The Best American Travel Writing 2006 (The Best American Series) 
Product Description: - Tim Cahill writes in his introduction to The Best American Travel Writing 2006, Story is the essence of the travel essay. Stories are the way we organize the chaos in our lives, orchestrate voluminous factual material, and -- if we are very good -- shed some light on the human condition. Here are twenty-six pieces that showcase the best travel writing from 2005, filled with keen observations that transform ordinary journeys into extraordinary ones (Library Journal).
Mark Jenkins journeys into a forgotten valley in Afghanistan, Kevin Fedarko takes a wild ride through the rapids of the Grand Canyon, and Christopher Solomon reports on the newest fad to hit South Korea: downhill skiing. For David Sedaris, a seemingly routine domestic flight is cause for a witty rumination on modern airline travel. Alain de Botton describes the discreet charms of Zurich, and Ian Frazier recalls leaving the small Midwestern town he called home. Michael Paterniti gives a touching portrait of the world s tallest man -- eight and a half feet and growing, while P.J. O Rourke visits an airplane manufacturer to see firsthand how the French make the world s biggest passenger plane. George Saunders is dazzled by a trip to the Vegas of the Middle East, Rolf Potts takes on tantric yoga for dilettantes, and Sean Flynn documents a seedier side of travel -- the newest hotspot in the international sex trade.
Culled from a wide variety of publications, these stories, as Cahill writes, all touched me in one way or another, changed an attitude, made me laugh aloud, or provided fuel for my dreams. I wish the reader similar joys.
Customer Ratings: - Best of the Best. I bought this anthology based on the strength of its user reviews on Amazon and LibraryThing, plus my positive experiences with another title in the series The Best American Science and Nature Writing. However I had serious trepidations, after all isn t modern travel writing mostly just light touristic pieces found in `Reader s Digest` or the local newspaper, barely hidden attempts at selling us packaged vacations? Was I ever wrong and pleasantly surprised, the 2006 collection turns out to be one of the best books I ve read this year. There are 26 essays and not one is bad, they are all fantastic and at least 4 of them are classics. Normally in anthologies like this I m happy when a third are favorited enough to mark the page for re-reading later, but here it s almost 100%, marking the pages is superfluous.
The guest editor for 2006 is Tim Cahill, founder and editor of `Outside` magazine, so it is perhaps not surprising that, as a professional editor of a magazine that caters to travel writing, he was like a Saudi Sheik with unlimited funds on a shopping spree in Paris, able to pick and choose from the best the world has to offer, the only limit being 320 pages. But how does he pick the best? In choosing pieces for this anthology, he says, I ve looked for the best *stories* I could find, [emphasis added] - clarifying what he means by story, if I can t find a story, I often feel I m being beaten over the head with an encyclopedia. Stories are the sole written instrument that can bring tears to our eyes, or make us laugh.. and they are more fun to read. Story is of the essence. This collection then is a testament to Cahill s ideal of travel writing as story, and it succeeds brilliantly. Cahill also posits that America is currently in a Golden Age of travel writing and after reading this collection I might agree.
If you read only one travel writing anthology this would be an ideal place to start. Even if your not interested in travel writing as a genre, most of these pieces were not written as strictly travel writing, or for traditional travel magazines. The articles are mostly by well established and known journalists and novelists and non-fiction authors in top-tier magazines like `National Geographic`, `The New Yorker`, `GQ` and others. I look forward to reading more from this series, but based on admittedly shallow investigations of user reviews, none of the other volumes in the series look as good as this one. Perhaps 2005 was just a very good year for travel writing, perhaps Cahill has an unusually good talent for picking the best articles, or perhaps since this is my first experience with the series, and my initial low expectations - whatever the case this volume will be revisted in later years and has earned a satisfying place on my bookshelf. - So good I passed it on to others. The David Sedaris selection about flying makes this book worth buying. I was on an airplane while reading his chapter and was laughing so hard that my seatmate kept giving me weird looks.
- Loved it, as usual!. Enjoyed getting to experience other cultures through the eyes of the traveler while myself being the armchair traveler.
- Literary Travels. I wasn t able to travel this summer, so I was more or less stuck in my small town in the middle of Oklahoma. Luckily, a handful of well-chosen books escorted me to exotic--and some very familiar--ports of call, this book, 2006 s Best American Travel Writing being one of the most memorable. This is a wonderfully diverse collection of writings, featuring what many of us think of as exotic travel narratives, as well as my favorite kind of travel writing, essays that question the nature of travel and what we learn in the process of leaving the familiar behind.
One of the gems of this collection is Alain de Botton s piece, The Discreet Charm of the Zurich Bourgeoise. I, too, am fascinated by the comfortable, efficient towns and cities in the world, ones that are rarely tourist destinations, but are fascinating in their own, discreet way. This piece is very similar to his book, The Art of Travel, as he juxtaposes Pieter de Hooch s paintings and their seemingly unremarkable domestic world with his love for the sedate charms of Zurich. It won t appeal to the National Geographic type of tourist, but this is what makes travel writing such a vital genre to me--and why I buy books like this.
Other high points include Sean Flynn s portrayal of American sex tourists in Puerto Rico, Ian Frazier s beautiful memoir of small town Ohio, Michael Paterniti s remarkable piece about befriending a Ukranian giant, Kira Salak s tour of modern-day Libya, George Saunder s enthusiastic (and humorous) account of Dubai, and by far the most laugh-out loud selection of all, Christopher Solomon s Let s Ski Korea, which is everything you expect and more.
I always delight in these Best American... volumes, and the Travel Writing remains my favorite to read and re-read. Tim Cahill did an amazing job in selecting these works, and I look forward to traveling in them whenever the simple pleasures of Ada, Oklahoma become rather less poetic. - my travel writting text book--and a good read too!. It is a little bit hard to review this book because I have read most of the series and like them all. This is no exception and I thought that there are a few things that I can add.
As always a good/great selection of material and most/all are great reads. As has been stated elsewhere if you do not like one, you can skip it. However, I never skip a story. I sort of think that I might not finish one, but then I do and am glad that I did.
Not only do I like the stories, but I think of the book as a study guide for an aspiring travel writer. Thus far I have limited my travel writing by sneaking it into other nonfiction wrting that I do (I recommend this technique). I may never seriously go down the travel writting road, but the idea helps me notice things that I might not otherwise.
Here is a specific tip. Be sure to read the forematter of the book--the foreword and introduction. They are good reading too.
One small point. Compared to the others in the series that I have read, this edition would have to qualify for an R rating because of the story about prostitution in Costa Rica. I liked the story--and you can, of course, skip it if you do not like it--but I fell obligated to mention it. There was one other place (that I forget right now) that made me think the same thing.
As soon as I finished this book, I went out and bought one from the sports series!
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The Best American Travel Writing 2006 (The Best American Series) (ID: 0618582150)
