When I can’t travel, I like finding a good book that transports me. That’s not usually a travel guide though. My taste runs from fiction based in interesting locales to travel nonfiction. Here are a few of my favorite books that inspire wanderlust.
I love biscuits. Buttermilk. Cat’s Head. Angel. (Though I don’t care for a sweet biscuit. I also refuse to taint a crunchy biscuit with gravy. Sacrilege.) But I took them for granted my first 32 years when I lived in the South. You could get frozen biscuits at Wal-Mart. And at every restaurant. But living in San Diego, biscuits are hard to come by. Naturally, one of the few places I’ve found sells sweet biscuits, since the owner is from South Carolina (biscuit recipes vary wildly from one region of the South to another). I’ve learned to make my own…
Anthony Bourdain’s death has reverberated around the globe. People I didn’t even know had heard of him mourn with me that one of the most influential men in travel and food has departed this world. I first glommed on to Bourdain with his show, No Reservations. I’d been an armchair traveler up until then, watching Rachael Ray and Samantha Brown navigate the always-clean and PG worlds of very safe cities around the globe. But Bourdain, man. He dug deep. He got out of the tourist lines and into homes of locals. He ate things I’d never be brave enough to…
I’m sorry to say: New York City stresses me out. Chalk it up to me living in Southern California for so long, where the pace of life is much slower. All the congestion, noise, and pollution sets me on edge. But then I step into Central Park, and all that melts away. You don’t even feel like you’re in the middle of one of the largest cities in the world…you’re just in nature. No wonder New Yorkers love it. It’s a true getaway.