Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected — and most popular — of its kind. The Best American Travel Writing 2004 transports readers from Patagonia to Ivory Coast to small-town Vermont. Readers are treated to car and truck trips across America, can fall in lust in the South Pacific, and go into the heart of the Congo to rescue gorillas. This year's volume is edited by Pico Iyer, who writes in his fascinating introduction, Restlessness is part of the American way. It's part of what brought many of the rest of us to America. The Best American Travel Writing 2004 displays American restlessness at its most tantalizing and entertaining.

A celebration of adventure and curiosity, this compilation transports readersfrom Patagonia to the Ivory Coast to small-town Vermont.

The Best American series has been the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction since 1915. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of periodicals. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the very best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected--and most popular--of its kind.

The Best American Travel Writing 2005 includes

William Least-Heat Moon • Ian Frazier • John McPhee • William T. Vollmann • Simon Winchester • Tom Bissell • Madison Smartt Bell • Timothy Bascom • Pam Houston • and others

Jamaica Kincaid, guest editor, is the author of numerous award-winning works, including the memoirs My Brother and The Autobiography of My Mother and the novel Annie John. Her travelogue Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalayas appeared in 2005. She lives in Vermont with her two childen and a garden, in which she travels a great deal.

Jason Wilson is a prolific travel writer, having published numerous travel essays in such publications as HEMISPHERES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TRAVEL &LEISURE, THE NEW YORK TIMES, P.O.V., NEW ENGLAND REVIEW, THE TIMES PICAYUNE, FLIGHT, CONTINENTAL, AMERICAN WAY, TRIP, THE PHILADELPHIA CITY PAPER, among many other prestigious publications. His travel writing has also earned him three Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards for both "Best Magazine Article on a U.S. Destination" and "Best Magazine Article on a Foreign Destination," three Society of Professional Journalists Awards for Magazine Feature Writing, a Garden State Association of Black Journalists Award, and has been selected as "Notable Essay" in THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS 1997, 1998, and 1999. Mr. Wilson was also the founder of the now-defunct, but well-loved travel journal, GRAND TOUR, which THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER called, "A travel journal with two kinds of writing: good and better," and which THE WASHINGTON POST called, "A fine new magazine...creating a new home for the best sort of travel writing...the editors have an eye for writers who can take the smallest moments of existence abroad, and exalt them." Mr. Wilson has taught magazine writing and creative writing at a number of universities, and will be teaching travel writing at the graduate level at Rosemont College in the Philadelphia area beginning in Spring 2000.

Contents

Foreword by Jason Wilson ix Introduction by Jamaica Kincaid xiii

Timothy Bascom. A Vocabulary for My Senses 1 from The Missouri Review

Madison Smartt Bell. Mine of Stones 8 from Harper’s Magazine

Tom Bissell. War Wounds 32 from Harper’s Magazine

William E. Blundell. My Florida 51 from The American Scholar

J Michael Fay. In the Land of the Surfing Hippos 63 from National Geographic

Ian Frazier. Route 3 79 from The New Yorker

Jim Harrison. A Really Big Lunch 92 from The New Yorker

William Least Heat-Moon. By the Big Sea Water 102 from Gourmet

Peter Hessler. Kindergarten 109 from The New Yorker

Jack Hitt. Say No More 129 from the New York Times Magazine

Pam Houston. The Vertigo Girls Do the East Tonto Trail 141 from National Geographic Adventure

Ben Ryder Howe. An Impossible Place to Be 149 from Outside

Tom Ireland. My Thai Girlfriends 162 from The Missouri Review Mark Jenkins. Leap Year 179 from Outside

Murad Kalam. If It Doesn’t Kill You First 187 from Outside

Charles Martin Kearney. Maps and Dreaming 201 from The Missouri Review

Thomas Keneally. Romancing the Abyss 221 from Condé Nast Traveler

Bucky McMahon. Adrift 233 from Esquire

John McPhee. Tight-Assed River 244 from The New Yorker

Robert Young Pelton. Into the Land of bin Laden 272 from National Geographic Adventure

David Quammen. West Highland Peace Trek 292 from National Geographic Adventure

Kira Salak. The Vision Seekers 308 from The Sophisticated Traveler

Seth Stevenson. Trying Really Hard to Like India 314 from Slate.com

William T. Vollmann. They Came Out Like Ants! 325 from Harper’s Magazine

Simon Winchester. Welcome to Nowhere 354 from National Geographic Adventure

Contributors’ Notes 363 Notable Travel Writing of 2004 371