thanks jamaica kincaid
I picked up The Best American Travel Writing 2005 on whim at a local used bookstore and it was five bucks well spent. The editor for this edition of the series, Jamaica Kincaid, based her selections on the following criteria:
Every one of them reminds me of two of the many sentiments attached to the travel narrative: curiosity and displacement. None of them are about a night’s stay in a nice hotel anywhere; none of them chronicle a day at a beach. They were not chosen to say something about the state of American travel writing; they were chosen because I simply liked them. …These essays stimulate my curiosity; they underline my sense of my displacement.
It was a good idea because it produced one of the best collections I have read. I tried to find some of the stories online to share with you:
Trying Really Hard to Like India by Seth Stevensen
Adrift by Bucky McMahon
Route 3 by Ian Frazier
War Wounds by Tom Bissell (an audio reading of the story)
One story I couldn’t find was They Came Out Like Ants! In it, the author, hunts down tunnels in Mexico that were supposed to have been built by Chinese immigrants to house illicit gambling and other subterranean activities.
If you like these stories, pick up the book and check out the rest.
