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Tag Archives: travel writing
The Riverbones
It’s been a while since I reviewed a recent travel book. This one stood out among the books I read last month.
The Riverbones by Andrew Westoll
Andrew Westoll spent a year as a primatologist chasing monkeys through the jungles of the Central Suriname Nature Reserve. He returned five years later as a writer obsessed with finding the secret soul of this poorly understood country.
Posted in Reviews
Tagged andrew westoll, road wisdom, Ryan Murdock, the riverbones, travel literature, travel writing, vagabond
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Memory Breeds Paper Dreams
Jenny from Sydney, Australia asked: How did you become interested in writing? I wonder sometimes what came first, the stories or the intention to write them? I think, in a sense, I’ve always lived posthumously. Even when I really got myself into trouble as a kid, part of me knew that the incident I was caught up in would make a great story and that I had to go through with it.
Posted in Reader Questions
Tagged breaking rules, memoir, memory, road wisdom, Ryan Murdock, travel writing, vagabond, writing
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Road Wisdom Top 10 Travel Books
No one likes a well thought out reading list more than I do. They obsess me, it’s true. But they also serve to focus my efforts, reveal themes and dialogues that pass from author to author, and expose me to new writers I might not otherwise have read.
I’m just a few books away from completing the Modern Library’s Top 100 Books of the 20th Century–a project I’ve been chipping away at off and on for 5 years–and it got me thinking about my own area of expertise: travel literature.
The Tools of My Trade
As a professional travel writer, people often ask me about the tools of my trade. I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you about my notebook.
“Your notebook?” you might ask. “What the hell for? Isn’t one piece of paper as good as the next?”
Au contraire, mon ami. Ask a craftsman who works with wood if one hammer or chisel is as good as another. Ask an accountant about calculators. Ask a serious cocktail drinker about peripherals like bitters and grenadine.
Posted in On Travel Writing
Tagged moleskin, moleskine, road wisdom, Ryan Murdock, travel writing, vagabond
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Getting in to North Korea
This is the first in a multi-part blog on North Korea…
Many readers have asked about my time in North Korea. Why did I go? How did I get in? What was I thinking?
I’ll start at the beginning. It was August 2001, a month before 9/11 changed the world forever. I was living and working in Tokyo. Summer vacation was coming up, and I planned to visit a friend in Indonesia. The problem is, all of Japan goes on vacation at the same time. They’re absolute workaholics, and if vacation time was individually scheduled (like it is in most countries), guilt would keep everyone slaving away. So for two weeks each summer the country shuts down, the freeways clog in 100-km traffic jams, and air tickets jump to five times their normal price.
Posted in North Korea
Tagged asia, china, DPRK, great wall, Kim Jong-Il, North Korea, road wisdom, Ryan Murdock, travel, travel writing, vagabond
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Images of London
We’ll get to North Korea soon, I promise. I’m in London at the moment and wanted to share something with you.
Spent some time searching for the tomb of one of my heroes. He’s buried in a marble replica of a Bedouin tent in a little cemetery in Mortlake…
Posted in Europe, Great travel writers
Tagged burton tomb, europe, london, mortlake, richard burton, richard francis burton, road wisdom, Ryan Murdock, travel, travel writing, vagabond
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Vagabond Dreams Outtakes 12 – They Only Want Your Loot
[I'm on the road in the United States at the moment--my apologies for the infrequent blog entries. Will be back to normal after 7 days]
Vagabond Dreams Outtakes are “deleted scenes” from my book. Think of them as a “Special Features” disc for a DVD yet to be invented. This incident took place in the Peten region of Guatemala…
The light through the window lay across my chest in a square pattern, broken by the lazy sweep of a ceiling fan. It was a picture straight out of Joseph Conrad; a movie version of a malarial sickroom. I appreciated the exotic image and knew it would make a great story, but it wasn’t so cool with no one there to see it.
Posted in Central America, Vagabond Dreams Outtakes
Tagged central america, flores, guatemala, Mana, peten, road wisdom, Ryan Murdock, travel, travel writing, vagabond, vagabond dreams
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Venus Set Me Free
Islands are places where different destinies can meet in the fullness of isolation, and in their own time. Island time doesn’t match the time of other places. The ideal island is a whole world, and even a tiny island may contain multitudes.
Posted in Central America, Postcards from the Edge
Tagged central america, corn island, islands, nicaragua, postcard, road wisdom, Ryan Murdock, travel, travel writing, vagabond
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A Postcard from Armageddon
I’m 31 feet below ground at the Delta One (D-01) launch facility, standing in a reinforced concrete tube, behind a foot-thick steel blast door. A loop of Cold War tunes plays in my head: The Final Countdown, followed by 99 Red Balloons (the English version, with that sexy accent). I’m facing a grey metal control panel with several bakelite telephones and a number of switches–but only one of them matters.
I’ve got my hand on the key. And I have to admit, I’m tempted.
Posted in Postcards from the Edge
Tagged missile silo, postcard, road wisdom, Ryan Murdock, south dakota, travel, travel writing, vagabond
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What is Road Wisdom?
Road Wisdom represents a way of travel, a way of seeing the world.
Road Wisdom is an absence of preconceived agendas, short of going deeper.
Road Wisdom is the collection of lessons imparted by the all-knowing road, if only you loose your grip long enough to get out of your own way and simply follow wherever it might lead you.
Road Wisdom has no time for the mundane, the 9 to 5, or the tick-tock world. It doesn’t exist in the corporate. It seeks the distance, the time, the space, the essence–unapologetically.
Posted in Travel philosophy
Tagged road wisdom, Ryan Murdock, travel, travel philosophy, travel writing, vagabond
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