What do you think?
Rate this book
Travelers' Tales Best Travel Writing #4
The Best Travel Writing 2007: True Stories from Around the World
The Best Travel Writing 2007 is the fourth volume in the annual series Travelers' Tales launched in 2004 to celebrate the world's best travel writing — from Nobel Prize winners to emerging writers. These 29 stories cover the globe, from probing the depths of a culture in Jerusalem to riding the rails in India and trying to save a life in Costa Rica. The points of view and perspectives are global, and themes encompass high adventure, spiritual growth, romance, absolute hilarity and misadventure, service to humanity, and encounters with exotic cuisine. In The Best Travel Writing 2007 readers will become a sex slave in Zambia, watch karma play its part in rough travel in Costa Rica, rediscover Jewish roots in Germany, see preconceptions crumble aboard a tramp ferry on the Red Sea, comprehend the social magic of the Mexican taco stand, discover how a restaurant can make miracles with only fish in Italy, hang on the knife’s edge between life and death on a mountain in New Zealand, become a kick boxer in Thailand, escape a volcanic eruption in Vanuatu…and much more.
- GenresTravel
360 pages, Paperback
First published February 7, 2007
1 person is currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
James O'Reilly
66 books5 followersJames O'Reilly has been a traveler since infancy, and a storyteller almost as long. Born in Oxford, England, in 1953, he savors the early memory of walking as a five-year-old boy across the tarmac at Shannon Airport in Ireland and gazing up at the huge triple tails of the now-defunct Constellation aircraft. The smell of fuel and Irish fog and the amazing sight above him must have made a deep impression because he's been traveling willy-nilly ever since. After emigrating from Ireland to the United States, he grew up in San Francisco, where he was schooled by Jesuits, nuns and assorted yogis and eccentrics in the '60s. His eclectic education was formed as much by growing up in a large Roman Catholic family where he was the second of seven children as it was by being an omnivorous reader who was studying Eastern religion and meditation by his early teens. He traveled a great deal with his family - to Ireland, England, Scotland, and Canada - before heading off to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where, among other things, he spent a semester in Salamanca, Spain.
At Dartmouth, James met his good friend Larry Habegger, with whom he has collaborated since 1982 on projects ranging from radio shows to mystery serials, newspaper and magazine columns to world adventure travel. Since 1985, O'Reilly and Habegger have co-authored the nationally-syndicated travel column "World Travel Watch." In 1993, they co-founded the publishing company Travelers' Tales with James's brother Tim, and have since worked on more than 100 books together, winning many awards for excellence, including the prestigious Lowell Thomas award for outstanding travel book. James has been an active member of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) since 1990, and is a former board member of the Tibet Information Network.
James has visited over forty countries and lived in four. Among his favorite travel memories are visiting headhunters in Borneo, rafting the legendary Zambezi River in Zimbabwe, enjoying a meal cooked by blowtorch in Tibet, and hanging out laundry with nuns in Florence. He has made traveling with his own family a priority, and together he and his wife and three daughters have roamed all over Europe. He lives in Palo Alto, California, where he is usually conspiring to be somewhere else.
At Dartmouth, James met his good friend Larry Habegger, with whom he has collaborated since 1982 on projects ranging from radio shows to mystery serials, newspaper and magazine columns to world adventure travel. Since 1985, O'Reilly and Habegger have co-authored the nationally-syndicated travel column "World Travel Watch." In 1993, they co-founded the publishing company Travelers' Tales with James's brother Tim, and have since worked on more than 100 books together, winning many awards for excellence, including the prestigious Lowell Thomas award for outstanding travel book. James has been an active member of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) since 1990, and is a former board member of the Tibet Information Network.
James has visited over forty countries and lived in four. Among his favorite travel memories are visiting headhunters in Borneo, rafting the legendary Zambezi River in Zimbabwe, enjoying a meal cooked by blowtorch in Tibet, and hanging out laundry with nuns in Florence. He has made traveling with his own family a priority, and together he and his wife and three daughters have roamed all over Europe. He lives in Palo Alto, California, where he is usually conspiring to be somewhere else.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 12, 2024
3.5 stars. I have well over a dozen of these annual travel essay collections from different series, most of them unread. This took awhile to finish as I set it aside and forgot about it for sone months. But the nice thing about a collection like this is you can do that without having to start over. I also kept notes as I read.
Most anthologies are a mixed bag. But I found this one quite even overall—that is, almost all were solid worthwhile essays for me. The authors are male and female, married and single, and from all over the world, though many seem to be based in or from California, where the publisher is located. There weren’t any essays I loved, but there weren’t any I especially disliked or found boring either (ok, maybe one). As the latter is rare, I’m bumping my rating up from 3 to 3.5 stars.
Interestingly, one of the essays I liked least, “Rilke Was Miserable Here” by Kathleen Spivak, was by a Pulitzer Prize nominee who spent the entire essay place- and name-dropping about Paris while writing about the hardships of being an American renting an apartment there. One of the reasons I read travel essays is to learn about a place I’ve never been. I’ve never been to Paris, and this essay seemed to be for readers who were well familiar with it, so it didn’t work for me.
This essay was followed by “Bad Country” by J. Spencer Klein, a surfer who shared his experiences hitchhiking through Costa Rica. He gave an excellent sense of what that country, the people, and the unique experience was like. His bio was brief, and listed no writing credentials. Of course, another reader might love Spivak’s essay and not enjoy Klein’s. Or enjoy both.
Other notable essays I particularly enjoyed:
“The Barber” by Dustin W. Leavit - I liked the humor in this essay about how the author tries to bribe a local boy to wait in line for him at the Taiwanese airport, and gets scolded by his wife. Though it seemed to slide into fiction territory, which undermined it.
“Mr. Hat’s Neighborhood” by Richard Sterling - about the author living for a brief time in Vietnam. He does a great job describing the people he interacted with daily.
“Over There” by Paul Theroux - Theroux, a well-established travel author of several books and one of two authors I was familiar with, recounts how he was held captive by a brother and sister he met in a bar in Zambia, Africa.
“The Mexican Taco Stand” by Pickett Porterfield - I liked how Porterfield focused on a very specific element of Mexican culture.
“The Purple Umbrella” by Karin Muller - excerpted from Muller’s memoir Japanland, which I read many years ago. At the time, I was trying to reduce my library and donated my copy. Later I regretted that—I love travel memoirs and this one was among my favorites, so I found another copy. Reading this excerpt, a blend of cultural insight and humor, made me want to reread the book. I also learned from her bio there was a companion documentary and she’s written two other travel narratives I plan to buy.
Ultimately, this was a solid read, but not a book I’d keep. But I’ve yet to find a travel essay anthology I did find worth keeping.
Most anthologies are a mixed bag. But I found this one quite even overall—that is, almost all were solid worthwhile essays for me. The authors are male and female, married and single, and from all over the world, though many seem to be based in or from California, where the publisher is located. There weren’t any essays I loved, but there weren’t any I especially disliked or found boring either (ok, maybe one). As the latter is rare, I’m bumping my rating up from 3 to 3.5 stars.
Interestingly, one of the essays I liked least, “Rilke Was Miserable Here” by Kathleen Spivak, was by a Pulitzer Prize nominee who spent the entire essay place- and name-dropping about Paris while writing about the hardships of being an American renting an apartment there. One of the reasons I read travel essays is to learn about a place I’ve never been. I’ve never been to Paris, and this essay seemed to be for readers who were well familiar with it, so it didn’t work for me.
This essay was followed by “Bad Country” by J. Spencer Klein, a surfer who shared his experiences hitchhiking through Costa Rica. He gave an excellent sense of what that country, the people, and the unique experience was like. His bio was brief, and listed no writing credentials. Of course, another reader might love Spivak’s essay and not enjoy Klein’s. Or enjoy both.
Other notable essays I particularly enjoyed:
“The Barber” by Dustin W. Leavit - I liked the humor in this essay about how the author tries to bribe a local boy to wait in line for him at the Taiwanese airport, and gets scolded by his wife. Though it seemed to slide into fiction territory, which undermined it.
“Mr. Hat’s Neighborhood” by Richard Sterling - about the author living for a brief time in Vietnam. He does a great job describing the people he interacted with daily.
“Over There” by Paul Theroux - Theroux, a well-established travel author of several books and one of two authors I was familiar with, recounts how he was held captive by a brother and sister he met in a bar in Zambia, Africa.
“The Mexican Taco Stand” by Pickett Porterfield - I liked how Porterfield focused on a very specific element of Mexican culture.
“The Purple Umbrella” by Karin Muller - excerpted from Muller’s memoir Japanland, which I read many years ago. At the time, I was trying to reduce my library and donated my copy. Later I regretted that—I love travel memoirs and this one was among my favorites, so I found another copy. Reading this excerpt, a blend of cultural insight and humor, made me want to reread the book. I also learned from her bio there was a companion documentary and she’s written two other travel narratives I plan to buy.
Ultimately, this was a solid read, but not a book I’d keep. But I’ve yet to find a travel essay anthology I did find worth keeping.
May 12, 2020
I am not a short story fan, but I make an exception for travel writing. From these books of short stories I am able to find new authors that I might like to read. Not every story will appeal to everyone, but each reader will have a favorite. My two favorites in this book were the first and last stories in the book:
1) Bread by Nicholas Seeley - breaks down perceptions of how foreigners are seeing the traveler and
2) The Mukhtar and I - an 11 year old boy's perception of his stern grandfather in Palestine.
I also tremendously enjoyed The Adventure of La Refrita by Steve King about a breakdown of his hippy van in South Dakota, requiring a 5 night stay in a small town where nothing happens. This story is taken from a book by the same name, and I enjoyed the humor sufficiently to try and get the book.
1) Bread by Nicholas Seeley - breaks down perceptions of how foreigners are seeing the traveler and
2) The Mukhtar and I - an 11 year old boy's perception of his stern grandfather in Palestine.
I also tremendously enjoyed The Adventure of La Refrita by Steve King about a breakdown of his hippy van in South Dakota, requiring a 5 night stay in a small town where nothing happens. This story is taken from a book by the same name, and I enjoyed the humor sufficiently to try and get the book.
July 13, 2011
An eclectic mix of stories pulled from mostly North American travel writer's originally published in other sources. These short snippets of travel stories provide the reader with a pick-and-choose reading opportunity, as each reader may not find the topic of each piece in harmony with their own travel interests. From kick boxing, to train travels through India, discovering the true identity of a culture through an umbrella, digging deeper into one of Mexico's least reputable towns, to hopping in a hippie van, and reading about a young Palestinian grandson reconciling with his grandfather. Every story presents a unique travel voice and experience of mental pictures, sounds, delights, sorrows, joys and surprises. My favourite story was toward the end, "Fishing With Larry" by Tom Joseph. Larry, Tom's brother, dies and gives one handful of his cremated ashes to each member of his family to do with as they please. During a trip Bolivia, each family member finds a place of near transcendence in which to release Larry's ashes. For Tom, part of Larry's ashes are dropped into a large, gushing river replete with huge trout, from which he then fishes. Most of Tom's memories of his brother are of travel adventures and fishing. A wonderful true story of putting a loved one to rest in a gorgeous place. Give it a read and try out the same books from different years.
November 7, 2007
I always enjoy these collections of tales from all over the world.
Surprisingly, I think my favorite story this year was the one with the unpromising title of "Argentina on Two Steaks a Day"! I don't especially consider myself to be a "foodie", so I started this story with anticipatory boredom, but the author, Maciej Ceglowski, managed to evoke a whole culture for me.
The most poignant story was "Next Year in Germany", where a man and his wife go hunting for the cemetery of his Jewish forbears in the heart of Germany.
Well, I won't recap every entry, but suffice it to say that each year, the Travelers' Tales people manage put together a great collection of funny, scary, reverent, thoughtful stories!
Surprisingly, I think my favorite story this year was the one with the unpromising title of "Argentina on Two Steaks a Day"! I don't especially consider myself to be a "foodie", so I started this story with anticipatory boredom, but the author, Maciej Ceglowski, managed to evoke a whole culture for me.
The most poignant story was "Next Year in Germany", where a man and his wife go hunting for the cemetery of his Jewish forbears in the heart of Germany.
Well, I won't recap every entry, but suffice it to say that each year, the Travelers' Tales people manage put together a great collection of funny, scary, reverent, thoughtful stories!
May 27, 2009
I have four of these volumes, "The Best Travelers' Tales," from 2004, and "The Best Travel Writing," from 2005, 2006, 2007. There are - oh - 25/30 tales per volume. Stories from every continent. Exotic accounts. The authors have, of course, chosen notable experiences which have befallen them. I think the editors must have applied superior judgments in the choices they have made. These stories are fun, diverting, often enlightening. Some stick in memory. I commend Kevin McCaughey's, "I Follow the White Dog," a story from Moscow in the 2004 volume.
March 13, 2011
Some of the stories were really great and others were good. The first story in the book is Bread, by Nicholas Seely and it was definitely my favorite. It's about six pages long, yet so amazing in its message. I would totally recommend this story. It reminds us what makes some of us rich and is a good story for those of us who have assumptions about others. Also, Mr Hat's Neighborhood by Richard Sterling is also a fantastic story. I really enjoyed these stories!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews