to share? Do tell us below.

The title mimicked lifesaving instructions I received in 1983 during my first year with the United States Forest Service. Though at that time my boss referred to bears I might encounter in the Idaho wilderness, advice gleaned from this book applies in any location where you, as a human being, represents a lower rung of the food chain.

Photo by Adam Annfield

Peter Allison weaves thirteen years worth of stories as a safari guide in South Africa and Botswana into a playful, staccato narrative . Whatever You Do, Don’t Run is an observant, wickedly funny memoir you can either read straight through or snack on like a good collection of short stories.

Price: $6.99 | BUY

I’d initially winced at the cover – a female lion holding a gray safari hat, which was obviously photoshopped to be “cute”.

Thankfully the author’s words go deeper into his colorful existence employed in sub-Saharan Africa’s chief tourist trade – Safaris.

Peter’s self-effacing humor prevails throughout this book.

It’s easy to imagine him sitting under the African sky by a campfire as he quips about drowning a Land Rover in hippo pond, reviews behaviors of tourists from various countries, and recounts his transformation into a “bird nerd”.

The anecdotes peppered throughout this book will induce everything from a wide smile to hearty laughter.

Without giving too much away, there are multiple lions encounters, a naked baboon, cheetah intimacies and a pet honey badger.

Photo by Jean-Louis Vandevivère

Other assigned duties include playing strip poker with members of Britain’s Royal Family, trying to impress bored German tourists who want more than close encounters with the Big Five, and entertaining a young woman better prepared for a Vegas trip with Paris Hilton than a trek in the African bush.

In life and storytelling, comedy and tragedy are close cousins. Africa’s AIDS epidemic strikes close and animals Peter had observed for a long time succumb to nature’s whims.

Sad emotions attached to such events get their due, but being an Australian who nicknames everything he comes across, Allison’s melancholy soon segues into more lighthearted stories intended to entertain.

Photo by Sara & Joachim

It’s an action packed read, so frenetic at times that the beauty of the landscape gets lost. Luckily, color photographs are included as visual references. For those who haven’t traveled to Africa, visualizing the places where these adventures occur may not do the stories enough justice.

But as the author would say, “No worries.”

Photo by sfmission.com

Who knew Carnaval was celebrated in Oruro, Bolivia?! Hal Amen’s spectacular photo essay gives us a glimpse into the colorful festivities in this Altiplano city.

Ian Mackenzie also shows us some highlights from the Barranquilla Carnaval, Colombia in yet another stunning photo essay of unique costumes and vividly-clad dancers.

In Brazilian Carnaval: Going Beyond Rio, Julie Schwietert dispatches from the cities of Recife and Olinda in Brazil, taking us on a photographic journey through their unique ways of celebrating this festival.

Still looking for more classic shots from Carnaval? Check out these coffee-table gems:

Carnaval – Photographed by Claudio Edinger

A collection of semi-risqué photos taken by photographer Claudio Edinger that captures the rawness of Brazilian Carnaval.

Price: $7.37 | BUY

Carnaval! – Edited by Barbara Mauldin

Over 300 colorful photographs take you through various celebrations around the world. From New Orleans and Trinidad and Tobago to Basel, Switzerland and even rural Bulgaria.

Price: $7.27 (Used) | BUY

Carnival In Rio mini: Samba, Samba, Samba

Accompanied by a CD of select Samba sounds from Rio, you can flip through this coffee table book while listening to music to instantly transport you there.

Price: $10.17 | BUY

Café Life Venice is a remarkable hybrid: part guidebook, and part coffeetable book. Written by Joe Wolff, and beautifully illustrated with photographs by Roger Paperno, the book profiles 17 traditional, family-run establishments in Venice.

The cafés, trattorias, pasticcerias and bacari (Venetian-style wine and tapas bars) listed in the book are scattered across Venice: some in tourist-thronged San Marco, and some in the lesser-visited — and totally magical — sectors of the city, like Cannaregio or Dorsoduro.

At every location, the author-photographer team interviewed the owners and staff, and photographed the establishment and its surrounding neighborhood, providing the reader with a rich history and context.

The book is compact and informative enough to be worth packing away for your next trip, and it’s also sufficiently compelling (both in terms of the photography and the mouth-watering content) to make for a good armchair read.

If you’re headed to Venice (or even if you’re not!), you’re interested in learning more about the city’s unique culinary traditions, and you’d like to avoid the usual tourist-trap meals in favor of some locally owned gems, I’d recommend Café Life Venice.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some serious Venetian daydreaming to get back to…

Photo by josef.stuefer (Creative Commons)

If you’ve ever crossed time zones, no doubt you’ve probably experienced these decades old symptoms of jet lag at some point:

Fatigue, irritability, nausea, anxiety, dehydration, constipation, diarrhea, headache, sweating, temporary memory loss….am I missing any?!.

Finally, beating the inevitable jet lag is possible and each crucial step on how to fight it has been detailed in The Cure for Jet Lag.

Authored by Lynne W. Scanlon and Charles F. Ehret, Ph.D, this book demystifies jet lag and scientifically breaks down its symptoms with various ways of treating them.

The first two chapters cover symptoms of jet lag such as fatigue and their expected duration and effects on the body.

Subsequent chapters are dedicated to explaining the different time zones, how they impact the body, and how to trick the body into naturally adjusting without incident.

The Cure’s three step program outlines how to overcame jet lag using specific foods, tea, coffee, low/high calorie meals, physical/mental activity, light/dark settings, and how to use them preflight, inflight, and postflight.

If you’re ready to kick jet lag for good, you may want to grab a copy.

Price: $20.00 | BUY

Are we, as our own love doyenne Carrie Bradshaw once posited, living in the “Age of Un-Innocence”? Did romance die somewhere between the 20th and 21st Century?

Photo by MorphorMir

Romeo and Juliet have long since jumped ship. Jane and Rochester are distant memories. And Mimi and Rodolfo have certainly had their last swing.

Moreover, in a reality and hyper-reality-saturated world, our tastes towards the romantic have demonstrably dwindled.

Currently on the New York Times Bestseller list are such passionate tomes as Ann Coulter’s Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and their Assault on America (swoon), Artie Lange’s Too Fat to Fish (oh, yes, baby), and Denis Leary’s Why We Suck (give it to me, daddy-o!).

But, like true love, hope is not lost. The following ten books are examples of romance’s resurrection between the mid-50s and today.

Whether you have a significant other or just other significants, you’ll find one tome to get you through the airport delays, daily commute, or a quiet night at home.

1. Kiss & Tell (Alain de Botton, 1995)

Like any good biography, Kiss & Tell indexes its subject to the hilt, with both the obvious (“childhood,” “birth”) and the unexpected (“half-losing virginity,”inviting biographer home”).

It’s also worth mentioning that the book’s subject—Londoner Isabel Rogers—is a complete work of fiction. As is the entire book.

De Botton’s narrator takes on the task of writing a biography about the next person he meets after being dumped by a girlfriend for his inability to empathize.

When that next person turns into a love interest, this intellectual take on love gets pretty damn juicy.

2. Paris Trance (Geoff Dyer, 1998)

Throw together four expats in the City of Light and, love—or at least lust—is bound to ensue.

Dyer’s Gen-X homage to Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night is at once striking and cynical.

It dances the line between lush descriptions (check out his take on the Paris Mosque or the 29 bus line) and stark recaps (his characters’ sex lives are a far cry from what Danielle Steele would imagine).

And sometimes he leaves you completely speechless with a paragraph that’s unexpectedly remarkable.

3. The Princess Bride (William Goldman, 1973)

Think you have the gist of true love thanks to the Cary Elwes/Robin Wright Penn flick? Think again.

Long before Mandy Patinkin was avenging his father, William Goldman’s novel was doing as readers wished.

The movie is faithful to the book, but there’s more to unearth in the 500-odd pages besides old favorites.

For those who find happily ever after to be too saccharine, Goldman’s classic will be a bit more conceivable.

4. Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love (Lara Vapnyar, 2008)

Move over, music, there’s a new food of love in Vapnyar’s latest book.

While the five short stories may seem too little, there’s a progression of courses in this collection that makes Broccoli and Other Tales a solid pick for those looking for something shorter than a novel.

Like any good Russian writer, Vapnyar balances humor and despair to make a well-balanced dish.

And like any good foodie, she doesn’t skimp on recipes.

5. Stupid and Contagious (Caprice Crane, 2006)

Living up to her name, Crane is decidedly capricious in her debut novel, alternating point of views between the two main characters—Heaven and Brady—who go classic screwball style from hating each other to…yeah, you guessed it.

Predictable though it may be, it’s also fresh and light—a great way to revel in the lives of others without having to emotionally over-invest.

6. The Subterraneans (Jack Kerouac, 1958)

With Subterraneans, Jack Kerouac wrote one of the best closing lines in a book ever.

Travelers may remember Kerouac for his ultimate work of wanderlust, On the Road.

Here, he holds that same bohemian spirit and introduces a love story between Leo and Mardou.

The story of their breakup—famously written over the course of three days and three nights—is set against the backdrop of the San Francisco underground and told with the jazzy improv that helped to define the Beat generation.

7. Blankets (Craig Thompson, 2003)

Nearly 600 pages are devoted to Thompson’s first childhood love, speaking to the power that those coming of age clichés hold over us decades later.

Past the love story is a stunning work of artistry that makes Blankets ideal for long-time graphic novel lovers and comic virgins.

If you’ve already mastered Thompson’s opus, check out his (comparably smaller) Carnet de Voyage to see his take on travel.

8.The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafón, 2001)

Love and intrigue go hand-in-hand in Zafón’s masterpiece.

Set in Franco-ruled Spain, there is as much familial love as there is romantic love between the main character, his father, and his best friend’s sister.

And if you’re looking to go light on the lust this year, you’ll be taken in by the mystery of a book, its author, and the people who want to destroy the two.

The trip through 1950s Barcelona doesn’t hurt, either.

9. Choke (Chuck Palahniuk, 2001)

We all just want to be loved.

A rhapsody of sex addiction, the holy foreskin, and asphyxiation in exchange for affection, Chucky P.’s breakthrough novel wipes the floor with its recent film adaptation.

And if the thought of another traditional Valentine’s Day makes you gag, you’re probably better off with Victor Mancini.

Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov 1955)

Way beyond bodice-ripper, Nabokov’s succès de scandale is as much an intoxicating ode to language and the power of words as it is an ode to the preteen title character.

For all its academic glory, however, it is also by far the most erotic book on this list.

And whether or not you’ve seen Adrian Lyne’s film adaptation, we dare you to try reading this without hearing Jeremy Irons’ voice in the narrator of Humbert Humbert.

I began reading Wanderlust and Lipstick for Women Traveling to India with both hope and apprehension.

Photo by Meanest Indian

I’m generally skeptical of travel resources aimed specifically at us gals; all too often, they play to tired stereotypes (”How to Pack ALL Your Shoes! Bring Travel-Size Make-up! Let’s Shop Up a Storm!”), and when it comes down to it, I’m simply not convinced that men and women travel all that differently.

And yet, I thought as I opened the book for the first time, if there was ever a country that demanded a female-specific guide, wasn’t it India?

I visited the country myself as a solo, inexperienced 22-year-old a few years ago, and struggled to adapt throughout the trip. I was curious to see whether author Beth Whitman would offer the sort of advice I wished I’d had.

Price: $12.71 | BUY

The book follows an unconventional guidebook structure: it’s divided thematically rather than geographically (with subject areas like “Getting Around,” “Feasting” and “Your Health”) and is spliced with anecdotes and testimonials from an array of women who’ve traveled to India.

I was immediately impressed by “Follow Your Passions,” a chapter surveying the range of activities available to visitors. It went well beyond the usual lists of yoga studios, trekking companies and shopping bazaars.

In the planning section, Whitman was blunt (in a good way) about how much ground you can actually expect to cover, and offered helpful trip-planning strategies and resources to get the reader started.

A pre-guidebook guidebook, you might ask? Again, if ever there was a country that required one, it would be India. The transportation section was equally thorough and useful.

Much of the advice offered in Wanderlust and Lipstick could actually apply equally to both male and female travelers, but plenty of practical woman-only tips are woven throughout.

The sections on health, safety and packing are especially female-focused and well done, with the safety section including a blunt-spoken couple of pages on the near-inevitability of sexual harassment and how to handle it.

Photo by Meanest Indian

The only real disappointment, for me, was the brevity of the “Feasting” chapter. I could have used more detail, especially regarding regional varieties and signature dishes to keep an eye out for. But I suppose you could write an entire book on the Indian culinary experience alone!

To be clear: Wanderlust and Lipstick for Women Traveling to India is aimed squarely at a general audience. It covers all spending levels, and assumes no previous Third World travel experience in its readers.

The jaded backpacker set may roll their eyes in parts — at the introduction to squat toilets, for instance — but the reality is, India is a universe all on its own, and a particular challenge for female travelers.

This earnest primer would be a useful tool for any woman contemplating a visit to the subcontinent.

Photo by SarahDepper

From Tokyo to Copenhagen, discover eight cosmopolitan cities with wallet-draining tendencies in 8 Cities that Burn Through Your Money.

Looking for the best vegetarian fare? Voralak Suwanvanichkij introduces us to 11 of the World’s Most Vegetarian-Friendly Cities. In How to Move to Paris with No Money, Tom Dibblee outlines 5 tips to help you relocate to the city of lights sans dough.

If you can’t hop the next flight out to Singapore or Moscow quite yet, why not pick up a coffeetable book to visually transport you there?

Over Singapore

Fly through Singapore, home to some of the tallest skyscrapers in Asia, with professional photographer Guido Alberto Rossi – well known for his intriguing aerial shots and perspectives.

Price: $15.88 | BUY

Russia: Moscow, St. Petersburg and the Golden Ring

Journey through Russia’s panoramic main cities – Moscow and St. Petersburg – via 200 vivid color photographs.

Price: $29.75 | BUY

Paris Then and Now (Then & Now)

This book covers the City of Lights from two photographic angles: contrasting old photographs of key locations and scenes with more recent color photographs of the same scenes.

Price: $18.95 | BUY

The Beauty of Seoul

Compiled by Korean photographer Jai-Sik Suh, this coffeetable spread brings various aspects of Seoul – its culture, people, and architecture – right to your living room in a stunning array of photographs.

Price: $58.50 | BUY

Photo by Rain Rannu

5 Writers Who Affirm the Importance of Travel by Olivia Hambrett explores the literary works of five influential writers – Mark Twain, Maya Angelou, Margaret Mead, Samuel Johnson, Rosalia de Castro – and parses out their views on travel.

In What Tyler Durden’s Philosophy Teaches Us About Travel, Juliane Huang examines the musings of famed Fight Club character, Tyler Durden, and how they apply to travel in general.

From 5 Eastern Thinkers Who Understood Inner Travel to 5 Western Thinkers Who Understood Inner Travel, philosphers of various generations have penned down invaluable thoughts and advice about travel.

Want to delve deeper into the philosophy of travel? In addition to the 10 Spiritual and Philosophical Books to Take Traveling‏, why not pick up these titles:

Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century

In this book rooted in anthropology, James Clifford compiles a collection of travel journal entries, narratives, and academic lectures amongst other literary notes to explore how cultures transition from one era to another.

Price: $21.15 | BUY

Deconstructing Travel: Cultural Perspectives on Tourism

Written by Arthur Asa Berger, Deconstructing Travel looks at why we travel, how it impacts tourism, and its “cultural phenomenon through social, cultural, psychological, and economic forces.”

Price: $24.95 | BUY

Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses

This book chronicles Bruce Feiler’s epic 10,000-mile trek from Mount Ararat to Mount Nebo using the five books of Moses – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy – as his guide. It is the ultimate story of inner reflection, and the emotional and physical manifestation of how travel spurns changes deep within us all.

Price: $10.17 | BUY

Do you have a favorite travel philosophy book? Tell us below.

Photo by Ryan Libre

From hard hitting photojournalism and comical dog portraits to bizarre fish faces and beautiful naked Japanese women, they show mastery in various niches of photography.

1. South Southeast by Steve McCurry

This portfolio covers Steve McCurry’s 20+ year love affair with South and Southeast Asia.

Steve McCurry started his freelance photography career by going to India for 2 years with 200 rolls of film and not much else.

Today, he is one of the most universally respected photographer alive.

South Southeast is not the kind of book with several unforgettable photos in it, every photo is unforgettable!

2. Magnum Magnum by Magnum photographers

Magnum is a photographers collective started by Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson and others.

This large coffee table book shows off their best shots and their best is pretty damn good.

So good you should first get your photo on the cover of National Geographic more than once before even applying to join.

Have a look at this book and you will see why they can be so selective.

3. National Geographic: The Photographs

You already know every photo published in their magazines are topnotch.

So when they carefully select 300+ to put in a book simply titled “The Photographs”, be prepared to be blown away.

4. Vanishing Act by Art Wolfe

His name says it all.

Art Wolfe has published many quality nature and landscape photo books, but Vanishing Act stands out to me because I have not seen anything else like it.

Kind of like the “Where’s Waldo” of nature photography with endless fun and beauty.

5. Life By Frans Lanting

I can’t imagine anyone who could envision a book so broad, so bold, and do it so well as Frans Lanting.

When most people reading this article were still dirtying diapers, Frans was living in the Amazon canopy for weeks at a time waiting for the perfect shot.

His curiosity has not faded with time and the depth of his stories just keeps growing.

It is a must see collection of 175 color photographs.

6. The Book of Photography by National Geographic

This amazing 400 page book is half photos and half words, and covers everything you need to know about photography, except how to use a camera.

While it deserves a serious read from cover to cover, it is also organized in a way that allows the reader to open up any page and not feel lost.

Plus it has lots of short side essays built into the main text which are perfect if you’ve got just a few minutes to spare.

There are thousands of books about cameras but very few about the art of photography. Don’t judge this priceless book by its terrible cover design though.

7. The Photography Book by Phaidon

Each of the 500 photographers highlighted in this book get one page introductions and a photo.

It is a great and fun way to get a sense of the endless variety of photographers that exist.

You will probably never remember them all, but a few will really impress you and you can find more of their work.

The Photography Book was my first coffee table photo book. It is now officially out of print but with the millions of copies sold it is still very easy to find online and in used bookstores.

8. Life Laughs Last by Life Magazine photographers

Price: $11.50 | BUY

A light book of the funniest photos from decades of Life magazine.

Before National Geographic magazine took center stage, the most talented photographers in the world flocked to Life.

Life’s incredible pool of talent and longstanding notoriety as America’s primer photo magazine show in this timeless book of comical black and white photographs.

Most used bookstores have a copy.

9. Fish Face by David Doubilet

David Doubilet is arguably the undefeated master of underwater photography.

His new book Fish Face shows close up portraits of the underwater world from the very beautiful to the very bizarre.

David Doubilet published his first underwater photos in National Geographic before my mom could drive a car.

His love for the underwater world and his ability to tell its stories and secrets keep aging like fine wine.

10. Santa Fe by Kishin Shinoyama

What half of you have been waiting for….a nude photo book.

Some of the best advice for a photographer is to shoot what you are interested in.

Kishin Shinoyama followed that advice and remains one of the most famous and certainly most controversial photographer from Japan.

Controversy sells and so do Kishin Shinoyama’s books. Santa Fe sold 1.5 million copies.

Pick up a copy to find out why…

Chuck Klosterman doesn’t travel to the ends of the world or try to solve world hunger.

In fact, he doesn’t even leave his own country. Instead, he gets put on assignment by Spin Magazine to road-trip throughout the United States, visiting the death sites of famous musicians.

The intersection of Duane Allman’s motorcycle crash and the spot where Kurt Cobain ensured his everlasting fame are two of the more notable stops in this hilariously written book.

The main characters are the author himself, his rented Ford Taurus (nicknamed “Tauntaun“), 600 CDs riding shotgun, and the barrage of ‘normal’, everyday people he meets along the way.

Klosterman’s new-age style and ridiculously extensive knowledge of pop culture shine through as he reminisces on past relationships (like most of us would) and creates severely complex explanations for the music guiding his way.

Price: $11.90 | BUY

“New York will never be yours; you will always be hers. She’s got you p***y-whipped and you f**king know it.”

Photo by Paraflyer

I realized Stuart and I weren’t likely to get along.

Price: $10.17 | BUY

I’m all for writers carving their own literary niches, speaking in their own authentic voices, but a vocabulary largely dependent upon a rotating showcase of four letter words—especially in a 450 page book—is likely to carve a niche that’s very tiny indeed.

Broke-Ass Stuart’s Guide might have been salvageable despite all that because the interest in snagging a deal in New York will never wane, but the places the author includes in his cheap guide to New York City aren’t even all that novel.

The TKTS booth and fake bags on Canal Street? Both have been in Fodor’s and Frommer’s for years.

And what happened to New York’s other three boroughs? Stuart includes Manhattan and Brooklyn, but the The Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island don’t even merit a sidebar.

All guidebooks are limited in long-term value, especially in a place like New York City, where a business that opens today is likely to be shuttered six months from now. That’s the nature of the genre.

But Broke-Ass Stuart is likely to be of little value of all, except to the limited audience who enjoys reading profanity-laden prose.

London to Sydney the Hard Way…This was one of the first travel books I read and after a library’s worth of reading, it still remains one of my favorites.

With pitiful funds but plenty of determination, Peter sets off on an 8 month trip overland from London to Sydney.

This journey takes him through 25 countries, meeting incredible people, partaking in (usually) risky activities and generally having a good time. He visits the front line in war-torn Bosnia, the opium fields of Laos and even manages to make his way into the heavily guarded Tibet.

By traveling as cheaply as possible, he meets locals within their element and experiences it all as a true independent traveler.

This is traveling as it should be…no sheltering in posh hotels and viewing the country through a haze of “tourist sites”. He gets into the soul of each country he passes through and allows us a glimpse in a humorous and insightful manner.

Price: $11.27 | BUY

Photo by liber

That’s the question we’ve posed to Matador readers this week. In What Every American Should Know About the Middle East, Matador Video Editor Joshua Johnson interviews Melissa Rossi, a special correspondent for Newsweek and author of the recently published What Every American Should Know About the Middle East.

Matador Pulse Editor Eva Holland recently introduced us to the Middle Eastern geography quiz designed to test your knowledge of the region.

Dreaming in Arabic, Learning in Yemen by Baxter Jackson spotlights Yemen as a viable location to study Arabic, while Benjamin Orbach takes us on a journey through 6 Under-the-Radar Destinations In The Middle East.

Thinking of adding the Middle East to your travel plans this year? Rough Guides publishes solid travel guides covering more than 200 destinations worldwide including the titles below:

Price: $5.99 | BUY

Price: $13.59 | BUY

Price: $39.95 | BUY

Price: $3.24 | BUY

Price: $10.19 | BUY

My favorite travel book of all time would have to be Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia. I love Chatwin’s understated, quiet writing style…he’s the type of writer that makes you hear the silences, feel the solitude of being alone on the road.

And yet, at the same time, he draws out the particularities of a place and its people.

In Patagonia is one of the few travel books I’ve read while actually traveling through the place being described…and the descriptions were so spot on, and so poignant, that it felt like I couldn’t decide which was more real, the landscape or the book.

Chatwin manages to make his writing very real and very simple; no exaggerated descriptions or depictions of local characters.

That’s not to say that he doesn’t capture some of the oddities one finds traveling – Welsh roses and tea in Patagonia, for example – but he explores them with such respect that it leaves you with this sense of very quiet awe.

Price: $9.75 | BUY

For as much as I appreciate Lonely Planet, let’s face it: wherever you go, Lonely Planet in hand, you have a 90% chance of running into a group of slightly confused American backpackers glancing up from the same coffee-stained page you’re glancing up from.

Guidebooks, after awhile, come to feel like the same hackneyed advice about cultural differences, accompanied by maps of the familiar international geography of hostels and bars offering cheap cuba libres.

Photo by The Marmot

So I wonder, what alternative systems of navigation exist out there? Why not navigate by flavor, by dish, by ingredient: enduring, edible traditions?

The following are a series of alternative guidebooks: travel cookbooks. Each acts as a guide not just to food and cooking, but to a particular place, its history, its peoples. Each illuminates an aspect of culture so fundamental it merits a lot more than the requisite subheading—“Where to Eat?”

“Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia.” by Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford

Photo by Divine in the Daily

The subject of a recent New Yorker profile, this couple has been traveling through Asia for over twenty years, fine-tuning flatbread recipes, eating, cooking, and thinking about the ways in which food connects regions divided by political borders.

For Hot Sour Salty Sweet, Duguid and Alford honed in on the Mekong River, writing travelogues and recipes as they learned how fish was dried and rice harvested along its banks.

Their website, a postcard from a dust-swept, sun-flooded town somewhere in Asia, contains information about their books and the process of writing them.

“Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking”, and “Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province.” by Fuschia Dunlop

Photo by avlxyz

Fuschia Dunlop was the first Western student at the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine, and has spent the past decade traveling through China and studying the varied cuisine of its provinces.

Her cookbooks are like standing in a bare Chinese kitchen with an old peasant woman, listening to stories of making stew in the thick of the revolution.

But the best thing about Fuschia Dunlop’s books is not the recipes but the stories behind them; stories of Dunlop’s travels through a country that has been barreling through momentous changes in the past decade.

Readers who have traveled and lived in China will find it difficult not to identify with the frustration, admiration, and tentative hope that come through in these books.

“Where People Feast: An Indigenous People’s Cookbook” by Annie and Dolly Watts

Photo by thebittenword.com

Canadians, Americans, I ask you: how many times have you sat across the table from a French or Chilean or Chinese friend and tried to face down the question, “So, what is your traditional food?”

Perhaps Canadians have better luck with this, but as an American I am often at a complete loss to talk about food traditions in my country with any sense of certainty.

What sort of continuous, revered tradition does my simultaneous love of Polish sausages, Mac N’ Cheese, enchiladas, and fruit roll-ups belong to?

But Northern America does have a long, powerful and continuous food history that has been largely ignored or crushed along with so many other aspects of indigenous North American culture.

This book, therefore, is a reminder that long before the proliferation of processed weirdness (Nerds? Dinty Moore beef stew?) many indigenous peoples of North America were taking advantage of the richness and diversity of local ingredients.

The Watts’ are members of the Git’skan first nation of British Colombia, and run the country’s only fine dining restaurant devoted to native cuisine. This cookbook focuses on native recipes using ingredients from Canada’s West Coast—wild blueberry cobbler, chokeberry-glazed grouse, salmon mousse, venison roast with juniper berries.

The book has won a number of awards and brought attention not only to oft-overlooked traditions, but also to the significance of local places and ingredients in making healthy, sustainable meals.

“Turquoise: A Chef’s Travels in Turkey” by Greg and Lucy Malouf

Photo by blhphotography

The Maloufs are a team with aesthetics and aims similar to that of Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford; they set out for months at a time to eat and travel, drawing culinary maps of places and writing about tradition, history, identity, and fried fish sandwiches.

Lucy Malouf writes and tastes while Greg Malouf, a renowned Australian chef, fine-tunes the recipes.

Turquoise is only the latest in a series of books, which offer up the fruits (and vegetables, meats and sticky sweet delicacies) of the couple’s travels through the Anatolian peninsula and the Middle East.

“Seasons of My Heart” by Susana Trilling

The saccharine title sounds off-putting, but the book itself is an extremely well informed, spiritual and intimate look at indigenous Mexican, and specifically Oaxacan, food culture. Trilling emphasizes the way food is deeply interwoven with worldview, tradition, and identity, and the way Oaxacan food preserves indigenous customs and culture that have been under pressure to give way to mainstream Hispanic culture.

Photo by Lola Akinmade

Reading Seasons of My Heart is not only vicariously tasting the dense powdery cacao of tejate but also feeling the presence of sun, heat, history, and indigenous culture. Trilling runs a cooking school in Oaxaca and offers culinary tours of the Oaxacan isthmus and surrounding Mixteca and Cañada regions.

And finally, for cookbook fans, travelers, foodie wannabies like myself, and/or anyone who just loves a good meal from time to time and likes knowing where it came from, there is the broad-reaching Culinaria Series.

The German publisher Konemann began putting out the series ten years ago, starting with a cookbook per country.

The recipes are incredibly detailed and the books are typically broken down into regions, with descriptions of the particular culinary history and the array of ingredients and cooking styles found in that region. These cookbooks have been a major hit and are now coveted collectors items.

So let yourselves be guided, travelers, by the smell of slow-roasting pork and the flare of Sichuan peppercorns. Turns out that old saying about the fastest-way-to-a-man’s-heart could be true of culture, as well.

Community Connection

To experience food as a means of travel and connecting with culture, enjoy Tasting Place.

What every American (and Traveler!) should know about the Middle East from Matador Network on Vimeo.

As the bloody conflict between Israel and Hamas appears to be ending, it leaves many people scratching their heads. How did it come to this? Who’s to blame? What must we do?

I recently sat down with author, journalist and world traveler, Melissa Rossi to try to understand the history of the Gaza conflict and its deeper implications.

What Every American Should Know About The Middle East is Rossi’s 5th book aiming to educate and empower through information. She is a timely tour guide into one of the most complex and important regions in the world, laying history, politics, Western military intervention and religion bare with anecdote and personal insights.

Rossi’s direct and knowledgeable perspective is greatly informed by her wide travels. Melissa has visited most European countries and has lived in Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium and currently lives in Thailand.

As a traveler and a citizen I felt grateful to better understand what has led to such a desperate situation in the Middle East. What Every American Should Know About The Middle East addresses such topics as;

Why the U.S. is turning the Persian Gulf into an armed fortress.

What resource is more important than petroleum in regional power plays.

• What’s really behind the fighting between Sunni and Shia.
• How Saudi Arabia inadvertently feeds the violence in Iraq and beyond.
• Which countries are modern, forward-thinking, stable and increasingly democratic.
• How monarchies like those in Jordan and Qatar are more open and progressive than the so-called republics.

At $10.88 on Amazon.com I would recommend that all citizens of the world who are tired of being in the dark on Middle East power play pick up a copy, and share it with friends.

All of British travel writer Colin Thubron’s books are well worth the read but my favorite of his and overall favorite travel book would have to be In Siberia, which was shortlisted for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award.

It recounts his tale of traveling through the large expanses of Arctic tundra and vast empty lands that make up the region.

His descriptions evoke magical places not known to many. He turns Siberia into an enchanted land that evokes memories of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

I’ve read many travel books but this one keeps me coming back for the ultimate escape.

Price: $14.65 | BUY

Photo by visulogik

No one I know (besides Survivorman Les Stroud) wants to be stranded in the Sahara without water, lost in the backcountry wilderness, or bounce on a bumpy chicken bus ride with diarrhea.

This week, Erik McLaughlin identifies the Top 10 Travel Health Problems such as diarrhea, jet lag, and mosquito bites, and outlines ways to handle them. In Three Essential Medical Books for Travelers, Juli Huang introduces us to 3 books that can help you survive during those harrowing medical emergencies when there isn’t a doctor for miles.

Stemming from experience, Senior Editor David Miller provides solid tips on surviving in the backcountry in Avoid the Classic Dumbass Move and Stay Alive This Winter.

But most importantly, your emotional health while traveling takes top billing, and Claire Litton shows us how in Handle with Care: Protecting Yourself from Emotional Abuse While Traveling.

Still want to forgo all the advice above? Check out these unbelievable tales of survival.

Lost in the Jungle: A Harrowing True Story of Adventure and Survival

“As his feet begin to rot during raging storms, as he loses all sense of direction, and as he begins to lose all hope, he wonders whether he will make it out of the jungle alive“…Amazon Review

Already feeling shivers up my spine!

This true life story revolves around four travelers who meet up in Bolivia, later become friends, and head into the Amazon Rainforest for an adventure of a lifetime only to end up lost and disoriented.

Author Yossi Ghinsberg is forced to survive for weeks on his own after he becomes separated from his group.

Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man’s Miraculous Survival

Renown adventurer and expedition climber Joe Simpson comes close to death while climbing in the Peruvian Andes. The book recounts his expedition with his climbing partner, Simon Yates up the 20,813 foot Siula Grande mountain.

Simon Yates never made it down.

Even if expeditionary-style adventures aren’t in your near future, grab this book to take a deep look into the psyche of climbers and other risk takers who push their minds and bodies to the limits of human endurance.

Angels in the Wilderness: The True Story of One Woman’s Survival Against All Odds

A small slip and she found herself careening 60-ft down the side of a mountain in California Sierra Nevada range during a solo hiking trip.

She broke both legs.

Thus, began Amy Racina’s four day battle to survive in the remote backcountry wilderness. She details her ordeal; pulling her weight along with both arms, moments of despair, and exhaustion as well as her dramatic rescue.

Have a favorite nonfiction story of survival to share? Please tell us below.

As more than one reviewer has already noted, the very idea of trying to squeeze an “intimate portrait” of Mexico City between the covers of a 336 page book is an ambitious task, one that almost borders on the absurd.

Photo by kainet

First of all, Mexico City is one of the world’s largest cities, with a population of almost 20 million people spread out across 600 square miles. It’s also an old city, dating back several centuries. And then, there are the facts of the city that are just as true but are much harder to nail down: its paradoxes, contradictions, and its chaos.

Yet in his book, First Stop in the New World: Mexico City, The Capital of the 21st Century, American expat turned Mexican citizen David Lida not only manages to capture the Mexican capital’s complexity; he also manages to convey it in an organized, coherent, and engaging narrative.

Price: $17.13 | BUY

There aren’t many books about Mexico City, and those that exist often treat the city and its people like curios in a shop cabinet. Lida avoids the trap, not only because he unabashedly loves the city, but because he gets out on its streets, talks with people, and lets them tell their own stories.

He talks with taxi drivers and white collar executives, prostitutes and the pious (not necessarily mutually exclusive groups, to be sure), and politicians, who fall somewhere in between.

At moments, I found myself wishing I’d read this book before I moved to Mexico City. It’s better and more useful than any conventional guidebook.

Lida covers a lot of physical ground here—from the rough-around-the-edges Tepito neighborhood, notorious for being the world capital of pirated goods, to the tony neighborhood of Polanco, where the main avenue is lined with luxury flagship stores, including Chanel, Tiffany, and Hermes.

Photo by Nicholas Babaian

He talks about history, he acknowledges modern day problems, including crime, and puts them into context, and he envisions the Mexico City of the future.

You could read it straight through or pick and choose chapters at your leisure; either way, First Stop in the New World is engaging.

Lida says in the beginning of the book that he hopes First Stop in the New World reads as a love letter to his adopted city. It does. It’s not always a romantic love letter—it’s a real one. But in the end, that’s the very best kind… the one where the lover sees the beloved as fantastic yet flawed, and still, wakes up every day and chooses to love her.

Photo by Senioscopia

1. Field Guide to Wilderness Medicine by Paul S. Auerbach, Howard J. Donner, and Eric A. Weiss

A condensed version of Auerbach’s Wilderness Medicine, Field Guide to Wilderness Medicine is a must-have for travelers not only because of its conveniently compact size, but also because it provides important information and solutions to unique medical situations.

Auerbach helps readers identify symptoms, execute immediate treatments, and make use of whatever materials they have on hand in very easy to understand language. You won’t find any esoteric medical wording here.

While filled with specialized information, this book is written with a non-medical audience in mind. Auerbach even includes drawings and color plates to help readers identify various skin rashes, plants, snakes, insects, and more.

Poisoned? This book will tell you what to do next. Injured at a high altitude? This book will tell you which steps to take.

2. Travel and Tropical Medicine Manual by Elaine C. Jong and Russell McMullen

For travelers who are currently in or plan on leaving for tropical destinations, the Travel and Tropical Medicine Manual is a practical guide to health problems commonly encountered in such environments.

From Malaria to Lyme disease, this book covers the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment topics for today’s travelers. Included are passages written specifically for pregnant travelers as well as HIV-infected travelers.

And most importantly, it is incredibly concise! No need to flip through pages of verbose descriptions or unessential information.

This book gets right down to what world travelers’ need to know when navigating tropical locations. It’s small enough to fit in any pack you’ve decided to bring.

3. Where There Is No Doctor by Jane Maxwell, Carol Thuman, and David Werner

Referred to as the “Bible” of health education, Where There Is No Doctor is often considered to be the most widely-used health care manual in the world.

This book offers practical, no-nonsense information on prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of various common diseases, including specific information for children and adults. It has been translated into more than 75 languages and is specifically tailored for readers without a medical background.

In straightforward language and easy to understand diagnostic charts, this book is essential for any traveler that ventures to areas far from medical centers where doctor care is unavailable. Interested in volunteering abroad?

This book should be the first thing you pack. Planning to join the Peace Corps? This book should sit alongside your toothbrush.

Photo by Paul Keller

A few that immediately come to mind? Rosemary Mahoney’s Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, and John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley.

The trick with these types of narratives is for the author to work his or her way out of the funk while writing a tale that’s both more accessible and more meaningful to the reader than a painfully self-conscious diary.

Price; $27.00 | BUY

In his first book, Walking to Guantanamo, author Richard Fleming only partly succeeds in executing the trick artfully.

Fleming, who says goodbye to his girlfriend, sublets his Brooklyn apartment, and sets off for a four month walk across Cuba, admits that his only motive is to try to overcome a nagging feeling of personal and professional stagnation by responding to some inexplicable internal call to explore Cuba by foot.

By the end of the book, he confesses that “since I never knew what I was looking for, I can scarcely claim to have found it.”

The reader feels as unresolved about the tale as Fleming does, and wonders along with the writer whether his “experience was too mundane even to bother writing down.”

The answer is “Yes” in the Havana chapters of the book, which include all the characters and objects familiar to anyone who has been there: Telenovelas, rum, long lines, crowded buses, Santeria, and the “time capsule” quality that tourists so frequently see in Cuba’s capital.

These chapters would be more enjoyable for someone who hasn’t traveled to Cuba, but for regular visitors, the scenes are predictable and even tiresome.

Photo by Sami Keinänen

But then there are the chapters in which Fleming narrates his experiences tromping in tropical swamps and backwoods with birders and taking in a decima competition in the town of Las Tunas.

It’s in these places where both Fleming and his reader are at their best, learning new things together, and suddenly the tedious moments of the trip—like any good journey—seem worth having suffered.

Like Fleming, I went through ups and downs with this book. Ultimately, though, I appreciated that in his quest to grapple with a particular kind of ennui many Cubans would find curious. He took the time to get deep into Cuba and to share stories that were anything but mundane.

Stories that no one else has told.

Photo by Ahron de Leeuw

If visiting Asia isn’t in your travel plans this year, why not check out 9 Reasons to Visit Sri Lanka in 2009, 7 Classic Adventure Spots in Asia, and Why You Should Travel Independently on the Trans-Siberian Railway for a change of mind?

You could also seek out opportunities to volunteer during your travels. In A is for Attitude Adjustment: Learning How to Teach & Live in China, Virginia Fortner implores us to look outside ourselves and reach out to others.

We also profiled two organizations doing great community outreach work in Asia – Big Brother Mouse: A Book for Every Child in Laos and For the Children: Thai Mueang Volunteers.

Rough Guides continues to publish solid travel guides covering more than 200 destinations worldwide. Pick up the following guides to stoke your wanderlust.

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The thought is what counts most. Nothing is truer when faced with the Christmas gift-giving season.

What is your sister’s passion? Your friend’s daily regiment? Your father’s hobby? The total bill for presents can grow fast – at an alarming pace actually.

Photo by Jonas N

Here are a few examples of presents that will keep your wallet in check…along with your bank account.

1. A book

A good book is priceless in value, but can be bought for much less. If you have enjoyed time spent with a particular novel or story, why not buy the tale for someone else you think would appreciate it?

You can also choose from Best Of lists on the web, such as Time Magazine’s 100 Best Novels of All Time.

A great example is George Orwell’s classic Animal Farm which can be bought for under $10.

Photo by Ian Wilson

2. Gift Cards

Sure, they can be perceived as a bit cold. So make it a warmer option by putting some thought into what the person likes along with a nice handwritten note.

Are they into motorcycles, but you don’t know the first thing about the industry? No problem. Take notice of what brand they wear or use a Google search to find the most popular motorcycle stores.

Websites like Moto Leather offer gift cards. From there, they can choose what suits them best!

Photo by Super Dave Chen

3. Pictures

Everyone loves to see themselves – especially when the picture is flattering. If you have some good photos of your present-recipient, get them printed at a site like www.snapfish.com.

Sites like Snapfish and Kodak gallery can also make the pictures into calendars, photo albums, posters and more.

Photo by adobemac

4. The Mug

Do they drink coffee or tea every morning? Perhaps they are Matador fans as well? Then they would enjoy a quality mug or two.

Price: $15.99 – $18.99 | BUY

5. Drink Up

So they like a cocktail every now and then? Perfect!

Give them another label than their usual, but one that is known for being of good quality. Sites like The Fifty Best’s Wine Detective will help out in deciding the proper brand.

They like smooth, clean tasting tequila? Try out Mission Liquor & Wines for ideas.

Photo by Lola Akinmade

6. 30 Minute Massage

Your friend has had a great, but hard and long year. What better way to treat them than to a massage? This present’s price depends on their geographical location, but deals for under $40 abound if you know where to look. Spa Finder maintains a comprehensive listing of spas and massage boutiques all over the country.

Photo by thomaswanhoff

7. Planning Next Year

Are they disorganized? Or maybe too organized? In either case, an elegantly designed daily planner for the upcoming year could be a welcomed gift. Amazon offers a plethora of daily planners.

Photo by the prodigal untitled13

8. For Smokers

How many times have you heard people ask for a light? Solve their search with a quality lighter such as the Zippo Lighter High Chrome Polished model for $13.85.

Photo by abbynormy

Editor’s Note – For family members and friends trying to kick the habit, books such as How To Quit Smoking Even If You Don’t Want To and smoking cessation kits like SmokeRX can get them started.

9. Magazines

So they are not fans of reading lengthy books. But they do like to be informed on the latest technology, or perhaps the newest fashions. Whatever their tastes and passions are, there is a magazine waiting to be subscribed to. Check out Mags Direct or other online magazine websites to buy year subscriptions.

Photo by striatic

10. Music

Many years ago my dad was introduced to Nirvana’s Unplugged album during Christmas time – it was a hit for him. Something that he never would have looked for on his own, but tunes he thoroughly enjoyed.

Do you know someone who loves music, but probably hasn’t heard of a particular group? Do you have an idea of the type of music they like?

Burn them a disc, buy them credit on iTunes, or grab the album itself from Amazon.

Photo by Prettyinskulls

Community Connection

Need more gift ideas? Check out the articles below:

12 Stocking Stuffers for Travelers
Armchair Travel: Holiday Shopping
Top 10 Last-Minute Gifts for Your Favorite Traveler

So of course we’re thrilled to see his first book, Where Am I Wearing?, hit bookstores everywhere.

Photo by gabyu

Luckily, when I was preparing to write this review, I never had to worry about that connection getting in my way. The book is such a pleasure to read that there was no conflict between my Matador loyalties and my obligation to give a fair review.

Where Am I Wearing? tells the story of Timmerman’s travels to Honduras, Bangladesh, Cambodia and China, in search of the workers who made his favorite clothes.

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Along the way, he interviews a supermodel-turned-activist, teaches children to play frisbee at the Phnom Penh city dump, and gets yelled at over a long-distance phone call by a corporate bigshot in California.

The end result of all these adventures is a compelling mixture of personal anecdote, humor and insight, all informed by extensive research into the history and economics of the global garment industry.

One thing should be made clear:

Where Am I Wearing? is neither an anti-sweatshop screed nor an in-depth economic analysis of global labor patterns.

Timmerman has obviously done a lot of background reading, and the book is highly informative, but the facts are woven into the story rather than being delivered in hard-to-digest, expository chunks.

Readers might also be surprised by the neutrality, or uncertainty, of the author at some points: being anti-sweatshop and anti-child labor, after all, has become the default position of nearly all progressive liberal types.

But what Timmerman discovers is that — surprise! — things on the ground aren’t that simple.

Photo by txd

He asks some tough questions, of himself and the people he meets, and is disarmingly honest about the answers he finds, however uncomfortable they might be.

So if WAIW? isn’t an anti-sweatshop rant or a regurgitation of global labor statistics, what’s it all about?

In a word: People.

The emphasis throughout the book is on the local people Timmerman meets: mainly workers, but also farmers, activists, bureaucrats, and even (gasp!) factory owners and management.

It’s about their daily routines, their dreams for the future, and their concerns today.

It’s also about the ways in which his meetings with these people change Timmerman himself, and his perspective as an average American consumer.

This book may be an unusual mixture of travelogue, history, economics and activism, but throughout, it remains consistently honest, funny and insightful.

Whether you’d like to learn more about the global garment industry, or you simply enjoy a good travel story, Where Am I Wearing? is worth cracking the spine on.

Community Connection:

Be sure to check out our accompanying Q&A with Kelsey Timmerman, over at Matador Life

Want to learn more about the global garment industry and responsible consumerism? Check out these recommendations:

Photo by TKnoxB

In Rwandan Genocide “Masterminds” Convicted, Sentenced, Matador Pulse editor Eva Holland gives us an update on one of the worst genocides the world has ever witnessed.

“More than 18 years later, three of the leaders behind the Rwandan genocide have been convicted of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and sentenced to life in prison,” she writes.

Matador members Aimee and Ryan blogged about their experiences while visiting the Genocide Museum in Kigali, Rwanda. One of our member organizations, Nursery of Peace Organization based in Rwanda is actively working to educate and empower genocide survivors.

Focusing on Rwanda today, Eva sends us a list of books and movies that provide excellent education on Rwanda and its bitter history.

Shake Hands with the Devil

Eva Holland - “Powerful story of the genocide as witnessed by Canadian general Romeo Dallaire, the leader of UN forces in Rwanda at the time. He tells the wrenching story of being forced to watch the killing unfold, and being ordered not to intervene. Dallaire later attempted suicide.”

Price: $13.11 | BUY

You can also check out the documentary, The Journey of Romeo Dallaire.

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We Wish To Inform You…

The book, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families, is a collection of gripping stories and interviews with a cross section of Rwandans, from victims to opposition groups, and much more.

Price: $10.20 | BUY

Hotel Rwanda

This near flawless movie depicts the Rwanda genocide through the eyes of a hotel manager, Paul Rusesabagina played by actor Don Cheadle. Rusesabagina saved 1,200 fellow Rwandas by hiding them in his hotel. Cheadle gives his best performance to date.

Eva Holland - “I thought this one was pretty well-done, for a Hollywood movie. Restrained rather than sensational, and a better movie for it.”

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Machete Season

In this book, 10 militia members, all friends from the same village, speak out in interviews detailing their participation in the genocide.

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Aiding Violence

Eva Holland - “Thought-provoking academic work that offers controversial arguments about the role the international development industry played in setting the stage for genocide in Rwanda.”

Price: $26.00 | BUY

Some say that the best books to take on your travels are light, easy reads that don’t require much brain power.

Photo by kalandrakas

While it’s definitely easier to concentrate on the latest crime thriller while waiting for a train, there is also a place in your backpack for more meditative or reflective books that can stimulate the inner journey.

1. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance By Robert M. Pirsig

This 1974 book became a bestseller in its day and has remained a cult classic. Pirsig gives an account of a 17 day motorcycle trip across America, interspersed with reflections on Western philosophy and Zen Buddhism.

Because of the sense of movement and adventure in the book, as well as deeper reflections, I recently found it an especially good read while enjoying slow afternoons in Southeast Asia.

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2. The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches By Matsuo Basho

Basho was a brilliant haiku poet from 17th century Japan. He spent his time wandering around meeting locals, seeking enlightenment, and having a good time.

Even though his books are hundreds of years old, his detailed and often hilarious tales of adventures provide inspiration for, and often outdo, any modern traveler.

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3. Walden By Henry David Thoreau

This classic of American literature has inspired many to live a simpler life, or head out into the wilderness to commune with nature. Thoreau wrote the book after he decided to ditch civilization for awhile and build a hut near Concord where he experimented in living simply.

His reflections on nature, society and simplicity resonate with many travelers who enjoy the less complicated lifestyle of backpacking.

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4. Tao Te Ching By Lao Tzu

In this classic text of Taoist spirituality, Lao Tzo presents 81 segments of philosophical explorations. It contains insights into human relationships, leadership, and how to coexist with nature.

The Tao Te Ching is great to travel with, as its short aphorisms are grounded in the present, challenging our perceptions and encouraging a sense of mindfulness about how we interact with new cultures and environments.

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5. The Art of Travel By Alain De Botton

This recent work by the prolific English writer deals with some deeper philosophical issues of travel. Drawing on the ideas of previous travelers and explorers, De Botton investigates concepts such as anticipation, the exotic, and possession of beauty.

It might sound dense, but he’s able to write about philosophical issues in a way that is easy to digest, especially during quiet moments on a train or a flight.

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6. Siddhartha By Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse’s short novel describes an Indian boy’s spiritual journey and is renowned for its allegorical exploration of Buddhist ideas and teachings.

An underlying message is the importance of experience for spiritual and personal growth. check sp of book title and author name.

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7. Moby Dick By Herman Melville

Despite its hefty size, this modern classic is worth including in your backpack. A legendary story about inner travel accompanying outward adventures, the colorful characters are memorable and may well be reflected in those you meet on your own trip.

Price: $9.95 | BUY

8. The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Supposedly one the twentieth century’s most significant books of spiritual inspiration, and a classic of 1960’s counter culture. With links to the Ba’hai faith, as well as Christian mysticism, Kahlil’s beautiful prose covers diverse topics and issues of the human condition.

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9.The Chronicles of Narnia By C.S. Lewis

This classic is addictive to read, and the perfect thing to absorb you during the down times of travel. While having a gripping narrative, C.S. Lewis also delivers insights into Christian spirituality.

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10. Book of Haikus By Jack Kerouac

The famous beat generation traveler experimented extensively with the haiku form. Like his predecessors, including Basho, Kerourac added playfulness as well as a spiritual astuteness to his poetry, often in the context of travel.

Why take Kerouac’s haiku in your backpack? Because they’re short and palatable to read.

Also, by describing in detail a moment or place in time, haikus encourage us to do the same within our new surroundings.

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I love James Michener novels so much people make fun of me for it. His books are thick and they usually have one word titles.

Photo by ckaroli

Michener takes what could be a dry subject and educates you while also entertaining you with drama in his narrative style.

He wrote over forty books, most of them centered on specific places.  The books were historical accounts of people and places told using fictional characters. These characters make you care about the events they are experiencing.

No matter how much I already know about a place, I always come away from a Michener book excited about everything I just learned and wanting to go there on my next trip.

Photo by Ed Yourdon

At the beginning of each of his books, Michener tells the reader what is history and what he made up. When a character is fictional, the conditions and experiences of that person are still crucial to the overall story. They provide the framework for understanding the major events in the book.

I haven’t read a bad Michener book. All of them are good, but the five below are excellent choices.

1. Alaska

This book tells the story of America’s wildest land – a land that still seems untamed today. Along the way, you will learn about Alaska’s early Russian history, the native people of the Arctic, the settlers, and the Gold Rush.

For me, Michener has always made history resonate. This book will make you want to go to Alaska and see where all this took place.

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2. The Source

This book uses the framework of an archaeological mound to tell the story of Judaism. The mound is the remains of a fictional city in Israel. Michener presents the chapters as layers of the mound. You get to see, chronologically, how the inhabitants lived their lives through successive generations.

This is an entertaining way to learn about the Jewish Middle East, from the life of early Hebrews to modern Israel.

Price: $10.85 | BUY

3. Texas

I moved to Texas recently. I didn’t know anything about the place, so I picked up Michener’s book on the topic. The book explains the interactions between the many groups of pioneers that settled the area.

Michener never presents just one side of a story. He takes great care to present a strong Mexican heritage along with the American spirit that clashed with it. Germans, Scots, and Native Americans all play their parts. The story is intricate because that reflects how the world often behaves.

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4. Caribbean

Covering this diverse area in a short time span (albeit in only 800 pages), this book island hops through the time of the Mayans, Christopher Columbus, cannibals, New World colonies, and Castro. I am sure that most people on their serene Caribbean vacation don’t think about the history of their destination.

When I go, I will want to reread this book.

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5. The Covenant

This epic is a chronicle of South Africa’s history. Michener churned out another 1200+ page brick of a masterpiece. You get to absorb the story of Afrikaners, Zulus, spice merchants and missionaries.

Most Westerners could use an education in the events of this part of the world, and this is a great place to start.

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A recent 5-week visit to Mexico City gave me cause to acquaint myself with the hot-off-the-presses edition – released September 2008 – of Lonely Planet’s guide to this mega-city.

Photo by DoctorWho

First Impressions

Immediately obvious are the book’s graphical differences from the ordinary Lonely Planet style. Mexico City has a snappier, more modern look. A quick perusal reveals an updated organizational format as well. This took a little getting used to, but before long I was digging the fresh setup.

Pluses

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Mexico City fulfilled its most important task—it kept my agenda full of activities for the entire 35 days of my stay. I never ran out of ideas; in fact, there were many suggestions I didn’t get around to pursuing.

Breadth of information: check.

As a visitor, it can be difficult to discern how deep a guidebook delves, how far off the tourist track it’s able to take you, if it does at all.

I met a local at a bar one night who seemed intent on directing my touristic endeavors. As her jotted list of recommendations spilled farther and farther down the paper napkin, I had to stifle a grin.

Every single entry was familiar; I’d already read about them in the guidebook.

What’s more, many of these attractions were included in the book’s detailed neighborhood walking tours, which transcend the typical foot-tour fare, taking you through narrow alleys and overlooked passageways to uncover obscure interests.

Depth of information: check.

Minuses

Photo by DoctorWho

Each of the main districts is introduced separately, accompanied by a map and list of sights and attractions. Their wining, dining, and accommodation info, however, are sequestered in separate “Eating,” “Drinking,” and “Sleeping” sections.

So a fair amount of page flipping is required to:

1. Read up on a restaurant or hotel, and then

2. Pinpoint it on the appropriate map.

In addition, most LP guides feature an introductory chapter dedicated to the cuisine of the destination. Mexico City offers only a two-page overview at the beginning of the restaurant listings.

Not that I’m incapable of getting to discover the local dishes on my own terms, but a little more in the way of background information would’ve been helpful.

Details on transportation to and from destinations outside the city were also lacking. I frequently found myself yearning for a Mexico country map.

Other Features

The history chapter provides the usual comprehensive facts and timelines and is a useful prerequisite read. Mexico City is also equipped with a wealth of supplemental boxed text throughout.

Standard LP “Gay & Lesbian” content actually gets its own chapter in this edition (albeit a short one), which is worth noting.

The tear-out folding map is a neat addition and, while not perfect, certainly comes in handy.

Photo by DoctorWho

Another new feature is the “Itinerary Builder” table that precedes the neighborhood maps. It lists three sight, restaurant, bar/cafe, and shopping highlights for each district. While you’re likely to forgo the itinerary builder once you dig deeper into the book, it serves as a nice primer for planning outings.

Finally, in a nod to the current transitional state of travel guides, the inside back cover of the book boldly pronounces “THIS IS NOT THE END” and directs you to the new-and-improved LP website.

Overall Grade: A

While not without the occasional botched address, egregious typo, and outright misinformation that plague all guidebooks, Lonely Planet’s latest Mexico City offering gets two thumbs up from this traveler.

The Devil’s Cup is an account of the author’s travels through Africa, Europe, and South America in search for the perfect cup of coffee.

He also explains the history of the beverage and its impact on the evolution of modern culture.

It is written in such a hilarious tone with interesting (and sometimes ridiculous) stories of crossing borders and immersing one’s self in completely different cultures.

His somewhat sarcastic style is entertaining while the material remains insightful.

I enjoyed reading about someone traveling with such a specific motivation.

You also learn a lot about different parts of the world, and how various cultures influence each other.

If you’re interested in travel and hot beverages, this book is a must-read!

Price: $10.17 | BUY

So that Amazon tour didn’t go so well, did it? First, you were separated from your group. Then you twisted your ankle hopping over a Kapok tree.

And now you’re wondering if that cute diminutive orange and blue frog staring at you is the same one you learned about on that TV special, World’s Deadliest Animals.

Photo by Charles & Clint

As unimaginable creatures march toward you and the jungle vegetation starts to crowd your personal space, it’s time to think about a survival plan.

At this fragile moment in your life, while you’re rethinking the decisions that led you to book a ticket to South America—forgoing the beaches of Rio de Janeiro—you could use Les Stroud’s new book, Survive! Essential Skills and Tactics to Get You Out of Anywhere—Alive.

A few years ago, The Discovery Channel started airing a 1-hour documentary show, Survivorman. Each week, Les Stroud, a Canadian outdoorsman, placed himself in a different survival situation to share with the viewers how one can last 7 days in the wilderness with little equipment and no immediate source of food and water.

Photo (c) www.lesstroudonline.com

During the first two seasons, Stroud ventured into such exotic locales as the backwoods of Canada, the African Savannah, the Amazon Rainforest, and Utah’s slick rock desert.

Oh, did I mention he also filmed each episode by himself?

Not only is Stroud an expert survivalist, he’s a filmmaker and musician – he composed the show’s theme music. Between scarfing down an occasional grub and slurping up delicious murky water, he set up his
own cameras and directed each episode on the spot.

Photo by robstephaustralia

At times, he even had to cannibalize his film equipment to access its magnifying lens to start a fire. Completely on his own, he only had a satellite phone link to his distant support camp in case of an emergency.

Now he’s taken the information presented in his show—currently airing its third season—and put it into a book, using still shots from the first two seasons as illustrations. It’s basically a manual, which makes it similar to a “choose your own adventure” novel.

You can look up certain aspects of survival and skip others. Stroud covers 15 major topics, such as “Psychological Aspect of Survival,” “Water,” “Fire,” “Navigation,” and “First Aid.”

Price: $13.57 | BUY

For instance, In the chapter titled “Food,” he takes on the dangers of eating wild edibles, insects, and other critters. Stroud also discusses various techniques to trap animals and fish.

He doesn’t attempt to hide the fact that reading the book is necessary but not sufficient to survive successfully in the wild.

After all, not only do the techniques require equal parts practice and patience, when faced with a life or death situation, they’re not going to be any easier.

In clear, straightforward prose, Stroud reveals his practicality.

“My feelings on drinking urine?” he writes after discussing its historical and modern precedent in survival situations, “Don’t do it.”

After spending a week in a swamp in Georgia, he writes “while a swamp bed can get you out of the water, it can’t get you away from the alligators.”

Photo by Warren H

Survive!, unfortunately, is too thick and heavy to consider taking on any sort of trip. But the information provided is no less valuable.

And if Stroud’s “essential skills” of survival in the wilderness warrant more than 350 pages, then newbies to the outdoors beware—you’ve got a lot of ground to make up quickly.

Therefore, let’s think of the book less as “survival essentials” and more as “beginner through intermediate level tactics” for surviving nearly any wilderness situation you can imagine.

So after you snap a photo of that frog, you might want to think about dismantling the camera and starting a fire.

It’s going to be a long night.

Price: $13.57 | BUY

Maybe you tried one of Chef Francisco Collazo’s  scrumptious Five New Turkey Recipes to Spice Up This Thanksgiving.

Photo by D’Arcy Norman

Above all, Thanksgiving is all about gratitude for the necessities in life and sharing with others – even just by listening to them. As Matador Senior Editor David Miller pointed out in Happy Thanksgiving, Happy National Day of Listening, “listening to the stories around us–and helping to share them–makes for a richer, more connected and meaningful world.”

So ideally, thanksgiving should be celebrated daily.

Here are a few books to get you better prepared for next year’s festivities.

Thanksgiving by Glenn Alan Cheney

This book spotlights the pilgrims’ first year in America. It focuses on the struggles of the pilgrims as they began their journey on the Mayflower. It provides an in depth historical overview of the stories behind the tradition.

Price: $17.56 | BUY

Thanksgiving 101 by Rick Rodgers

Rick Rodgers walks you through everything you need to know for cooking up the perfect thanksgiving feast. The book covers every detail from appetizers and beverages to various pies and desserts as well as teaches you how to avoid the dreaded “dry” turkey through buying, thawing, prepping, and roasting techniques.

Price: $12.76 | BUY

Giving Thanks: The Gifts of Gratitude by M. J. Ryan

Delving into the movement of gratitude and why it’s crucial to our daily sustenance, this book inspires us all to be better individuals filled with thanks for both what we have and do not have.

Price: $11.53 | BUY

Here is an excerpt from the book – Gratitude connects us to others and feeling gratitude allows us to be our best selves–in good times and in hard times. When we are truly grateful, we can count on living the life we want.

Photo by zaido

As you curl up comfortably in your favorite chair with a steaming cup of coffee on the table next to you, any one of these eight travel fiction books will aid you in flights of fantasy and imagination.

1. Jack London – The Call of The Wild

Where would a list of adventure stories be without the inclusion of Jack London? This American literary hero inspired beat writers such as Jack Kerouac to leave behind the conventional American Dream and hit the road.

The Call of the Wild mirrors this idea, as it follows the transformation of Buck, a civilized dog, into the leader of a team of dogs pulling a sled through the Yukon territory during the Klondike Gold Rushes.

The depiction of the frozen wastelands and the brutality of conditions, of which London had first hand experience, makes this book essential adventure reading.

Price: $4.99 | BUY

2. J.R.R Tolkein – The Hobbit

Although more widely recognized for his magnum opus, Lord of The Rings, the author’s prequel, The Hobbit, is just as good a travel story, if not better, for its simplicity. We follow the travels of the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, who doesn’t go looking for adventure but has it thrust upon him by his friend, Gandalf the Wizard.

He ventures ‘far over the misty mountains cold, to dungeons deep and caverns old‘, as he aids a group of hobbits in a quest to regain their treasure and former stronghold from the notorious dragon, Smaug.

Bilbo encounters giant spiders, trolls, and other fantastical creatures along his travels, as he leaves behind his former, homely self, and becomes an unlikely hero.

Price: $16.50 | BUY

3. D H Lawrence – The Plumed Serpent

This novel follows the adventures of a mature widowed woman, Kate, vacationing in Mexico. On her travels she encounters a movement attempting to overthrow the well-established Catholic religion with one supposedly more suited to the Mexican soul- a revival of the Aztec God, Quetzalcoatl.

This encounter culminates in Kate becoming a Goddess for this religion; Malintzi, a symbol of feminine submissiveness.

The book is an interesting read, not only because of the intricacies of its plot but for the controversy of its perceptions in terms of the relationship between men and women, and of its depiction of the dark, primitive nature of the Mexican soul.

Price: $4.99 | BUY

4. Jonathan Swift – Gulliver’s Travels

Written in the 18th Century by the well-known English satirist, Swift, this book has four parts, the most well known being ‘Voyage to Lilliput‘, in which Gulliver, a sailor, is shipwrecked upon an Island and finds himself the prisoner of the Lilliputians – tiny human beings only a few inches tall.

His attempt to aid the Lilliputians in a feud against a neighboring island, is a comment by Swift on the fighting between Catholics and Protestants in England.

Whether you’re interested in English 18th Century politics or not, there is more than enough surreal detail to draw in the reader, such as giant wasps, and grotesquely ugly humanoid creatures called Yahoos.

Price: $9.95 | BUY

5. Ernest Hemingway – Old Man and The Sea

Hemingway’s novels are full of solitary, determined adventurers, and this one is no exception.

This novella follows the voyage of an old fisherman who has hooked a fish on his line but does not have the strength to reel it in- it is a battle of wills, lasting days and nights across the sea, to see who will tire first.

The story itself is simple, but each sentence is perfectly constructed to convey the long, bittersweet sense of waiting and anticipation.

Price: $9.60 | BUY

6. Jules Verne – 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

No list of travel stories would ever be complete without the inclusion of Jules Verne. Verne also authored Around the World in 80 Days and Journey to the Center of The Earth.

This book originally published in 1869 is a real page turner, populated with giant squids, submarines and sticky situations- symbolic of how adventure stories should be.

Verne should be doubly credited with a powerful imagination. According to Wikipedia, “Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before navigable aircraft and practical submarines were invented, and before any means of space travel had been devised“.

Price: $4.99 | BUY

7. Virginia Woolf – The Voyage Out

Woolf’s first novel follows a naive English girl, Rachel, on her first trip abroad across the sea from London to South America.

Not only does the landscape depicted in Woolf’s lyrical, experimental prose change, but so does Rachel as she changes and develops as a person.

It is a bittersweet coming of age story, illustrative of how travel broadens your horizons.

Price: $11.90 | BUY

8. Joseph Conrad – The Heart of Darkness

In this Victorian novella, Marlowe, a steamboat captain, recounts a tale of a job he took on the river Congo in Africa.

In this tale, he is instructed to find and rescue a man named Kurtz, who has become lost in native territory. Kurtz is found on his deathbed and befriended by Marlowe, who is privy to his last words- ‘the horror, the horror!’

These words, it seems, summarize his experiences in the dark heart of African culture, and the book is indeed notable for its psychological depth and its ambiguities- the “supposed” good of Western civilization versus the tribal primitiveness that Conrad evokes in his ornate descriptions.

Price: $10.69 | BUY

If you find any of these choices unsuitable, here’s your quintessential fallback, Plan B…

Jack Kerouac – On The Road

This book can be found in so many travelers’ rucksacks that it has almost become a stereotype.

One of the most important texts of the beat generation, Kerouac persuaded travelers to uproot themselves and leave.

In this book full of wild nighttime voyages across America, we can celebrated, along with Kerouac, the joys of good company, of lonely cold hitchhiking ventures, and the somewhat romantic notion of having just the change in your pocket to your name.

Price: $10.88 | BUY

In many ways, the goals of travel are most purely realized through adventure.

Commenting on this, Mark Jenkins said that “Adventure is a path. Real adventure—self-determined, self-motivated, often risky—forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it.”

Photo by albatros11

Here are eight books that are some of the greatest travel adventure stories ever told.

1. Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger

Thesiger’s account of his trips through the treacherous “Empty Quarter” of southern Arabia with Bedouin nomads is beautifully evocative. Often cited as an example of the best of travel writing, Arabian Sands is also interesting because it captures a region in the last moments before the discovery of oil would change it forever.

Price: $10.20 | BUY

2. A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby

One mark of an adventure is the exploration of something new or unknown. Newby’s account of his time in Afghanistan, a place which, at that time, had not seen an English vistor in decades, certainly bears this mark.

The almost impulsive choice to leave his life in London and travel to a nearly forgotten corner of the world can serve as an inspiration to any traveler at heart who is trapped in a sedentary life.

Price: $10.19 | BUY

3. Tracks by Robyn Davidson

Explaining the motivations behind an adventure can be impossible. However, in recounting her 1,700 mile walk across the Australian desert, Robyn Davidson does an exceptional job of providing insight to the unknowable.

This cult classic is an inspiration to all independent travelers driven by inexplicable forces to continue traveling.

Price: $10.17 | BUY

4. Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft by Thor Heyerdahl

Norwegian ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl heard folktales that implied the South Seas Islands had been populated by a people who had traveled thousands of miles by sea.

To Heyerdahl, the idea sounded plausible and he set out to prove it. Kon-Tiki tells the incredible story of Heyerdahl’s 4,300 mile journey across the Pacific Ocean in a raft.

Price: $25.00 | BUY

5. Papillon by Henri Charriere

In 1931, Henri Charriere was convicted in Paris for a murder he did not commit and sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colonies of French Guiana. The story of his survival there, and his numerous attempts at escape against impossible odds, is one of the greatest tales of adventure ever told.

Price: $28.00 | BUY

6. My Journey to Lhasa by Alexandra David-Neel

Even today, traveling overland to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, is a long and difficult journey. Making the trip in 1924, when the kingdom was closed to foreigners, was nearly unbelievable.

Add to this the fact that the adventurer was a woman of the Victorian era, who had to defy all societal conventions and disguise herself as a man to make such a trip possible, and you have an incredible and inspiring account of daring and adventure that nearly cannot be matched.

Price: $10.17 | BUY

7. Touching the Void by Joe Simpson

In his concise narrative, Joe Simpson tells the story of his attempt to climb one of the world’s most dangerous mountains, and how everything went terribly wrong. This excellent book confronts many of the questions that are central to adventure in a way that is meaningful and insightful.

Price: $10.17 | BUY

8.Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing

In 1914, Shackleton set out on an expedition to cross Antarctica via an overland route. When his ship, Endurance, was iced-in then crushed in 1915, he was forced to lead his surviving crew on a journey for survival that is now legendary.

Alfred Lansing’s excellent account of this adventure is based on the diaries of Shackleton and his crew and adds considerable depth to the story, originally told by Shackleton himself in South.

Price: $10.17 | BUY

The call of adventure is always there, so toss one of these great books in your pack and set off for the unknown.

Photo by John Althouse Cohen

Now you’re considering packing up your textbooks and heading overseas but you’re faced with so many destination choices. Why not consider Chile?

This week on Matador, we’ve also been spotlighting the South American gem that is Chile.

In 8 Natural Wonders of Chile, Julie Schwietert re-introduced us to Chile and its magnificant landscape – from the massive glaciers of Tierra del Fuego to the sweeping sand dunes of the Atacama desert.

Photo by cesargp

She also reminded us that global warming is currently threatening these natural wonders in Global Warming Is Real.

Here are a few books on studying abroad and choosing Chile as a viable option.

How to Survive in the Chilean Jungle

Touted as the perfect book to “help anyone understand the Chilean people”, this book introduces Chile as a great location to study abroad in and travel within. It prepares you with the essential local slang you need to know before heading off to Chile.

Price: $19.99 | BUY

Study Abroad 101

Your ultimate introductory guide to the whole process of studying abroad. It covers topics from passport and visa issues and managing money abroad to lifestyle changes and keeping in touch with family back home.

Price: $15.25| BUY

Moon Chile: Including Easter Island

You may want to explore all the natural beauty your host country has to offer while living there so grab a comprehensive guide to Chile.

Price: $15.61 | BUY

Study Away: The Unauthorized Guide to College Abroad

This book spotlights 68 schools around the world that provide degree programs in English. It includes campus descriptions, cultural information, housing options, and other tips for making the study abroad process smoother.

Price: $11.86 | BUY

After I had gotten some European travel under my belt, I read this book because I was beginning to explore some areas of the world I had little experience with.

Pelton’s book not only equips travelers with practical information and tips for travel in “dangerous places” but he also includes some solid background on those regions.

His writing style is unique in that it presents a lot of potentially negative information in a humorous and frank manner.

Whether you’re stuck without water in a desert, find yourself face to face with predatory animals, or have just been kidnapped, there are tons of tips that prepare you to handle challenging situations.

This book should be read by all travelers looking to go to a distant land that (unfortunately) frequents newspaper headlines.

BUY Come Back Alive

Their first title, Travelling Europe takes you through planning for travel within the continent with practical, in-depth answers to common questions designed as chapter titles.

Chapter titles range from “Should I learn another language? Which ones?” to “Do you use budget airlines? What should I look out for?“.

There are also sections on solo and family travel penned by guest authors so you’re bound to find a chapter that speaks directly to your current travel question.

And now for a short while,  Indie Travel Guides is offering the Matador Community 30% off its eBook, audiobook or combo pack.

To get this deal, be sure to use the coupon code “earlybird9xie” – Click here to buy now.

Hurry up as this offer lasts until November 15th.

From Indie Travel Guides: “Remember that Indie Travel Guides give you free updates for life, offers a money back guarantee, and can be put on unlimited devices“.

Feature photo by: Al lanni

As a frequent contributor to Matador Nights, it is no surprise that I love parties. The atmosphere. The excitement. The people. The drinks.

Parties are a wonderful way to have fun, get to know new people, and experience a new culture. They can be a great window into a new culture- from social habits and patterns, to set up, to food and drinks.

You can learn a lot about a place by seeing how people get festive.

Photo by MorphoMir

So when I had the chance to read the book, Party Across America, I jumped at the chance. The book, written by Michael Guerriero, highlights the 101 best parties and events in the United States. No state, no region is left unturned in the author’s pursuit of a good time.

The book is well organized and information is presented in a fun, easy to read, and informative manner befitting a party book. All the famous (Mardi Gras, Bay to Breakers, Burning Man) and the not so famous parties are here. (Did you know there is a pumpkin throwing festival in Delaware!?)

Photo by DoctorWho

In many ways, Guerriero’s book is a party version of “1000 Places to See Before You Die,” with its descriptions and information. There’s a good description of each event, its origins, and what makes it one of the top parties (Hint: alcohol, people, and crazy theme).

I read through the book and was intrigued by all the interesting and unique parties, the facts, the figures, but most importantly, the tips. At the end of each party, Guerriero gives a few party tips so people can blend in better with the festivities.

These little tips give a lot of insight into each event in terms of what to bring and how to behave. But I wondered how accurate was it.

I haven’t been to all 101 parties so I had no way of knowing. I flipped to the section on Massachusetts (my home state) and saw three events I knew: St. Patrick’s Day, the Boston Marathon, and Fugawi (a sailing festival).

As I read his descriptions and tips, I thought- “He got it.” The author was able to accurately give the significance of the event while describing the party pretty well.

His tips are equally as good.

For example, one of the biggest parties in Boston, the Boston Marathon, he nailed all the good places to go. The Boston Marathon is one of the biggest events of the year. World famous for its race, it’s also famous locally for its party. Marathon Monday is a de facto holiday in the city with everyone outside drinking and chanting on the runners.

Photo by Paul Keleher

Guerriero tells the story of the marathon and the festivities accurately with direct statements, easy writing, and interesting facts. (Also, he got all the good places to go right! Good job!). Given his level of detail with these events, I can only assume the rest of the book hit its mark, too.

My only complaint with this book is the lack of pictures. Nothing conveys the craziness of a party like a good photo and while there is a lot of information here, some of the “wow” factor of the parties is lost without photos to accompany them. It would have made for a more powerful book and more intriguing read.

Photo by MorphoMir

However, even without the photos, I enjoyed reading and learning about this great country’s unique and often strange festivities. It makes for a great coffee table book- a book to peruse when you need a little inspiration to get in the party mood or looking for a new festival to go to.

Like 1000 Places to See Before You Die, it will give you excellent travel….err party…ideas for the road. And like the former, you can always get inspired by just staring at it. It might even give you a reason to host your own party. Overall, Guerriero’s book is an easy read and an excellent read for the party minded traveler.

With Christmas coming around the corner, consider it for a nice stocking stuffer- maybe tie it to a case of beer, too.

Price: $10.36 | BUY

Photo by Eneko Alonso

It’s such a fixture on the travel calendar that Matador named it one of the ten best parties in the world. We even published a feature guide to getting there (and getting out unscathed).

Of course, we’re not all going to make it to Pamplona next year, or even the year after that. And even if we could all go, we don’t all have the temperament to play tag with 6000 pounds worth of angry bulls. (I know I could never do it!)

For those of us who may never make the famous run, here are some alternative armchair thrills: a few good reads about the running of the bulls.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway’s first major novel helped entrench the running of the bulls in the popular consciousness. It’s a must-read for anyone interested in the Spanish festival.

Price: $10.20 | BUY

Pamplona: Running the Bulls, Bars and Barrios in Fiesta de San Fermin by Ray Mouton

Ray Mouton’s book emphasizes the sensory experience of attending Pamplona’s famous fiesta, with lush descriptions and more than 100 glossy photos. It also explores the history of the event, and how the American fascination with it has affected the tradition.

Price: $18.71 | BUY

Run To The Sun – Pamplona’s Fiesta de San Fermin by Jim Hollander

Finally, if you’re a fan of the coffee table book, then this is the one for you. Hollander spent 25 years snapping the photos in this book, so it captures not only the experience of the fiesta in any given year, but also its progression over time. It’s a labor of love, and quite simply, a work of art.

Price: $80.00 | BUY

More than one admiring writer has gushed that Potts is a “guru,” and I tend to shy away from gurus.

And besides, he looks way too cool in his author photo.

And people who look way too cool….well, they just annoy me.

*

If you’re not guru or cool-person-averse, you’ve probably already heard about Potts’s most recent book, Marco Polo Didn’t Go There: Stories and Revelations from One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer.

There’s been no shortage of press for this book: by the time Marco Polo hit the shelves, Potts was already making rounds on a virtual and physical book tour, stopping here at Matador, World Hum, and Intelligent Travel, among other sites.

Meanwhile, I cracked the spine on my review copy.

Potts is adept at telling an engaging story. Like anyone on the road long enough, he’s accumulated a catalog of travel tales.

The majority Potts shares in Marco Polo are standard traveler fare—getting mugged, making crazy decisions we’d never consider at home in similar situations (like hitching a ride with a carful of strangers), feeling tugged between our conflicting desires to “see the sites,” on the one hand, and to totally avoid them, on the other.

What makes Marco Polo stand out, though, is the way in which Potts tells his stories.

While there are spots that are tiresome—“I’m starting in on my second day on Phi Phi Don island, but… I didn’t write anything yesterday”—Potts gives almost all of his stories depth by enriching his firsthand experiences with research.

Potts is clearly well read.

He references writers as diverse as Walker Percy, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Gustave Flaubert, and he goes home to search for historical details about a place when its local dynamics elude him.

And he’s transparent about his own writing process; perhaps the most interesting part of Marco Polo is the “special commentary track” in which Potts talks about how he constructed his stories and why he made the narrative choices he did.

There are other reasons to like Marco Polo. Potts clearly likes adventure, but fortunately, he’s no Thomas Kohnstamm. Potts respects the people he meets on his travels–never more evident than in “Death of an Adventure Traveler”—and he’s refreshingly free of the macho bluster of so many other travel writers in his age cohort.

Photo by Lola Akinmade

It’s not that Potts is an abstinent, ascetic traveler (he confesses to nurturing a boyish crush on every single one of the bikini clad girls on a ship in the Mediterranean); it’s just that he’s able to keep it in his pants… or to have the discretion not to tell us when he doesn’t.

Marco Polo is a travelogue equal parts entertaining and thought-provoking. I’ll send my review copy to the first reader who leaves his or her Matador profile URL and the reason you’d like this book in the comments section below.

Price: $10.17 | BUY

The company has recently taken it up a notch with the introduction of its new line of Moleskine City Notebooks.

With a slew of maps at different scales in addition to pages for planning your itinerary, metro route maps, and enough blank pages for journaling, it aims to fulfill a myriad of travel planning needs in a pocket-sized book.

The Moleskine City Notebook includes a key map that provides you with a geographical overview of the city, and approximately 36 pages of detailed zone maps from scales of 1:5,000 to 1:17,000.

It also provides an invaluable alphabetized street name index.

From Kyoto, Japan to Turin, Italy, the City Notebooks span 42 locales covering some midsized cities in addition to the regular international powerhouses such as Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin.

Price: $12.21 | BUY

I’ve been a Princess with a Backpack.

In fact, when I first took off for a six-month jaunt around the world, my sister laughed at the concept of me with a backpack, which I thought was rather cruel.

I didn’t take a backpack. My friend and I opted for a large bag that could be wheeled.

And, I must say, after watching the third member of our travel party stagger around like she had a