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I just discovered the Globetrotting Gourmet website, which offers cuisine-based tours in Southeast Asia. The Food Lovers’ Tour of Myanmar looks like an absolutely wonderful trip: December 29, 2006 – Jan 13, 2007

“Usher in the New Year from an ancient land. Discover a country of golden pagodas, and limlitless smiles. In Burma, or Myanmar, you are still treated like a visiting guest, not a tourist. Discover this land of mythical proportions — from Bagan’s 2000 temples dating from the 11th century, to Mandalay’s royal legacy. Inle Lake abounds with tiny man-made islands built of river rushes, and Rangoon is a colonial time warp little touched in over 50 years.

…who joined the LA Times as Senior Producer of LATimes.com/Travel last month. We hope you’ll keep us posted about your new position, and let us know if you need content!

“But in contrast to the rest of the Arabian Peninsula, which is mostly hot, dry and barren, Yemen is practically a cool green paradise, with crisp mountain air, enormous acacia trees, pristine coral reefs and verdant fields bursting with khat, a psychoactive plant that induces mild euphoria.”In recent years, tour operators have started to capitalize on Yemen’s exotic geography as the new frontier in adventure travel. New outfits offer grueling treks to mountaintop villages, four-wheel-drive safaris through untrammeled deserts and sailing voyages aboard ancient dhows to isolated, Galápagos-like islands. And unlike Dubai, the Oz-like emirate on the other side of Saudi Arabia, Yemen is nothing if not authentic.”

“Japanese tend to have a fairly strong kind of inherent belief that genetics and biology really matter in terms of people’s behavior. So I think Japanese might be much more predisposed to thinking about a kind of genetic basis for personality than most Americans would.””Japanese popular culture has been saturated by blood typology for decades. Dating services use it to make matches. Employers use it to evaluate job applicants. Blood-type products — everything from soft drinks to chewing gum to condoms — have been found all over Japan.”
Read the rest of this NYT article, Blood, Sweat and Type O: Japan’s Weird Science, by David Picker, here.

Donna Lawrence recently published her first book: Leave Only Paw Prints, Dog Hikes in San Diego County. “Its publication has led me on a round of interviews, book signings, and presentations that I thought might be terrifying, but have turned out to be fun. People have been so nice! It has really brought me out of my solitary writer’s mindset. Getting out there to talk with people has been an unexpected bonus that came with the book.”

Info about the book, including a clip of a promotional radio interview Donna did, can be found on her website. And for those of us who have friends with dogs in San Diego County, the book can be purchased from the website.

I stumbled across this Art and Culture Guide to Thailand, the “definitive guides to studios, shops, and special places.” Worth checking out if you’re headed in that direction.

The 6th edition of Karen Misuraca’s Insiders’ Guide, Fun with the Family Northern California, has been released.

Those with outlets for travel book reviews are welcome to request a review copy (contact Jane Reilly, Publicity Manager, Globe Pequot Press, publicity@globepequot.com).

The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.

– Socrates

Looking for a holiday gift for a traveling friend? Or for yourself? Here’s the Washington Post’s 2006 list of 20 travel gifts for under $15, $25 and $50. From socks with special pockets sized for passports to mini walkie-talkies that strap onto your wrist, James Bond-style, you’ll surely find something useful here. (Click on the “resource” link.)

Anybody else suffer from “airplane ears”? I just discovered USA Today columnist David Grossman’s website, which includes an article on preventing ear pain on airplanes, as well as lots of other articles of interest to business travelers.

It’s out: the 6th edition of The Travel Writer’s Handbook: How to Write — and Sell — Your Own Travel Experience. “In the new edition of this standard guide, veteran travel writers Louise Purwin Zobel and Jacqueline Harmon Butler cover everything from pre-trip research on the Internet and at the library, to how to obtain writing assignments for websites, to ecotourism and volunteer travel opportunities, to specific marketing strategies and tax information. Written in an accessible, humorous style, the book includes 12 formats for travel articles with surefire appeal to editors and readers, and savvy advice on such topics as finding new angles for overworked subjects and what to take along on the trip.”

January 15, 2007

“If your book(s) expands a reader’s world, introduces a voice society needs to hear, offers practical knowledge where none existed before or entertains so compellingly that all distractions fall away as the reader turns the next page, consider submitting it for ForeWord’s Book of the Year Awards. Submissions for your titles published in 2006 should be postmarked by January 15, 2007.”

More information available here.

Thanks to April Orcutt for forwarding this gift idea: “Grab your passport and go hopping across the continents as you discover the peoples and cultures of our amazing world in this exciting new board game. Circle the globe and answer informative, insightful questions on anything from food and drink to greetings and gestures as you stamp your passport and find out your Cultural Intelligence. What are Albanians likely to do upon befriending a traveler? What does “Big Ben” actually refer to? What country did Panama hats originate in? Open your mind, embrace the world and challenge your knowledge as you explore the world in this dynamic game. Ages 10 to adult. 2 to 6 players.”

Thanks to April Orcutt for sending this info from the State Department website about new passport rules under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI). The proposed implementation timeline has two phases:

Beginning January 23, 2007, ALL persons, including U.S. citizens, traveling by air between the United States and Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda will be required to present a valid passport, Air NEXUS card, or U.S. Coast Guard Merchant Mariner Document.

Thanks to Michael Shapiro for sending this link to Pico Iyer’s Shambala Sun article, Writing Undoes Me, about the process of writing. “To give oneself over to the objective business of writing,” says Pico Iyer, “is to see how subjective the whole business of the self and writing is.”

From Foreword magazine: “The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) has launched a public forum, where users–including individuals, companies, and organizations–can discuss IDPF standards, implementation, and tools. Public drafts of the specifications and an IDPF FAQ are posted at the forum. Free registration is required to post.” Visit the forum here.

Check out the Travel Channel online, where you can read and write destination reviews, chat with other travelers, read travel journals, view travel videos, and enter your own travel video (winning entry gets broadcast, and you could win $1,000)….plus view ads, book a trip, etc.

Here’s a downloadable PDF article, written by by Lynn Wasnak, from Writers Market with guidelines for freelance copywriting and editing rates. It covers everything from comedy writing to editing for scientific journals.

From Lee Azus at Get Lost Travel Books: “What do you buy someone who has everything? How about one of our incredible Mexican calendars? They come all the way from Queretaro, Mexico and have our fabulous logo on them. Each calendar features a single image: Aztec warriors, serenading lovers, the Virgin of Guadalupe, Emiliano Zapata, women lounging on tobacco leaves, leaning on pottery, or pinning back their tresses and more! Get one free when you spend $25.00 in the store. Or, buy them for $1.95 each.”

From Get Lost, here is Alison Knowles’ review of Fried Eggs with Chopsticks: One Woman’s Hilarious Adventure into a Country and a Culture Not Her Own by Polly Evans.

“Having traveled in China myself I laughed uproariously at Evans’ descriptions of traveling by train and bus throughout rural China. The people she meets and the homesickness she feels for a familiar language, face, or food item are all too accurate. Evans studied Chinese before embarking on her journey and yet still has difficulty communicating with waitresses and ticket agents. She suffers from pollution overload and road trip loneliness. Yet at the same time she is able to see some of the most interesting and breath-taking sights in China: the mountains near Tibet, the indigenous tribes near the Burmese border and the crowded high rises in Shanghai. Her stories illustrate the hilarity and frustration that can occur when anyone travels, especially in a country as diverse as China.”

The Writers Guild of America offers members services such as a credit union, health plan, pension plan, a collective bargaining agreement for help with contracts and compensation, research links, and more.

The Society of American Travel Writers is a professional association whose purpose is to:

* Promote responsible journalism
* Provide professional support and development for our members
* Encourage the conservation and preservation of travel resources worldwide.

Our members include writers, photographers, editors, electronic media and journalists, film lecturers, broadcast/video/film producers and public relations representatives.

The North American Travel Journalists Association is the premier professional association of writers, photographers, and editors dedicated to redefining professional development for the travel industry. To join NATJA, applicants must prove only that they are legitimate working travel journalists but do not need “sponsorship” from incumbent members. NATJA’s mission is to support the professional development of its members, provide exceptional benefits and valuable resources, support high quality professional journalism, promote travel and leisure activities to the public, and honor the excellence of journalism throughout the world.

The American Society of Media Photographers is the premier resource for community, culture, commerce and publications relating to publication photography. ASMP is the authoritative voice of publication photographers worldwide.

Left Coast Writersâ„¢ was created to support new and established writers in the production and promotion of their work in a stimulating atmosphere of creativity and community. The group sponsors a monthly literary salon at Book Passage in Corte Madera with an excellent roster of guest speakers on subjects such as writers groups, long and short fiction, publishing, writer-agent relationships and more. Left Coast Writers also hosts member readings and book launch parties.

1st Monday of each month: Literary Salon providing literary counsel, connections, support, readings, writing tips, chat and fun. (LCW members only)
2nd Monday of each month: LCW at the Ferry Building members read from current works; networking afterwards.

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