1) On the ubiquity of beauty Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we sense them. The least we can do is try to be there. 2) On the uses of simplicity It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so fatigued that he won’t stoop to pick up a penny. But if…
1) Genre stories help us escape the narratives of our humdrum lives Skilled genre writers know that a certain level of artificiality must prevail, lest the reasons we turn to their books evaporate. It’s plot we want and plenty of it. Heroes should go up against villains (sympathetic or hateful); love should, if possible, win…
Vagabonding pioneer Ed Buryn on what indie travel was like in the 1960s and 1970s
1) On authenticity Now suppose some loon comes up and says: “Have you found the real Asia?” It is all real as far as I can see. Though certainly a lot of it has been corrupted by the West. Neither Victorian Darjeeling nor the Kennedy-era Oberoi can be called ideal Asia. I remember Deki Lhalungpa…
My father, George Potts, taught science at Fremont High in south-central Los Angeles from 1964-1967. In the popular imagination this corner of urban America is associated with the 1965 Watts Riots, but I grew up knowing, despite media/historical stereotypes, that the young people of this community helped my father (who at the time wasn’t sure…
I’ve featured author and digital-culture pioneer Kevin Kelly in a number of podcast episodes over the years — in large part because he is so insightful on topics like travel, technology, and life in general. The opportunity to participate in one of Kevin’s “Walk and Talk” sojourns in Thailand was a big highlight for me…
Journalist and broadcaster Ash Bhardwaj on the motivations of travel.
Though I’ve never aspired to be a visual artist — or even studied art history in a formal way — I’ve always been enchanted, as a traveler, by modern art museums. I recall being so fascinated by what I saw at the 1997 Gwangju Biennale in Korea that, more than one decade later, I bought…
Kiki and I visited the Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-Strasbourg in Alsace, France, the same week I watched Orson Welles’s quirky 1973 essay-film F for Fake, where, in the context of another French cathedral, Welles noted: This has been standing here for centuries. But, it is without signature. …It might be just this one anonymous glory, of all…
It was very cool to see my book Marco Polo Didn’t Go There alongside titles by the likes of Anthony Bourdain, Orhan Pamuk, and William Least Heat-Moon (as well as Marco Polo himself) on the Kerkermeister Pension’s “Travel Writing Stairs” in Auerbach, Saxony. The Kerkermeister Pension is run by teacher and world traveler Adam Lee…
Earlier this year, I posted a “partial list of ‘best of’ lists where Vagabonding landed on the list,” which outlined where my debut book had appeared on various “best of travel” roundups in recent years. While this included a “10 Must Read Books for Every Travel Lover” list from India Today, I did not realize…
