Jason Wilson - The Best American Travel Writing 2020

Copyright 2020 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

Introduction copyright 2020 by Robert Macfarlane

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Best American Series is a registered trademark of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. The Best American Travel Writing is a trademark of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the proper written permission of the copyright owner unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal copyright law. With the exception of nonprofit transcription in Braille, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is not authorized to grant permission for further uses of copyrighted selections reprinted in this book without the permission of their owners. Permission must be obtained from the individual copyright owners as identified herein. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

hmhbooks.com

Cover image Byelikova Oksana / Getty

Macfarlane photograph Alex Turner

ISSN 1530-1516 (print)

ISSN 2537-4830 (ebook)

ISBN 978-0-358-36203-6 (print)

ISBN 978-0-358-36204-3 (ebook)

v1.1020

Rick Steves Wants to Set You Free by Sam Anderson. First published in the New York Times Magazine, March 24, 2019. Copyright 2019 The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. Used under license.

On the Road with Thomas Merton by Fred Bahnson. First published in Emergence Magazine, Issue No. 04, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Fred Bahnson. Reprinted by permission of Emergence Magazine. Permission to quote from Thomas Mertons published works including the journals, Mystics and Zen Masters, Loving and Living, Thoughts in Solitude, and No Man Is an Island is granted by the Trustees of the Thomas Merton Legacy Trust.

If You Are Permanently Lost by Molly McCully Brown. First published in The Paris Review, Winter 2019. Copyright 2019 by Molly McCully Brown. Reprinted by permission of Persea Books, Inc. (New York), www.perseabooks.com. All rights reserved.

Life, Death, and the Border Patrol by Jackie Bryant. First published in Sierra, November 6, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Jackie Bryant. Reprinted by permission of Sierra and Jackie Bryant.

The Volunteers Dilemma by Ken Budd. First published in the Washington Post Magazine, November 10, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Ken Budd. Reprinted by permission of Ken Budd.

My Own Private Iceland by Kyle Chayka. First published in The Goods by Vox, October 21, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Vox.com. Reprinted by permission of Vox Media, Inc.

Revisiting My Grandfathers Garden by Mojgan Ghazirad. First published in Longreads, March 15, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Mojgan Ghazirad. Reprinted by permission of Mojgan Ghazirad.

To the Follower of Chiekh Bamba Whom I Met in Dakar by Emmanuel Iduma. First published in Off Assignment, June 6, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Emmanuel Iduma. Reprinted by permission of Emmanuel Iduma c/o The Zo Pagnamenta Agency.

How to Mourn a Glacier by Lacy M. Johnson. First published in The New Yorker, October 20, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Lacy M. Johnson. Reprinted by permission of The New Yorker.

Such Perfection by Chlo Cooper Jones. First published in The Believer, June 1, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Chlo Cooper Jones. Reprinted by permission of Chlo Cooper Jones.

What I Learned in Avalanche School by Heidi Julavits. First published in the New York Times Magazine, December 31, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Heidi Julavits. Reprinted by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.

Glow by James Lasdun. First published in The New Yorker, April 29, 2019. Copyright 2019 by James Lasdun. Reprinted by permission of James Lasdun.

To Hold Oneself Together by Yiyun Li. First published in T: The New York Times Style Magazine, November 17, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Yiyun Li. Reprinted by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.

Last of the Great American Hobos by Jeff MacGregor. First published in Smithsonian, May 2019. Copyright 2019 by Jeff MacGregor. Reprinted by permission of Jeff MacGregor.

The Trillion-Dollar Nowhere by Ben Mauk. First published in the New York Times Magazine, January 29, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Ben Mauk. Reprinted by permission of Ben Mauk.

My Fathers Land by Courtney Desiree Morris. First published in Strangers Guide, April 2019. Copyright 2019 by Strangers Guide. Reprinted by permission of Strangers Guide.

At the Border, No One Can Know Your Name by Alejandra Oliva. First published in ZORA, July 19, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Alejandra Oliva. Reprinted by permission of Alejandra Oliva.

The Shape of Water by Stephanie Pearson. First published in Outside, June 2019. Copyright 2019 by Stephanie Pearson. Reprinted by permission of Outside magazine and Stephanie Pearson.

Who Lives in Palermo Is Palermo by Ashley Powers. First published in Airbnb Magazine, September 17, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Ashley Powers. Reprinted by permission of Ashley Powers.

Climate Signs by Emily Raboteau. First published in New York Review of Books, February 1, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Emily Raboteau. Reprinted by permission of Emily Raboteau.

Walking with Migrants by Paul Salopek. First published in National Geographic, August 2019. Copyright 2019 by Paul Salopek. Reprinted by permission of Paul Salopek.

Lost in Summerland by Barrett Swanson. First published in The Atavist Magazine, no. 98, December 2019. Copyright 2019 by Barrett Swanson. Reprinted by permission of Barrett Swanson.

Vacation Memories Marred by the Indelible Stain of Racism by Shanna B. Tiayon. First published in Longreads, June 11, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Longreads. Reprinted by permission of Shanna Brewton-Tiayon.

By the time I finished my editorial work on this years edition of Best American Travel Writingabout five weeks into my states mandatory stay-at-home orderId had plenty of time to think about the future of the form. During the first few weeks of lockdown, I was invited on to a podcast with several other travel writers to discuss our predictions. With gloom and doom, I speculated about magazines suspending publication, compared this to how travel had irrevocably changed after 9/11, and declared that this was the extinction event for a certain type of travel publishing. To be honest, I had no more idea of what might happen than anyone else, and I still dont. But I held forth anyway, and I am aware that whatever I write here in the spring of 2020 may seem naive, hysterical, or wildly inaccurate by the fall, when the anthology is published, never mind a year or five from now.

Otherwise, I have whiled away the days in isolation thinking a lot about oddly divergent (and convergent) things: Iceland, Robert Byrons classic travel book The Road to Oxiana, and the pond across from my home in New Jerseywhere an alligator, according to local legend, may or may not live.

My musings on Iceland were spurred, no doubt, by the fact that two of the most noteworthy pieces in this years anthology deal with that country: Lacy Johnsons moving piece on How to Mourn a Glacier in this time of climate change, and Kyle Chaykas My Own Private Iceland, about its current state of overtourism. In Chaykas piece, he argues for inauthentic travel, suggesting that when a destination is deemed dead might be the best time to go there, as the most accurate reflection of our impure world and declares that the less authentic an experience was supposed to be in Iceland, the more fun I had and the more aware I was of the consequences of 21st century travel.