Jul
18
At a Crossroads
July 18, 2004 | Comments Off
This story is included in the award-winning Lonely Planet anthology, The Kindness of Strangers, edited by Don George and with a preface by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The book includes original stories by Jan Morris, Tim Cahill, Simon Winchester, Pico Iyer, and Dave Eggers, and won both a Lowell Thomas award and an Independent Publishers award. You can read the story here or at Lonely Planet. (2250 words).
I didn’t know whether I was being kidnapped or rescued — that was what made my one big decision so difficult. That and the fact that I was young and foolish, and more than a little anxious about being stranded in the North African desert.
It all began quite innocently. Our bus had deposited Alan, my affable traveling companion, and myself at the door of a small, clean hotel in a dusty Tunisian village …
Jul
14
Banana Tower
July 14, 2004 | Comments Off
This story won an honorable mention in the 2006 Solas Best Travel Writing competition, and was published in Travelers’ Tales’ 30 Days in Italy.
Paris has la Tour Eiffel
Babylon had its tower as well
But neither has the power to SEIZE YA
Like the Leaning Tower of Pisa
This was my father’s rhyme. When I was young, he bounced me on his knee, reciting the words in a hushed and tuneless monotone. Every time he got to SEIZE YA, he grabbed my shoulders and squeezed, and I shrieked in a confusion of fear and delight.
Dec
28
County Cork Travel Journal
December 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Check out this print-on-demand travel journal from a summer 2007 trip, in which a dozen travel writers convened in County Cork, Ireland and wrote about their experiences for the Travelers’ Tales anthology, Venturing in Ireland.
You’ll enjoy photos of the Irish countryside and County Cork landmarks, get a behind-the-scenes look at our adventure, and get to know the writers, who came from the Netherlands, Costa Rica, Washington, DC, and New Orleans, as well as from the SF Bay Area.
Download the journal onto your own computer or order a professionally-bound copy from (lulu.com) here.
Mar
19
Exploring Ireland’s County Cork
March 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment
This show aired on blogtalkradio on March 14, 2007.
Popuar travel writing teachers Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Joanna Biggar are off to County Cork to enjoy the countryside, whale and dolphin watching, and excursions to castles and gardens in southwestern Ireland. (The Kinsale ghost tour sounds fascinating!) Find out more about the writers’ workshops they offer and about the upcoming ten-day intensive in County Cork, from June 25 through July 4, 2007. Workshop participants will be asked to submit stories about Ireland for possible publication in an anthology.
Mar
19
Global Climate Change
March 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment
This show aired on Blogtalkradio on March 14, 2007.
Our show will focuses on hauntingly beautiful Wrangel Island, where the last known woolly mammoths roamed, and where the first impacts of global warming can already be seen.
Tom Brokaw and a team of four world-class scientists will travel to Wrangel Island in July, 2007, aboard the icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnikov, to see the effects of global warming firsthand. There are a few spaces available for passengers who want to participate in this historic adventure.
Jul
19
Keys to the Outback
July 19, 2004 | Comments Off
This story about the time I inadvertently locked the keys in the car in the middle of the Australian Outback was published as in the Travelers’ Tales anthology The Thong Also Rises. You can read it at Travelers’ Tales or below. (1700 words)
“I can’t believe you left them there,” Jim muttered as I squeezed the handle and pulled hard for a third time.
“What do you mean, you can’t believe it? You can see them as well as I can. You’re not going blind, are you?” The keys were clearly visible in the ignition. People were beginning to stare.
Dec
28
North Africa Travel Journal
December 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Check out this travel journal from the 2007 High Country Passage cruise from Malta to the north coast of Africa—Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. It includes photos of spectacular Libyan archaeological sites including Leptis Magna, Cyrene, Sabratha, and Apollonia. There are also some good shots of local Libyans we met at Cyrene, ancient mosaics, the new Bibliotheca in Alexandria, and the Sphinx and Great Pyramid. Study leaders were Dr. John Swanson (University of Cairo) and Dr. Ian Tattersall (the American Museum of Natural History). Some lecture notes included.
You can download and print on your own printer, or order a professionally-bound (lulu.com) copy here
May
26
Rowing Across the Pacific Ocean!
May 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Want to be inspired? Listen to this interview with Erden Eruc, who is leaving from San Francisco next week to row-singlehandedly-across the Pacific Ocean to Brisbane, Australia. “Born in Cyprus, and a Turkish citizen, Eruc is a longtime U.S. resident who has dreamed of a human powered, self-propelled journey around the world since 1997.”Sounds crazy, right? Don’t jump to conclusions. Eruc has already:
* Bicycled 5,546 miles roundtrip from Seattle to Alaska
* Climbed 20,320-foot-high Mt. McKinley (Denali)
* Bicycled 3,980 miles from Seattle to Miami
* Rowed solo across the Atlantic Ocean between the Canary Islands and Guadeloupe
Mar
19
The Anti-Ugly American
March 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment
“The Anti-Ugly American—Peter Voll’s utopian travel vision” appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine on Sunday, March 18, 2007.
Who do you call if you’re working for the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and are asked to improve foreign relations? It had better be someone experienced at working in culturally ambiguous situations, someone who is diplomatic, persuasive and adept at navigating bureaucratic channels. It should be someone who is well-connected and effective at brokering new relationships. Ideally, it would be someone who is passionate about increasing cross-cultural understanding, someone people are willing to follow to the ends of the earth.
Peter Voll is such a person. A pioneer in educational group travel, he took some of the first Western travelers to areas as far-flung as the People’s Republic of China, the North Pole and Burma, and
Dec
28
The Dalmatian Coast Travel Journal
December 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Here’s my travel journal from a 2007 Dalmatian Coast cruise. This was a High Country Passage World Leaders Symposium; lecturers included Secretary Madeleine Albright, William Perry (former U.S. Secretary of Defense), Peter Galbraith (former ambassador to Croatia), and others. We learned about balkanization in a series of more than twenty lectures by people who were directly involved during the balkanization of the former Yugoslavia. Lots of photos, some lecture notes.
You can print out your own copy, or order a professionally-bound (lulu.com) copy here.
Printed: 128 pages, 8.5″ x 11″, perfect binding, white interior paper (80# weight), full-color interior ink, white exterior paper (100# weight), full-color exterior ink
Dec
28
Under Sail in the Western Mediterranean Travel Journal
December 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Here’s my personal illustrated travel journal from the October, 2006, voyage across the western Mediterranean to Sicily, Malta, Tunisia, Mallorca, and Spain aboard the elegant tallship Sea Cloud. The trip was sponsored by Smithsonian Journeys and American Museum of Natural History Expeditions.
You can print it our yourself, or order a professionally-bound copy (lulu.com) here.
Printed: 68 pages, 8.5″ x 11″, perfect binding, white interior paper (80# weight), full-color interior ink, white exterior paper (100# weight), full-color exterior ink
Download: 1 document, 517567 KB
Dec
10
Venturing in Ireland
December 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment
| December 16, 2007 | ||
| 7:00 pm | ||
| January 5, 2008 | ||
| 5:00 pm | ||
| January 14, 2008 | ||
| 5:00 pm | to | 7:00 pm |
| January 16, 2008 | ||
| 7:00 pm | ||
| March 6, 2008 | ||
| 7:00 pm | ||
Come hear Laurie read from the Travelers’ Tales anthology, Venturing in Ireland: Quest for the Modern Celtic Soul.
Sunday, December 16 at 7 p.m.
Book Passage
Corte Madera, CA
Saturday, January 5 at 5 p.m.
Barnes & Noble
Arden Fair shopping mall
Sacramento, CA
Monday, January 14 at 5:30 p.m.
Book Passage at the Ferry Plaza
San Francisco, CA
Wednesday, January 16 at 7 p.m.
Get Lost Travel Books
San Francisco, CA
Thursday, March 6 at 7 p.m.
A Great Good Place for Books
Oakland, CA
Dec
28
Venturing in Ireland
December 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment
The Travelers’ Tales anthology, Venturing in Ireland: Quest for the Modern Celtic Soul was released in December, 2007. It includes two of my stories, along with those of fourteen other travel writers and Desmond O’Grady, one of Ireland’s greatest living poets.
“These writers have wonderful stories to tell. I am proud they chose my homeland for their unique gathering and even prouder that the resulting book demonstrates the power of place in inspiring imaginations and nurturing creative souls.”
-Maureen Wheeler, Lonely Planet Publications
Jul
16
Which Way is North?
July 16, 2004 | Comments Off
You can read “Which Way is North” below or on the Travelers’ Tales site, where it’s an is an Editor’s Choice. (800 words)
They say the Polynesians navigated by squatting low between the two hulls of their ocean-faring canoes, testicles dangling into the water. The combination of ultra-sensitive skin, keen attention to the subtleties of ocean swells, and nautical lore handed down from father to son enabled these ancient tribes to explore the uncharted waters of the South Pacific, and eventually to locate and populate the thousands of tiny islands there.
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