Jeff Greenwald
AUTHOR

Jeff Greenwald is an Oakland, California-based travel writer, and the author of five books, including the best-selling Shopping for Buddhas and (his personal favorite) The Size of the World. He is also the Executive Director of Ethical Traveler, an international alliance of world travelers united to promote human rights and environmental protection. He sent this contribution from Sri Lanka, where he was working on the tsunami relief effort with Mercy Corps.

INVISIBLE CITIES
By Italo Calvino (1974)
Invisible Cities may be a novel, but it demonstrates the infinite potential of the genre. In 55 bite-sized chapters, the young Marco Polo regales his host--the great Kublai Khan-'with fantastic, often surreal accounts of his journeys through the Mogol Empire. He speaks of the cities he has seen: cities inspired by memory and by desire; cities obsessed with death; trading cities; and more. Few of the young Polo’s travelogues are longer than a page, but each shimmers like a perfectly cut gemstone.

SAVAGES
By Joe Kane (1995)
A sequel, of sorts, to Kane's brilliant Running the Amazon, this book shows what can happen when a gifted adventurer is also a gutsy activist. While working at the Rainforest Action Network in San Francisco, Kane receives a letter from the Huaorani, a tribe in Ecuador's Amazonian rain forest. Threatened by oil interests, the Huaorani need an ally--and Kane steps up to the plate. Like Douglas Adams's Last Chance to See, Kane's book wonderfully balances description, humor, and top-flight journalism.

TO THE ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD
By Tarquin Hall (2000)
A rogue elephant is on the loose in northern India, trampling small villages and killing the luckless farmers who cross its path. To track down the wild pachyderm, the Indian government hires an expert hunter--a man, it turns out, with great respect and compassion for the beasts. Hall joins the expedition, painting in vivid color the mahouts, guides, and journalists he meets along the way. A terrific adventure tale, and an unforgettable glimpse into the secret lives of elephants.

Rolf Potts
AUTHOR

Rolf Potts is at the forefront of a new generation of literary travel writers that came of age with the Internet. His travel essays have appeared in such venues as Salon.com, Slate.com, National Geographic Traveler, Conde Nast Traveler, The Best American Travel Writing 2000, and National Public Radio. His first book, Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel (Random House, 2003), was hailed by The Boston Globe as "a valuable contribution to our thinking, not only about travel, but about life and work."

LEAVES OF GRASS
By Walt Whitman (1855)
This book deserves status as a travel classic, if for no other reason than 'Song of the Open Road,' an infectiously joyous ode to the wandering spirit. But beyond such explicit travel anthems, Whitman's masterpiece continually captures the attitude of curiosity and open-mindedness that comes with any engaged journey-be it a ferry ride from Brooklyn to Manhattan, or a sea-voyage to India.

PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK
By Annie Dillard (1990)
Dillard's evocation of a stretch of Virginia wilderness proves that travel need not be far-fl ung to be meaningful. Not only can the mindful experience of a single location yield a multitude of perspectives, but such perspectives also hint at a much richer spiritual realm latent anywhere one takes the time to seek it. 'Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we sense them,' Dillard writes. 'The least we can do is try to be there.'

VIDEO NIGHT IN KATHMANDU
And Other Reports from the Not-So-Far East
By Pico Iyer (1988)
Iyer's 1988 literary debut is an answer to all those critics who claim that great travel writing died once the terra incognita was mapped. As this Asia-themed collection of essays shows, the final frontier of adventure isn't located on some distant mountain or impenetrable jungle--but in the intimate (and often comical) cross-cultural fascinations and discoveries that arise from an ever-shrinking world.

Laura Fraser
JOURNALIST

Laura Fraser is a San Francisco-based journalist whose last book, An Italian Affair, was a best-selling travel memoir. She is at work on a sequel.

CHASING CHE
A Motorcycle Journey in Search of the Guevara Legend
By Patrick Symmes (2000)
Long before The Motorcycle Diaries became a film, New York journalist Symmes set out on his motorcycle, La Cucaracha, to trace Che Guevara's route and stories of his legend. Winding his way through mountains and valleys, high society and poverty, his journey reveals a great deal about Latin American society--and about himself, and anyone who wanders.

UNDER THE JAGUAR SUN
By Italo Calvino (1988)
This book isn't so much a travel memoir as a journey into the senses. Calvino covers taste, hearing, and smell, and died before he could write essays on the other two. The title story is a wonderful tale about Oaxaca, Mexico, in all its culinary sensuality and spicy history. The book reminds me that traveling, above all, is about being open to one's senses and new experiences.

DESIRING ITALY
Women Writers Celebrate the Passions of a Country and Culture
Edited by Susan Cahill (1997)
This is an anthology of many women writers' encounters with Italy, through memoir, travelogue, or fiction. It includes tidbits from Edith Wharton on Rome, George Eliot on Florence, Barbara Grizzuti Harrison on San Gimignano, and pieces by Margaret Fuller, Mary Shelly, Elizabeth Bowen, Mary McCarthy, and others. Included with each literary piece are some travel highlights and tips about the locations today. When I can't make it to Italy, I dip into this book to taste and smell its sensual and artistic delights.

Larry Habegger
EDITOR

Larry Habegger is a writer, editor, journalist, and teacher who has been covering the world for major newspapers and magazines since the 1970s. In 1993 he founded the award-winning Travelers' Tales books with James and Tim O'Reilly, and he is currently executive editor. His most recent book, coedited with James and Sean O'Reilly, is The Best Travel Writing 2005, the second edition in an annual series that debuted as The Best Travelers' Tales 2004.

A SENSE OF PLACE
Great Travel Writers Talk About Their Craft, Lives, and Inspiration
By Michael Shapiro (2004)
Shapiro spent two years traveling the world to interview 18 of the best travel writers in their homes, and he came away with more +than he ever imagined. His conversations with the likes of Bill Bryson, Jan Morris, Paul Theroux, Isabel Allende, and many more are rich portraits of the writer's life and the world we live in, as well as superb guides for how to approach the craft of writing. Every author has his or her own wisdom to share, and does so gracefully as Shapiro puts each at ease through his good nature and obvious preparation: he has read all of their books.

THE GREAT RAILWAY BAZAAR
By Train Through Asia
By Paul Theroux (1975)
You might say that this is the book that launched a thousand travelers: Theroux's seminal round-the-world railway journey became a study in culture and freewheeling travel that fueled the dreams of thousands aching to see the world the way he did. Published in 1975, the book stands up to current tastes and remains one of Theroux's best travel books.

THE ROYAL ROAD TO ROMANCE
By Richard Halliburton (1925)
The man was a legend in the 1920s and ’30s because of this book and others that followed. The Royal Road to Romance is a round-the-world romp that captured the imagination of an entire generation who longed to do what he had done--to see the world by the seat of his pants, on his own terms, traveling with whimsy and panache, and writing with youthful abandon. Mostly forgotten by today's readers, Halliburton remains a mythic figure to those who read him in their youth.

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1,000 PLACES TO SEE BEFORE YOU DIE
Patricia Schultz (2003)
The title says it all: a few suggestions for your where-to-go-next list.