Michael Shapiro - A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk About Their Craft, Lives, and Inspiration

PRAISE FOR MICHAEL SHAPIRO

I enjoyed A Sense of Place down to the last drop. This is a wonderful book, full of literary and experiential allusionsa fascinating read.

Keith Bellows, editor, National Geographic Traveler

Hooray for Michael Shapiro, for bringing us these sweet, insightful visits with the great creators of contemporary travel literature. These are the writers who gave so many of us our longing for the road, our passion for place, who informed our own wanderings. I always wondered about their lives, and it took Shapiro to track them down, get them talking, and share their perspectives on our world. Theyve been everywhere on this blue-green earth, and theyve chosen the best places to make their homes.

Lynn Ferrin, former editor of Via magazine

Travel writer is much too claustrophobic a label to hang on some of the finest nonfiction writers of our generation, and Michael Shapiro coaxes out fascinating insights into their journeys, their craft, and the beloved homes they leave behind.

John Flinn, executive travel editor, San Francisco Chronicle

Whether its getting up at 4 A.M. to photograph the sunrise over Jerusalem, or prowling Waikiki Beachs Halloween madness, Michael Shapiro goes beyond the ordinary in his travelsand his writing. He brings a passion to his topics, digging beyond the surface to find deeper meanings and connections. But always with a sense of fun. And in the end, he and his readers are wiser for the effort.

Larry Bleiberg, travel editor, The Dallas Morning News

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR MICHAEL SHAPIROS NETTRAVEL BOOKS

The first chapter of Michael Shapiros NetTravel, Destination Anywhere, alone is worth the price of admission.

L.R. Shannon, The New York Times

Shapiro offers an amazingly comprehensive collection of superior travel web sites of all sorts, meticulously accurate.

Paul Grimes, The Philadelphia Inquirer

This title truly is a guide. It takes you by the mouse and, click by click, teaches you to use the Internet in general and to conduct travel research in particular. The whole is written in easy to understand Englishnot computerese.

Toni Stroud, Chicago Tribune

TRAVELERS TALES BOOKS

Country and Regional Guides
America, Australia, Brazil, Central America, China, Cuba, France, Greece, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nepal, Spain, Thailand, Tibet, Turkey; Alaska, American Southwest, Grand Canyon, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Paris, Provence, San Francisco, Tuscany

Womens Travel
Her Fork in the Road, A Womans Europe, A Womans Path, A Womans Passion for Travel, A Womans World, Women in the Wild, A Mothers World, Safety and Security for Women Who Travel, Gutsy Women, Gutsy Mamas

Body & Soul
The Spiritual Gifts of Travel, The Road Within, Love & Romance, Food, The Fearless Diner, The Adventure of Food, The Ultimate Journey, Pilgrimage

Special Interest
The Best Travelers Tales 2004, Not So Funny When It Happened, The Gift of Rivers, Shitting Pretty, Testosterone Planet, Danger!, The Fearless Shopper, The Penny Pinchers Passport to Luxury Travel, The Gift of Birds, Family Travel, A Dogs World, Theres No Toilet Paper on the Road Less Traveled, The Gift of Travel, 365 Travel, Adventures in Wine, Sand in My Bra and Other Misadventures, Whose Panties Are These and Other Misadventures Hyenas Laughed at Me and Now I Know Why,

Footsteps
Kite Strings of the Southern Cross, The Sword of Heaven, Storm, Take Me With You, Last Trout in Venice, The Way of the Wanderer, One Year Off, The Fire Never Dies

Classics
The Royal Road to Romance, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, The Rivers Ran East, Coast to Coast, Trader Horn

A Sense of Place

Great Travel Writers Talk
About Their Craft, Lives,
and Inspiration

TIM CAHILL

Livingston, Montana

FRANCES MAYES

Cortona, Italy

JONATHAN RABAN

Seattle, Washington

REDMOND OHANLON

Oxford, England

ISABEL ALLENDE

San Rafael, California

BILL BRYSON

Hanover, New Hampshire

PAUL THEROUX

Oahu, Hawaii

ARTHUR FROMMER

New York, New York

PICO IYER

Santa Barbara, California

RICK STEVES

Edmonds, Washington

SIMON WINCHESTER

Great Barrington, Massachusetts

JEFF GREENWALD

Oakland, California

ERIC NEWBY

Guildford, England

SARA WHEELER

London, England

BRAD NEWSHAM

Oakland, California

TOM MILLER

Tucson, Arizona

PETER MATTHIESSEN

Sagaponack, New York

JAN MORRIS

Llanystumdwy, Wales

Copyright 2004 Michael Shapiro. All rights reserved.

Travelers Tales and Travelers Tales Guides are trademarks of Travelers Tales, Inc., 330 Townsend Street, Suite 208, San Francisco, California 94107. www.travelerstales.com

Art Direction: Michele Wetherbee and Stefan Gutermuth Interior Design: Melanie Haage Cover Photographs: Bullety-Lomeo/The Image Bank. Page Layout: Melanie Haage, using the fonts Minion, Koch Antiqua, and Belucian

Distributed by: Publishers Group West, 1700 Fourth Street, Berkeley, California 94710

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shapiro, Michael, 1962 A sense of place: great travel writers talk about their craft, lives, and inspiration / by Michael Shapiro.-- 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-932361-81-0 (pbk.)
1. Travel writers--Interviews. 2. Travel writers--Biography. 3. Travelers writings. 4. Shapiro, Michael, 1962---Travel. I. Title.
G154.49.S52 2004
910/40922--dc22
2004011873

First Printing
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

FOR MY FATHER, LARRY SHAPIRO, WHO EXHORTED ME ONWARD EVEN AS HIS OWN WORLD WAS TURNING IN.

I T WAS ON AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 44 THAT I FIRST PITCHED THE idea for this book to Travelers Tales Executive Editor Larry Habegger. We were flying from San Francisco to New York, en route to a travel journalists conference in Bermuda. Somewhere over Nebraska I knelt in the aisle next to his seat and shared my nascent thoughts for a book of interviews with travel writers. I felt like I was kneeling at the altar of publishing, seeking benediction for my project. When a flight attendant approached with a rolling cart and a nasty glare, I thanked Larry for his consideration and went back to my seat.

That was September 4th, 2001. A week later the Twin Towers crumbled and the Pentagon was shattered, sending shock waves through the American psyche and economy. Few industries were hit as hard as travel, and travel publishing was reeling for months.

Yet the idea stuck with me. Each year I spend the week between Christmas and New Years on silent retreat at the Sonoma Mountain Zen Center. During my 2001 retreat I kept thinking about this project, and it began to take shape. Initially I considered interviewing each author about travel writing, but soon realized I wanted to discuss much more: their lives, their hopes, their aspirations, and their thoughts about the world. That last parttheir thoughts about the worlds politics and peopleseemed especially relevant after the September 11th disaster. Who better to shed light on global issues than the people who have explored the planet so widely and so sensitively, and who have written about it so eloquently?

Another thought occurred to me during that retreat: In the coming year I would turn forty, and I wanted my life to take a new turn. For the past seven years I had written mostly about travel-tech issues, such as how to use the Internet for travel planning. I didnt want to abandon that completely, but I sought something more engaging to my soul and intellect. I sensed I was embarking on a pilgrimage, as well as a journey of tribute to the writers who have inspired me to explore the world in new ways.