The Best American: Travel Writing Books

The extraordinary popularity of books and magazines dedicated to travel comes as no surprise, given that more and more Americans are traveling each year for business, pleasure, and especially adventure. Our fascination with travel has never been so well represented as in this new addition to the Best American series: a wide-ranging compendium of the best travel writing published in 1999, culled from more than three hundred magazines, newspapers, and Web sites. This first collection of THE BEST AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITING reads like a good novel. Best-selling author Bill Bryson and series editor Jason Wilson have put together a book that will surprise knowledgeable travelers and entrance newcomers with the glories of new worlds. Articles by such well-loved writers as Bill Buford and Ryszard Kapuscinski are included, as are those by exciting new voices. Ranging across myriad landscapes, from Central Park in New York City to the Ouadane oasis in Saharan Mauritania, THE BEST AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITING 2000 showcases the diversity and creative power of travel writing today.

The Best American Series® First, Best, and Best-Selling The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites . A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind. The Best American Travel Writing 2011 includes André Aciman, Christopher Buckley, Maureen Dowd, Verlyn Klinkenborg, Ariel Levy, Téa Obreht, Annie Proulx, Gary Shteyngart, William T. Vollmann, Emily Witt, and others

The Best American Series® First, Best, and Best-Selling The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected — and most popular — of its kind. The Best American Travel Writing 2012 includes Bryan Curtis, Lynn Freed, J. Malcolm Garcia, Peter Gwin, Pico Iyer, Mark Jenkins, Dimiter Kenarov, Robin Kirk, Kimberly Meyer, Paul Theroux, and others

Number-one New York Times best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed: A Love Story , Elizabeth Gilbert transports readers to far-flung locales with this collection of the year’s lushest and most inspiring travel writing.

“Travel connoisseurs divide the world into those places they’ve been dying to visit or revisit and places they’d never set foot in but are glad someone else did. This year’s volume of travel writing . . . focuses mostly on the latter with derring-do dispatches.” — USA Today A far-ranging collection of the best travel writing pieces published in 2013, collected by guest editor Paul Theroux. The Best American Travel Writing consistently includes a wide variety of pieces, illuminating the wonder, humor, fear, and exhilaration that greets all of us when we embark on a journey to a new place. Readers know that there is simply no other option when they want great travel writing.

Outstanding stories of discovery in unexpected places by Kevin Baker, Lauren Groff, Gary Shteyngart, Paul Theroux, and many more. In his introduction to this superb collection, guest editor Andrew McCarthy— New York Times -bestselling author of the travel memoir The Longest Way Home —offers a thrilling itinerary of great nonfiction, whether it’s the story of a marine returning to Iraq a decade after his deployment, a writer retracing the footsteps of humanity as it spread from Africa throughout the world, or looking for love on a physics-themed cruise down the Rhone River. No matter what the subject, the writers in this volume invite you to join them on their journeys. Drawn from the pages of periodicals including Smithsonian , the Believer , the New Yorker , Ski Magazine , Outside , National Geographic , and more, The Best American Travel Writing 2015 includes selections by: Iris Smyles * Paul Theroux * Christopher Solomon * Patricia Marx * Kevin Baker * Benjamin Busch * Maud Newton * Lauren Groff * Gary Shteyngart * Paul Salopek * and others Acclaim for the series “ The Best American Travel Writing has been the gold standard for short-form travel writing from newspapers, magazines and the Internet since its inception.” — The New York Times Book Review “[A] superb travel annual . . . distinguished by its stellar guest editors.” — Booklist (starred review) “[A] venerable series.” — Kirkus Reviews

This collection gathers the best travel essays from The New Yorker , Harpers , GQ and more—featuring Paul Theroux, Alice Gregory, Dave Eggers and others. Why do I travel? Why does anyone of us travel? Bill Bryson poses these questions in his introduction to The Best American Travel Writing 2016 , and though he admits, “I wasn’t at all sure I knew the answer,” these questions start us on the path of some fascinating explorations. While the various contributors to this collection travel for different reasons, they all come back with stories. Whether traversing the Arctic by dogsled, attending a surreal film festival in North Korea, or strolling the streets of a fast-changing Havana, some of today’s best travel writers share their experiences of the world and the human condition, offering, if not answers, than illumination and insight. The Best American Travel Writing 2016 includes Michael Chabon, William T. Vollmann, Helen Macdonald, Sara Corbett, Stephanie Pearson, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Pico Iyer, and others.

“ The Best American Travel Writing has been the gold standard for short-form travel writing from newspapers, magazines, and the Internet since its inception.” — New York Times Book Review Everyone travels for different reasons, but whatever those reasons are, one thing is certain—they come back with stories. Each year, the best of those stories are collected in The Best American Travel Writing , curated by one of the top writers in the field, and each year they “open a window onto the strange, seedy and beautiful world, offering readers glimpses into places that many will never see or experience except through the eyes and words of these writers" ( Kirkus Reviews). This far-ranging collection of top notch travel writing is, quite simply, the genre’s gold standard.

Everyone travels for different reasons, but whatever those reasons are, one thing is certain: they come back with stories. Each year, the best of those stories are collected in The Best American Travel Writing , curated by one of the top writers in the field, and each year they “open a window onto the strange, seedy, and beautiful world, offering readers glimpses into places that many will never see or experience except through the eyes and words of these writers” ( Kirkus ). This far-ranging collection of top notch travel writing is, quite simply, the genre’s gold standard.

The year’s best travel writing, as chosen by series editor Jason Wilson and guest editor Robert Macfarlane. Writing, reading, and dreaming about travel have surged, writes Robert MacFarlane in his introduction to the Best American Travel Writing 2020 . From an existential reckoning in avalanche school, to an act of kindness at the Mexican-American border, to a moral dilemma at a Kenyan orphanage, the journeys showcased in this collection are as spiritual as they are physical. These stories provide not just remarkable entertainment, but also, as MacFarlane says, deep comfort, “carrying hope, creating connections, transporting readers to other-worlds, and imagining alternative presents and alternative futures.” The Best American Travel 2020 includes HEIDI JULAVITS • YIYUN LI • PAUL SALOPEK • LACY JOHNSON • EMMANUEL IDUMA • JON MOOALLEM • EMILY RABOTEAU and others

Adventurous essays by Meghan Daum, Paul Theroux, Sarah Moss, and many more, selected by New York Times –bestselling author Padma Lakshmi. “The beauty of good writing is that it transports the reader inside another person’s experience in some other physical place and culture,” writes Padma Lakshmi in her introduction, “and, at its best, evokes a palpable feeling of being in a specific moment in time and space.” The essays in this edition of The Best American Travel Writing are an antidote to the isolation of the year 2020, giving us views into experiences unlike our own and taking us on journeys we could not take ourselves. From the lively music of West Africa, to the rich culinary traditions of Muslims in Northwest China, to the thrill of a hunt in Alaska, this collection is a treasure trove of diverse places and cultures, providing the comfort, excitement, and joy of feeling elsewhere. The Best American Travel Writing 2021 features: KIESE MAKEBA LAYMON • LESLIE JAMISON • BILL BUFORD • JON LEE ANDERSON • MEGHAN DAUM • DOUG BOCK CLARK • LIGAYA MISHAN • SARAH MOSS • PAUL THEROUX and many others “ The Best American Travel Writing has been the gold standard for short-form travel writing from newspapers, magazines and the Internet since its inception.” — The New York Times Book Review “[A] superb travel annual . . . distinguished by its stellar guest editors.” — Booklist (starred review) “[A] venerable series.” — Kirkus Reviews