Jamie Maslin has hitchhiked from England to Iran, traveled throughout Asia, and couch-surfed all over Latin America. Author of Iranian Rappers and Persian Porn: A Hitchhiker’s Adventures in the New Iran, he has been banned from re—entering The Islamic Republic of Iran. His newest books is Socialist Dreams and Beauty Queens: A Couchsurfer’s Memoir of Venezuela. He lives in London, England.

Eamonn Gearon is a writer, analyst and Arabist who has spent most of the past two decades living, working and traveling across the Greater Middle East, from Kabul to Casablanca, including a number of solo, camel-powered explorations of the Libyan Desert. His first book — The Sahara: A Cultural History — was published to great acclaim last year in the UK and USA.

Lavinia Spalding is the author of Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler, chosen one of the best travel books of 2009 by the L.A. Times, coauthor of With a Measure of Grace, and editor of Travelers’ Tales’ The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2011. A regular contributor to Yoga Journal, her work has also appeared in a wide variety of print and online publications, including Sunset Magazine, Post Road, and World Hum. She lives in San Francisco.

John Keahey’s latest book, Seeking Sicily: A Cultural Journey Through Myth and Reality in the Heart of the Mediterranean, debuted in November of 2011. He has also authored A Sweet and Glorious Land: Revisiting the Ionian Sea and Venice Against the Sea: A City Besieged. John is an Idaho native who has worked in daily newspaper/wire service journalism in the American West since age 17.

Julian Smith is the author of Crossing the Heart of Africa: An Odyssey of Love and Adventure, which won the 2011 Outstanding Book Award in memoir/autobiography from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. His articles and photographs have appeared in Smithsonian, Wired, Outside, National Geographic Traveler, New Scientist, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and US News & World Report. He has won the country’s top travel writing award from the Society of American Travel Writers.

Mary Jo McConahay is the author of Maya Roads: One Woman’s Journey Among the People of the Rainforest. Born in Chicago, she came of age in California in an era when On the Road was a bible for young people. She traveled in Mexico and Central America before moving to the Middle East to work as a reporter on the English-language Arab News. In the 1980s she became a correspondent for Pacific News Service, covering the wars in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and the U.S. invasion of Panama.

Spud is a journalist and late-blooming traveler who, in the past 10 years as a writer and editor for the Travel section of the San Francisco Chronicle, has written about, reported on and been hopelessly lost in destinations on five continents. His attempts to divine, describe and defy the expectations of places — from Havana’s back alleys to Genoa’s cathedrals to the floor of a hippie bus in Modesto — have earned him five Lowell Thomas Awards.

La Carmina is a professional alternative-cultures blogger, travel/culture journalist, travel TV host, and author of three Jpop books. Her popular blog has been featured in publications such as the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the New Yorker (which called her, “adorable, in a somewhat bizarre way”). She has co-hosted an episode of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern for the Travel Channel, and she is the Asia host for educational travel TV series, Project Explorer.

Elisabeth Eaves is the author of Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Five Continents. Her travel writing has been anthologized in The Best American Travel Writing 2009, The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010, and Lonely Planet’s A Moveable Feast: Life-changing food adventures from around the world. Elisabeth has freelanced widely, including for Slate, Foreign Policy, Harper’s, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, and has worked at Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and The Daily, where she is editor of the opinions page.

Jim Benning and Michael Yessis are the cofounders and coeditors of WorldHum.com, a culture and travel website that celebrates its 10th anniversary this month. Countless travel publications and websites tell you where to go, where to stay, what to do. World Hum focuses not only on destinations but on the journey, on travel in the broadest sense of the word.

Brook Silva-Braga is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. He was a producer at HBO before founding Earthchild Productions in 2005. He has since directed two feature length documentaries, A Map for Saturday, which explores the subculture of long-term travel, and One Day in Africa, a portrait of six individuals from different parts of the continent. His current project explores US/China relations through expert interviews and profiles of everyday Americans and Chinese.