Tales From the Road

Happy news!

I've rekindled my former column, Tales From the Road, a weekly round-up of quality travel stories.

The first column features narratives from Patagonia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Palestine and the Yukon. Please check it out at the link below:

Tales From the Road: Renewal

Swords, Tofu and Travel Stories

A couple of links for you today.

The first is to my latest blog post from the Phuket Vegetarian Festival. This is a pretty ridiculous festival, as evidenced by the photo to the right, taken by Ryan Libre.

Swords and Tofu

I've also got a new edition of Tales From the Road up at BraveNewTraveler if you're looking for some quality travel writing.

Burma Edition of Tales From the Road

In light of the courageous protests and subsequent military crackdown in Yangon and Mandalay, this week's edition of Tales From the Road is focused on travel narratives from Burma.

Here's the link:

Travel Stories From Burma

Rimouski, Quebec

I've crossed to the south shore of the St. Lawrence and am typing in the Brulerie cafe in downtown Rimouski, making the most of a balky wireless connection before heading out along the Gaspe peninsula.

I'm trying to decide whether or not to circle the whole Gaspe or cross over the Chic Choc mountains and go straight down to New Brunswick. I want to have time for both Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton, Nova Scotia - and winter is fast approaching!

A new edition of Tales From the Road just went live at BraveNewTraveler.com, where I'm now co-editor.

Check it out by clicking here.

While you're at it, be sure to subscribe to BraveNewTraveler - it's free and takes only a minute. Click on the orange "RSS Feed" button in the top right corner of the screen.

To borrow the farewell salutation of Annie, a Quebec native I met last night:

Full Sun!

New Tales From the Road

I know I say it just about every week. But seriously - some of the best travel stories I've found yet are in the latest edition of Tales From the Road.

If you're somewhere warm, pour yourself a cold one. If you're somewhere cold, throw a log on the fire.

Wherever you are, enjoy the stories!

Traveling Fools: New Tales From the Road

This week's round-up has some of the best stories I've found so far - pour yourself a tall glass of ice tea and settle in for some vicarious adventure.

Tales from the Road

New! Tales From the Road

Travel can be a journey into the realms of fear and loathing, or a happy-go-lucky search for wildflowers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read on, and make up your own mind…

Get Down, Get Dirty: New Tales From the Road

Finding great travel tales often entails getting a little dirty. The best stories are the ones that smell, the kind you can’t hope to spot from inside an air conditioned tour bus.

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

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

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

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

Continue reading...

Photo by Brandon Steinmetz via Flickr (Creative Commons)

NEW! Tales From the Road - Special Argentina Edition

My latest round-up of great travel stories is up at Bravenewtraveler.com. This week, Tales From the Road arrives with a twist - each of the 5 stories I chose is about Argentina. Why Argentina you ask?

(drum-roll please...)

(badadududududdududududuudaaaa....)

I'm moving to Patagonia!

On November 25th I'll fly down to Buenos Aires, and after a few weeks exploring the "Paris of the South" I'm planning to take a bus West to the Andes and rent a cabin in the valley of El Bolson. El Bolson (which means "the sack" in English) is one of the most fertile valleys in Argentina and the rivers that flow down from the peaks are full of trophy rainbow trout. I'm hoping to rent a cabin by one of those rivers, learn some Spanish, catch some fish, climb some mountains and do a lot of writing.

Learning the tango is an option too - but that might be beyond my ability.

If any readers have been to Argentina and can give me advice, please leave a comment below.

Thanks!

(photo of Cerro Torre by Flickmor via Flickr

New! Tales From the Road

I'm running around like a headless chicken packing for Colorado, but wanted to announce a new edition of my weekly travel writing round-up at Bravenewtraveler.com.

This week's Tales From the Road features stories from Iran, Thailand, St. Vincent and The Pink Palace, along with the best piece of journalism that's come out of the Iraq War.

Follow this link to check out my selections:

Tales From the Road