Feasting in Lyon

Jeffrey Tayler feared he would never feel as intoxicated with the sense of discovery as he once did. But something clicked when he set foot in France’s third-largest city.

Visit Myanmar—That’s an Order

Travel to Myanmar has slowed to a trickle. But a decade ago, with great fanfare, the government launched a new tourism campaign. Stephen Brookes, then Rangoon bureau chief for Asia Times, remembers its bizarre launch ceremony.

Cheesy Souvenirs + Famous Landmarks = Very Cool Travel Pics

Greyhound Canada (and Its Passengers) Can’t Catch a Break

The Paris Greeters: Helping Dispell Notions of ‘Inhospitable Locals’

Forget About Having a ‘G’Day, Mite’

Vagrant Ruminations of a Compulsive Traveler

Where does the urge to hunt for that “fleeting fix of elsewhere” come from? Peter Wortsman recalls a life of travel inspiration. 

Rolf Potts: Revelations from a Postmodern Travel Writer

His new book “Marco Polo Didn’t Go There” includes his best stories from the past 10 years. Michael Yessis asks him how travel writing has changed in the last decade—and what he sees for the future.

Notes From an Unofficial Tourist Greeter

Summer is over, and so is Julia Ross‘ season as an ambassador to travelers in Washington, D.C.’s Woodley Park neighborhood. She’s happy to be off duty.

10 Great Travel Race Movies

Slow travel is well and good. But there’s something irresistible about a great travel race movie. World Hum Travel Movie Clubbers Eva Holland and Eli Ellison share their favorite vicarious thrill rides.

Eat Ceviche in Lima

Grab a Cusqueña and get comfortable. As Nicholas Gill explains, a trip to a Peruvian cevichería can be an all-day immersion in good conversation and raw seafood.

How Should I Spend My Time in Spain?

Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel

Unsentimental Journeys: Wrestling With Paul Theroux

Bronwen Dickey considers “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: 28,000 Miles in Search of the Great Railway Bazaar”

No. 28: “Facing the Congo” by Jeffrey Tayler

Facing the Congo is an exceptional book. I read the book after returning from my trip to Southern Sudan in 2003. I promptly wanted to head back-- this time to the Congo. Tayler is a eloquent writer who offers remarkable insight into his personal journey and captures the formidable and unending lure that Africa has for those who travel there.

Tayler’s book pairs well with Redmond O’Hanlon’s “No Mercy. O’Hanlon covered some of the same territory about five years earlier, but he’s a much different writer on a much different mission. I think both books are excellent. It’s great to see such fine writing about contemporary Africa. We need more of it.

Tayler does an excellent job of taking the reader along AND communicating the significance of the details he selects.  I haven’t read Facing the Congo, but his Angry Wind and Glory in a Camel’s Eye are among my personal faves, and I don’t have that many.

Actually, anything by O’Hanlon is worth checking out.  If you want to read a really different (and personal) perspective on Middle-Eastern travel, check out Freya Stark’s writings, from the 1920s or so. (The more things change, the more they stay the same, in many respects.)