The Best Travel Writing 2005: True Stories from Around the World

Review by Tim Leffel

The tourism business is all about superlatives. Every spot on the map has to have something that is the longest, biggest, smallest, highest, or fastest. It’s like every convention and visitors’ bureau has taken talking point lessons from Donald Trump. So it is only fitting that we have two collections of “the best” travel writing each year. (The other will be reviewed later.)

We have to suspend our disbelief that any editor or groups of editors could possibly know what is actually the best writing to be published over the course of a year. That would require reading a hundred thousand articles in magazines, newspapers, books, and web sites. But “best” is a magic word that leads to action. “Travel Writing That is Among the Better Stuff We’ve Seen All Year” probably isn’t a winning title.

Thankfully this collection really is quite good. If any publisher has the credibility to say so, it’s Travelers’ Tales, the company that is responsible for a sizable percentage of the good travel writing hitting the bookshelves each year.

The introduction is from Tom Miller, author of The Panama Hat Trail, Jack Ruby's Kitchen Sink, and other fine books. Like a movie that pulls you in while the opening credits are still rolling, the first paragraph of his intro grabs you with a perfect quotable line: “The finest travel writing describes what’s going on when nobody’s looking.” Anyone getting ready to send in their manuscript should read the next few pages for reminders of why much travel writing, even in the highest-circulation publications, is sub-par. “The essayist who calls a town quaint, the plaza charming, or the streets teeming, has no literary imagination.”

There is no danger of tourist brochure writing in this collection. The story subjects themselves are refreshingly odd. Peter Valing’s story, “Where the Fighters are Hungry,” is about staging a boxing match in a small town in Malawi. Bruno Maddox’s “Concorde R.I.P.” explains why the storied plane’s death really is final. Murad Kalam’s “If It Doesn’t Kill You First” offers a detailed look inside the Haj ceremonies in Mecca, while shining a bright light on the inherent dangers and the ironies of the pilgrimage as a government-sponsored big business venture. Patrick Fitzhugh fuses his father’s bedtime story reading of The Odyssey with his visit to a cliffside cave on the Amalfi coast of Italy.

Some of the most refreshing tales are those from writers who have the confidence to think small. Susan Orlean is masterful as always. Her tale of two Cuban water buffalo and their owner Humberto, “Carbonara and Primavera” is a case study for why it doesn’t take verbal pyrotechnics to convey a lot of background and feeling in a few short pages. Rolf Potts’ “Circuit Broken” is a wonderful tale of trying to find a special, authentic experience by getting off the backpacker circuit in Vietnam. Instead of special connections and discoveries, he finds one sad disappointment after another, especially during a visit to a “rural minority village that looked suitably remote and authentic.” In the end, he finds “All too often, the random workings of reality simply don’t match up with your reverent, idealized hopes.”

Donald Renard shows that in the hands of a good writer, almost any subject can come alive. How much can a person write about a single hotel that hardly anyone knows about? “The Accidental Hotel,” about a property in Bangkok with a storied history, turns out to be one of the longest stories in the collection—but one of the most engaging.

At a recent travel media conference, I learned that the story “Confessions of a Travel Writer,” by Robert L. Strauss, has become something of a cult classic. Strauss recounts his spiraling journey down to hackdom, becoming a travel “fam trip whore” who can’t stop going on sponsored trips, even when he has no idea how or when he can place articles about them. After a while, his trip to story ratio haunts him continuously and he starts suffering from writer’s block. He has to give it up cold turkey.

Even in such a quality collection, everyone is bound to find a few stories they don’t like among the 27 featured. For me, it was when predictable subjects reared their tired head. An expat living in Asia eats something she shouldn’t and gets violently ill. A writer gives a blow-by-blow account of the steps he went through to get background on a story that really never goes anywhere. A traveler trying on Buddhism achieves enlightenment by sitting on a mountainside in Ladakh.

Still, these are quibbles. For any budding writer looking for good models to learn by or any experienced writer looking for ideas on where the form can go, The Best Travel Writing 2005 is an inspiration. And a fine read for anyone who is missing the open road.

Tim Leffel has contributed to a wide range of travel magazines and newspapers and is the author of The World’s Cheapest Destinations (www.WorldsCheapestDestinations.com). He is the travel writing moderator for TransitionsAbroad.com.