Gayle Keck has written for Gourmet, GQ, Islands, the Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, Denver Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and New Orleans Times-Picayune. Her story, “Onionskin,” was selected for the anthology Best Travelers’ Tales 2004. Gayle has visited 49 US states (sorry, North Dakota) and more than 40 countries — though her favorite trip was a flight from Chicago to San Francisco, when she met her husband on the airplane.

Patrick Smith is an erstwhile pilot and air travel columnist. His book, Ask the Pilot: Everything You Need to Know About Air Travel, was Amazon.com’s choice for Best Travel Book of 2004. Patrick has visited more than 60 countries and always asks for a window seat. He lives near Boston.

John Gimlette is the author of the travel books At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig and Theatre of Fish. Born in London in 1963, he crossed the Soviet Union by train at age 17, and has since traveled to over 60 countries. A barrister specializing in medical negligence, he lives in London with his wife, Jayne Constantinis, who is a TV presenter, and their daughter, Lucy.

Kate Siber’s writing has appeared in Outside, National Geographic Adventure, Men’s Journal, and The New York Times. She is also a contributing editor to Plenty magazine, for which she often writes about sustainable travel. She resides in Durango, Colorado with the fruits of her labor: a growing pile of used running shoes, five pairs of skis, an impressive collection of international teas, and a seven-pound feline that (sometimes) answers to the name of Sophia Maria Lourdes Gato.

Over the last 30 years Eric Hansen has traveled throughout Europe, the Middle East, Australia, Nepal, and Southeast Asia working as a writer and photojournalist. He is the author of Stranger in the Forest, Motoring with Mohammed, Orchid Fever, and The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, Outside Magazine, Men’s Journal, and Natural History Magazine.

Gary Lee is veteran staff writer who has reported from over 60 countries for the Washington Post travel section. Among his many awards, he won the 2002 Lowell Thomas Award in travel journalism for coverage of 9/11. A fluent speaker of five languages, Lee has covered Germany and central Europe for Time, written extensively about the environment, and served as chief of the Post‘s Moscow bureau.

L. Peat O’Neil is the author of Travel Writing: See the World, Sell the Story (2nd edition, Writer’s Digest Books, 2005) and a co-author of Making Waves: 50 Greatest Women in Radio and Television (Andrews McMeel, 2001). For nearly two decades, O’Neil worked in the newsroom of The Washington Post and she continues to freelance for periodicals, websites and newspapers, including National Geographic News. O’Neil currently teaches online for UCLA Extension journalism program, and she is at work on a book about walking the Pyrenees.

Richard Bangs is an entrepreneur, world adventurer, international river explorer, Web pioneer and award-winning author. He has led first descents of 35 rivers around the globe, including the Yangtze in China and the Zambezi in Southern Africa.

Tahir Shah is the author of ten books, chronicling a wide range of unusual and outlandish journeys. In addition, he makes documentaries, writes screenplays, works as a journalist and photographer. His most recent book is The Caliph’s House: A Year in Casablanca. He is also the author of In Search of King Solomon’s Mines which takes the reader through Ethiopia on the quest of the source of Solomon’s fabulous wealth. He lives in Casablanca with his wife and two children.

Anastasia M. Ashman and Jennifer Eaton Gokmen are the Istanbul-based co-editors of the nonfiction anthology Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey. Anastasia is a cultural essayist who has appeared the Wall Street Journal Asia and the Village Voice. Jennifer is a regular contributor to TimeOut: Istanbul.

A winner of the National Book Award for First Fiction and the Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Bob Shacochis has crisscrossed the globe in his literary pursuits. He is the author of two short story collections, Easy in the Islands and The Next New World; a novel, Swimming in the Volcano; and The Immaculate Invasion, about the 1994 military intervention in Haiti.