by Charles Kulander
I travel faster than bad news.  I comb my hair with a plastic salad fork and use a toothbrush handle to stir my instant coffee, flavoring it with Pepsodent. A money pouch hangs inside my pants, and on my wrist is a Timex with a black vinyl strap-not to tell the time but [...]

by Phil Goldman
“HELP WANTED: FOREIGN MEN NEEDED FOR STRIP CLUB.” I am just desperate enough to reply to this ad. I’m living in Tokyo and I’m broke; I can’t get a steady English teaching gig, or any other form of employment, to save my life. Unfortunately, the days when a native English speaker without any [...]

by Bonnie Morris
Western visitors to Hong Kong, Korea and Japan expect to find teahouses, tea ceremonies, rituals steeped in steeping leaves of tea. But coffee is now a staple of East Asia; in fact, as described in Taylor Clark’s book Starbucked, the world’s largest Starbucks coffeehouse is located in South Korea. And a controversial Starbucks [...]

by Dodie Cross
As I set these thoughts to paper, I must tell the reader that I am fine now. In fact, as I write this I realize how lucky I am. However, that was not the case fifteen years ago.
I didn’t make it to the ladies room in time. I’d been playing golf with some [...]

by Melissa Myers
I’ve pounded down a fistful of live termites in Costa Rica, pierced my septum at a Maori tribal ritual in New Zealand, and attempted to ride a cow in Wales. (I don’t recommend the latter.) Ticking off a list of “must sees” isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. This was especially [...]

by Phil Goldman
If my first three weeks in the Thai jungle taught me one thing, it was this: I was not prepared, mentally or emotionally, to be a guide. There was nothing I could really do about that, and while it’s never stopped me from doing anything before (and it certainly wasn’t going to [...]

By Derrin DuFord
Three dollars. It can’t even get you a beer in a New York City bar. But it’s the going rate for a haircut in Panama City. Peppered all over the El Cangrejo neighborhood, the barbershops, too many for the available number of scalps, all advertise the same rate. Then again, I never saw [...]

By Jennifer Wells
I have a theory, supported by a great deal of data, that western women lose 20-30 IQ points in the presence of a beautiful African man with dreadlocks. When the dreads are accompanied by good teeth, she can lose up to 40 points. Depending on how smart she is to begin with, this [...]

By Zack Kushner
Lost in the swirling dust, the sun scalding our scalps and our pursuers gaining, we go for broke. In order to escape Ethiopia, we resort to madness.
High above the Ethiopian city of Gondar, 17th century castles square their shoulders and face the sun. It is as if one of the exuberant potholes on [...]

by Bill Zarchy
“We’re not even Christian,” wailed Danny as I dragged my family to Chartres on the train from Gare Montparnasse. “Why do we have to go to so many churches?”
For my kids, Europe’s vast, vaulted cathedrals weren’t glorious icons of medieval society, but creepy, dark places full of dead people. Being hecka-old didn’t make [...]