About Travelers' Tales Guides Travelers' Tales got its start in 1993 when travel writers James O'Reilly and Larry Habegger teamed up with writer and publisher (and James's brother) Tim O'Reilly to produce a new kind of travel book, one that paints a portrait of a country through the experiences of many travelers. Our books showcase true stories and supporting anecdotes to create the depth of understanding that can only come from people who have been there. Reading each book is like sitting in a cafe filled with travelers swapping tales about the place you're headed next. You'll come out changed, and eager for more. In 1995 we applied our concept of presenting many stories in one volume to cities and themes, then further expanded into the realm of travel tips and wisdom. Our Compass Books help you prepare through advice and anecdotes, and in 1999 we're taking the obvious next step, moving into single-author travel literature books with publication of Kite Strings of the Southern Cross: A Woman's Travel Odyssey, the first book in our new series: Footsteps: The Soul of Travel. Our Philosophy We are all outsiders when we travel. Whether we go abroad or roam about our own country, we often enter territory so unfamiliar that our frames of reference become sorely inadequate. We need advice not just to avoid offense and danger, but to make our experiences richer, deeper, and more fun. Traditionally, travel guides have answered the basic questions: what, when, where, how, and how much. A good guidebook is indispensable for all the practical matters that demand attention. More recently, many guidebooks have added cultural and experiential insight to their standard fare, but something important is still missing: guidebooks don't really prepare you, the individual, with feelings and fears, hopes and dreams, goals. This kind of preparation is best achieved through travelers' tales, for we get our inner landmarks more from anecdote than from information. Nothing can replace listening to the experience of others, to the war stories that come out after a few drinks, to the memories that linger and beguile. For millennia it's been this way: at watering holes and wayside inns, the experienced traveler tells those nearby what lies ahead on the ever-mysterious road. Stories stoke the imagination, inspire, frighten, and teach. In stories we see more clearly the urges that bring us to wander, whether it's hunger for change, adventure, self-knowledge, love, curiosity, or even something as prosaic as a job assignment or two weeks off. But travelers' accounts, while profuse, can be hard to track down. Many are simply doomed in a throwaway publishing world. And few of us have the time anyway to read more than one or two books, or the odd pearl found by chance in the Sunday newspaper travel section. Wanderers for years, we've often faced this issue. We've always told ourselves when we got home that we would prepare better for the next trip -- read more, study more, talk to more people -- but life always seems to interfere and we've rarely managed to do so to our satisfaction. That is one reason for this series. We needed a kind of experiential primer that guidebooks don't offer. Another path that led us to Travelers' Tales has been the enormous changes in travel and communications over the last two decades. It is no longer unusual to have ridden a pony across Mongolia, to have celebrated an auspicious birthday on Mt. Kilimanjaro, or honeymooned on the Loire. The one-world monoculture has risen with daunting swiftness, weaving a new cross-cultural rug with it: no longer is it surprising to encounter former headhunters watching All-Star Wrestling on their satellite feed, no longer is it shocking to find the last guy at the end of the earth wearing a Harvard t-shirt and asking if you know Michael Jordan. The global village exists in a rudimentary fashion, but it is real. In 1980, Paul Fussell wrote in Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between the Wars a cranky but wonderful epitaph for travel as it was once known, in which he concluded that "we are all tourists now, and there is no escape." It has been projected that by the year 2000, tourism will be the world's largest industry. This is a horrifying prospect indeed -- hordes of us hunting for places that have not been trod on by the rest of us! Fussell's words have the painful ring of truth, but this is still our world, and it is worth seeing and will be worth seeing next year, or in 50 years, simply because it will always be worth meeting others who continue to see life in different terms than we do, despite the efforts of telecommunication and advertising talents. No amount of creeping homogeneity can quell the endless variation of humanity, and travel in the end is about people, not places. Places only provide different venues, as it were, for life, in which we are all pilgrims who need to talk to each other. There are also many places around the world where intercultural friction and outright xenophobia are increasing. And the very fact that travel endangers cultures and pristine places more quickly than it used to calls for extraordinary care on the part of today's traveler, a keener sense of personal responsibility. The world is not our private zoo or theme park; we need to be better prepared before we go, so that we might become honored guests and not vilified intruders. In Traveler's Tales, we collect useful and memorable anecdotes by country -- because that's how people travel -- to produce the kind of sampler we've always wanted to read before setting out. These stories will show you some of the spectrum of experiences to be had or avoided in each country. The authors come from many walks of life: some are teachers, some are writers, some are scientists, all are wanderers with a tale to tell. Their stories will help you to deepen and enrich the experiences that you will have as a traveler.Where we've excerpted books, we urge you to go out and read the full work, because no selection can ever do an author justice. Each Travelers' Tales is organized into five simple parts. In the first, we've chosen stories that reflect the ephemeral yet pervasive essence of a country. Part Two contains stories about places and activities that others have found worthwhile. In Part Three, we've chosen stories by people who have made a special connection between their lives and interests and the people and places they visited. Part Four shows some of the struggles and challenges facing a country, and Part Five, "The Last Word," is just that, something of a grace note or harmonic to remind you of the book as a whole. Our selection of stories in each Travelers' Tales is by no means comprehensive, but we are confident it will prime your pump, and make your use of guidebooks more meaningful. Travelers' Tales are not meant to replace travel guides, but to accompany them. No longer will you have to go to dozens of sources to map the personal side of your journey. You'll be able to reach for Travelers' Tales, and truly prepare yourself before you go. --James O'Reilly and Larry Habegger Series Editors

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