The Best American Travel Writing 2013

Nineteen journeys from Cuba to Cairo capture the terror, wonder, and transformative grit of modern travel. Number-one New York Times best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed: A Love Story, Elizabeth Gilbert transports readers to far-flung locales with this collection of the year’s lushest and most inspiring travel writing. This volume guides readers into dangerous terrain, following John Jeremiah Sullivan into Havana and Kevin Chroust into Pamplona’s running bulls. Contributors explore the frozen gold mines of Peru’s Mount Ananea and a remote healing camp in northern Tanzania. Gilbert selects immersive dispatches that range from secret noodle workshops in central Vietnam to a derelict tile factory in Kabul. The anthology follows David Sedaris into Parisian clinics and Colleen Kinder through Cairo’s crowded Friday markets. - Travel Memoir: Judy Copeland tackles the steep jungle highlands of Papua New Guinea, relying on five nimble Bimin schoolgirls to guide her footing along a near-vertical cliff face. - Cultural History: Bernd Brunner investigates the hundred thousand wild dogs roaming the streets of Istanbul, exploring centuries of urban legend, imperial banishments, and communal care. - American History: Rich Cohen explores the forgotten empire of Barataria smugglers in the Louisiana bayous, detailing how privateer Jean Lafitte supplied vital flints to Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. - Literary Essays: Sam Anderson visits a struggling Victorian theme park in Kent, braving synthetic sewer stench and broken animatronics in search of Charles Dickens’s living legacy. - Also by This Author: The Best American Travel Writing 2012, The Best American Travel Writing 2008 and The Best American Travel Writing 2010.