The Best Travelers' Tales 2004

This title launches a new Travelers' Tales series, an annual collection of the best travel writing, to celebrate ten years of publishing the world's best travel writing from Nobel Prize winners to complete unknowns. Many of these stories will be published for the first time in this book, while some will have appeared in other Travelers' Tales titles or elsewhere. But the common thread connecting them will be fresh, lively storytelling and compelling narrative to make the reader laugh, weep, wish he were there, or be glad he wasn't. These 25 stories cover the globe, from battling snakes in Costa Rica to probing your own relation to the caste system in India to charting your way through the "oldest tourist trap in the world" in Egypt to learning to cook an octopus in Mexico. The writers come from many countries, not just the United States, so the points of view and perspectives are global in reach. Themes are as eclectic as all of our books, including stories that encompass spiritual growth, absolute hilarity and misadventure, high adventure, romance, women's solo journeys, stories of service to humanity, family travel, and encounters with exotic cuisine.