Destination: Afghanistan

Gonzo Dispatches from the Front

by Jim Benning | 12.29.01 | 11:57 PM ET

A pair of twenty-something American travelers who apparently entered war-ravaged Afghanistan are filing dispatches on their website. They’re either courageous or crazy or both. Whichever, their Tora Bora tales and angst-ridden musings offer a unique perspective on the devastated nation, as well as the media covering it. “We are here to see what it’s all about for ourselves, with our own eyes; unmediated by camera lens or agenda,” they write. “We maintain this site because most of you will die soon without any idea of what any of this is like beyond your paranoia and fear as fostered by the assumed reality of your television.” Their journey has been covered in several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times.

Tags: Asia, Afghanistan

In the Wake of September 11

by Michael Yessis | 09.19.01 | 9:01 PM ET

Several readers have passed along links to stories regarding the tragedy in the U.S. We’d like to share:

>> Dave McKenna writes in the Washington CityPaper about attending a soccer game in Rome just after the World Trade Towers were toppled.

>> New York Times writers Jane Fritsch and David Rohde follow the paper trail from the offices, tracking down the owners of resumes, bank records and cell phone statements that floated across the city and as far away as Brooklyn.

>> Sonya Ross of the Associated Press  takes readers aboard Air Force One for U.S. President George W. Bush’s post-attack journey from Florida to Louisiana to Nebraska to Washington D.C.

>> In the International Herald Tribune, Roger Collis examines travel in the coming weeks, months and years.

>> In the New York Times, Anthony DePalma writes of his cross-country odyssey from San Diego to Newark in a rental car.

>> CNN’s Nic Robertson fled Afghanistan September 19. He writes about his last week there.

Tags: 9.11.01, Asia, Afghanistan, North America, United States, Washington, D.C.

Nightstand Reading

by Jim Benning | 06.05.01 | 12:01 AM ET

As a 22-year-old traveler in Afghanistan, Brad Newsham wondered what it might be like, one day when he was rich, to invite a stranger back to America for the trip of a lifetime. Newsham never became wealthy by American standards, but decades later, he decided to find out anyway. In Take Me With You, Newsham hits the road in search of the perfect candidate, passing through the Philippines, India, Tanzania and other developing countries, encountering a host of memorable characters. This isn’t your typical went-there, did-that travel book. Newsham’s account is evocative and heartfelt, infused with a generous spirit capable of inspiring even the most jaded traveler. “I felt I’d moved a notch or two up the scale of involvement—from observer to participant,” Newsham writes. “Around any corner I might bump into someone whose life, and my own too, would be forever changed by our meeting….Possibility itself sat like an imp on my shoulder, whispering, ‘This could be the one.’”

Tags: Asia, Afghanistan, India, Life of a Travel Writer