The Best American Travel Writing: 2000
✈️ ✈️ ✈️ (3 Airplanes)
Why The Best American Travel Writing 2000 are brilliant travel essays that make you nostalgic for the ghosts of travels past.
How was I introduced to this?
Having wanted to get into travel writing, I picked out this book alongside its more contemporary 2020 version and John McPhee's Draft No. 4. This is far superior to the more modern version, but there are many reasons for that. The main one is that it was a different time to write about travel, and many of these stories you have to understand are more than twenty-two years old. I was sixteen years old when this book was published, and I was just on the verge of being bitten by the travel bug some four years later when I first moved to China. But at this time, you already have people writing, as Rolf Potts (The Vagabond's Way) does in his excellent essay "Storming The Beach," that:
It brings to mind a conversation I had just the other day about my travels in Cambodia in 2007 and how what I experienced no longer exists. The old huts I used to rent for 5 dollars a night in Sihanoukville are now 5-star Chinese casinos. Nepal, where I live now, will unfortunately soon be like that too.
Chinese Casinos, Sihanoukville, Cambodia 2022
This book has hidden adventures galore, making you want to pick up your backpack and travel, but our world has changed.
Jonathan Tourtellot writes in his essay "The Two Faces of Tourism" that:
I hate even to Google what it is now, but that shows that this book is dated and that you need to look at these stories with eyes of nostalgia, wonder where they are now and maybe do a little research on them yourself. If you want something current, this is not for you, but it's an excellent snapshot of what the turn of the century was like.
Essential Book Information:
Published in 2000, this edition of The Best American Travel Writing series was the first. A handful of travel essays hand-selected and put together by guest editor Bill Bryson (Notes From a Small Island) and series editor Jason Wilson (Godforsaken Grapes). About 26 essays in total, the stories traverse the world from America to Zanzibar, a literal A to Z of travel writing. It is 295 pages long, with the longest essay being around twenty pages. The selection of essays come from The Washington Post Magazine, The New Yorker, Outside, National Geographic Adventurer, Time, Town & Country, Conde Nast Traveler, Coffee Journal, National Geographic Traveler, Audubon, Men's Journal, Escape, Salon Travel, Talk, Sports Illustrated, The Atlantic Monthly and the St. Petersburg Times.
What's it about?
A foreword by Jason Wilson states it nicely:
The exercises that follow in the book are far more complex than a fourth-grader essay, but the essence remains the same. They picked a place and wrote about it, and in each story, you hear the author's passion, like a school kid yearning to tell the class about his summer adventure.
Top 10 ten favourites were (in no ranking order):
My praise and critique:
I'll refer again to something Rolf Potts wrote:
Well, if this book does the same thing about the places it features to me in its own meta way, then I will say it's a success. Because the writing is all topnotch, I saw I think travel writing at its best, and for a struggling travel writer himself, I know that it's hard work to write such stories. Most stories border on creative nonfiction, so the words are unique, and the scenes painted are colourful. The notes must have been endless, none of this could have come from just memory alone, but the writers made it seem like it did.
My only critique would be for fewer stories; maybe three could be left out, and I feel an anthology like this should include travel poetry.
Would I recommend it?
My rating system:
I give it ✈️ ✈️ ✈️ (3 airplanes), meaning it's like a premium economy airline ticket. It costs double of economy and is probably twice as good. The structure's there, the point comes across clearly, and you learn something. It's better than your average airport bookstand reading, but it won't blow you away. Overall, I highly enjoyed it, and even though it's dated, it, in the end, is timeless.
Yes, I recommend it. I even recommend it for long trips, for some of the stories are excellent, one after another, but it's also nice to read one to two a day—kind of like what I did.
Who is it for?
For someone interested in travel writing and learning how varied it can be. In the end, they are short stories, so if you aren't in the mood for a book and like to learn about the world in small doses at a time, this is the collection for you.