The Best American Travel Writing 2004 (Best American Travel Writing)

Rating:
Summary: Great, Well Chosen Travel Essays
Review: Another great in the Best American series. Bought it yesterday and have been ploughing through it. Loved Tad Friend's Segway piece as well as the John McPhee essay.

Well chosen stuff, funny as well as insightful.



Rating:
Summary: Another Year of Compelling Travel Narratives
Review: In the introduction to this annual collection, Pico Iyer writes ".. .travel writing can arise out of the least dramatic places and episodes... when one falls between the craks of one's itinerary and tumbles out of the guidebook altogether."

Indeed, screenwriter Richie Chevat turns a routine vacation to the beach into riotous screenplay, while Adam Gopnik weaves anthropoligical critique and historical perspective into an engaging essay about riding the bus in Manhattan.

In "Ghost Road" one of the strongest pieces of the anthology (and there are many), Mark Jenkins chronicles his obsession with traveling the Stillwell Road in Burma, and his ultimate decision to abandon the "arrogant" quest given the danger to the Burmese he enlists to assist him. "Real adventure-- self-determined, self-motivated, often risky-- forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world... Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind-- and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both." It is a masterpiece-- a riveting narrative filled with percipience and grace.

My only quibble is the paucity of female voices.