Welcome to 2015 and the first issue of Perceptive Travel, home to the best travel stories from wandering book authors. This time we bring you two narrative tales from different sides of the Atlantic, then go traipsing all over the world with our regular bloggers there.
We’re happy to welcome Mary Jo McConahay for the first time. She has scored a “Travel Journalist of the Year” award from the Society of American Travel Writers and has written for the likes of Time, Newsweek, Vogue, Rolling Stone, Sierra, and International Herald Tribune. When returning to the Guatemalan market town of Chichicastenango, where she once got pick-pocketed, she joins a hunt for a faithful reproduction of the sacred Maya book Popol Vuh , hidden somewhere under lock and key.
Tony Robinson-Smith once spent six years traveling around the world without getting on a plane, so biking from the bottom of England to the top of Scotland probably didn’t sound so bad. Until he started doing it. See End to End, the Roundabout Route .
This time of year you see lots of round-up stories, most with the word “best,” “top-10,” or “greatest” in them. What makes the PT blog unique, however, is that the writers have free rein to follow whatever odd angle in whatever odd place seems interesting to them. So we went with a year’s worth of unusual stories instead. See Stories, not Superlatives: Strange Tales from the Perceptive Travel Blog .
Then of course we rounded up some of the most interesting new travel books to share, and in this case all three authors have appeared in our online magazine before: James Dorsey, Doug Lansky, and Rory McLean. See the book reviews from Bill Caverlee .
Graham Reid checks out some world music worth downloading , with sounds from Varanasi, Egypt, Nigeria, and an ex-metalhead going soft.
Our loyal readers always have a shot at winning something useful each month and this was the second win for Daniel H. of New Mexico. He scored a new SteriPEN Freedom , a great small, lightweight water purifier than I use constantly in developing countries.
This month we’re celebrating the January paperback release of A Better Life for Half the Price by giving away three copies. This is open to everyone: those in countries where Amazon has an office will get a paperback, anyone else who wins will get an e-book. The odds are good, so sign up for the newsletter and follow PT on Facebook for how to enter.
