New Lonely Planet Travel Editor

Yesterday I made the short walk from my Prospect Heights apartment in Brooklyn to the small work studio I rent as I do most days. It looked the same as always -- crammed with four white boards, two fans (no AC allowed), a world map, and various knick-knacks I've picked up while writing two dozen guidebooks: a relief map of Bulgaria, a children's educational poster from Colombia, a jaguar whittled by Lacandon villagers in Chiapas. Oh, and also an autographed photo of Connie Chung.

My office was identical to the day before, except that it had transformed into LP NEW YORK.

Yesterday I became Lonely Planet's US Travel Editor for the Western Hemisphere. Meaning, I'll be the spokesperson on issues from swine-flu scares to 'great train trips' on TV, the radio and other media (beginning by talking about Colombia with Peter Greenberg tomorrow night). Even more importantly, I see my role as a sort of 'travel enabler' for many American travelers, who -- I think -- want more out of their trips than they're getting. Some don't have the time, but some don't know how to do it. I hope to help.

I've been working with Lonely Planet the past 11 years. Before that I was a fan. Working at House Beautiful magazine in New York after college (don't ask), I'd fill lunches at nearby Coliseum Books thumbing through LP guides for places I didn't know you could really visit: Botswana, Vietnam, Cambodia. I bought a couple, just for dreaming, and eventually moved to Vietnam with the LP guide in hand.

When I moved back to the US a year-and-a-half later, I took a cross-country roadtrip on a gamble: just to see if I could get a job at LP's Oakland office. On my first day in my furniture-free studio apartment, I sat on the hard floors and stuffed an envelope with clippings and a plea for work. No response. So I took a temp job at a bank. A couple months later, the bank offered me a full, (high-paying) job supporting a VP who stood at his desk. The same day, LP called me -- saving me from bankdom, or at least standing at my desk.

In-house at LP, I edited books, commissioned authors, planned books like South America, became the publishing manager for shoestring and multi-country titles, then moved to the London office, where I started the LP Sandwich Club. Six years ago, I left LP to write full-time. When picking places to go, I frequently tried to fill the gaps of places in flux or overlooked: Bulgaria, Siberia, Szekely Land (Romania), Colombia, Nebraska, Myanmar. But also spent memorable recent vacations in the Delaware Gap, Vermont, Chicago, Mexico, Vietnam and Turkey.

More to come soon from the LP website. Work beckons!

Capital Tales

Sacre bleu! I let a whole week go by without comment here. Has Twitter killed my blog?

Yesterday I threw together some 'World Capital Tales' over at my @reidontravel account. I wanted to take a stab at doing more self-contained travel 'stories' within 140 characters -- no links, no RTs.

I'm fond with artificial distinctions in travel -- like fictional destinations (Delacticut -- the combination of Delaware and Connecticut), arbitrary statistics (eg 'a guidebook to BEAR ATTACKS of the Western Hemisphere from 2002 to 2004'), faulty flag designs, and admin buildings.

A few years ago I tried to collect illustrations of state capitols by asking a staff member if they'd sketch it. In Carson City, Nevada -- my first (of three stops -- before losing interest) -- I asked two security guards if they'd oblige. The elder one, uniform top fiercely tucked into his taut wool pants, sternly refused. S0 I turned to his flunky, a 26-year-old guard-in-training. 'Could you do it?' He paused. 'I'll take a stab, sure.' He went to get a ruler, and a brochure that showed a photo of the unremarkable building as a guide, then let the capitol go 50% less secure for a full 15 minutes while he drew it up. It's boxed up somewhere. Hope I didn't lose it.

I know this is lame, but here's what I had to say about WORLD CAPITALS yesterday:

• In Moscow in '92, I spent $20 to parachute from a WWII Russian plane. Slept in barracks, vodka, 2-minute 'lesson.'
• Friend of friend is ex-Bulgarian PM. In Sofia, called to say 'hi' and invited me for coffee at Dunkin' Donuts.
• Few locals in Hanoi, which turns 1000 next yr, ever see its magic turtle. In 2007, I did: http://tinyurl.com/r6e3w6
• Best 8-hour trip of my life? Tokyo 10pm-6am layover. Met pals, saw sites after hours, drank, passed out at Denny's.
• I've been fined once in Europe: for getting on Paris' RER w/the wrong ticket. That my initials are RER didn't help.
• I saw a man kiss a pigeon, rather obscenely, in Ottawa once. I've not been back.

Ratspotting: It's Game! It's Worldly Adventure!

I WANT TO HEAR YOUR RAT STORIES
So we New Yorkers are paying more for our subway soon (which angers most everyone). The L line has an occasionally working display of the next train's arrival time -- something London's Tube has had for decades -- otherwise it's up for grabs when your train will clank to you.

And while we wait, we watch. ALL of us watch for rats.

I've been afraid of rodents since Canada Day 1977. The day my parents were taking me and my newborn sister to Banff for a summer vacation. Waiting to go to the airport I played with my gerbil Steve. And he bit me. Downstairs, I waited for a Band-Aid as my mom dried her hair, and then my bloody finger tip and I fainted. We haven't been the same since. Not even Jasper's marmots shook off my new aversion to rodential -like beings.

I keep an eye out for rats wherever I go. I still shudder at 'what if' about the fat rat that scurried on a ledge past my ear in a Saigon cafe, or the cat who caught one at my feet in a Pushkar restaurant. Then started eating the little guy, right as I gave up on my curry. Last year in Yangon, a rat dropped on my claustrophobic-bathroom floor as I brushed my teeth. It scurried into my room and I stood shaken, looking up at a bare ceiling, wondering where in the world it came from.

Still, in all my travels, no rat bites, no licked fingers in the middle of the night, no sudden toilet appearances back home.

For this I'm thankful.

Yesterday, while watching a rat chase off two (I could almost say cute) mice playing around on the Brooklyn Atlantic Avenue subway tracks, I got to thinking. What world city has the greatest likelihood of seeing a rat?

I'd really like to know.

If you see rats wherever you are (on subways or under your kitchen table or by your ear), please report them via Twitter at #ratspotting. Or email me. And I will create crucial travel-planning graphs based on the results.

Some things are more important than others.

Video: Russia's Ysyakh Festival

Yakutsk is the coldest city in the world. In winter, temperatures can fall to 70-below Farenheit. Locals (split evenly between Sakha and Russians) must keep cars running all day -- or in heated garages -- or their motors freeze up till May. It stands on stilts, to protect itself from the thaws and freezes of the cruel permafrost below. Yet when I returned last June to update the Lonely Planet Russia guidebook, I got heat exhaustion in temperatures nearing 100 degrees.

A place that cold and that hot? That's just not fair.

It's an unusual place. About 30 hours by rough road from the nearest train deep in Russia's Far East, most fly to the city of 200,000 as I did. Here you see Lenin statues -- he named himself for the Lena River flowing northward here -- beside Soviet-era housing and colorful buildings designed to look like nearby rock formations. Unlike much of the region, it's booming -- largely to the diamonds and gold found in the enormous 'Sakha Republic.' There's mammoth bones to see, cossack-style forts to mingle with sled dogs, Christmas ornaments made of real reindeer, and a permafrost institute that regulary gets phone calls from global warming journalists.

I came in June, as I did in 2005, to the see the amazing all-night Ysyakh festival, a stunning display of traditional costumes and dance. Last time, the Yakut Communist Party ushered me into their teepee-like structure to eat horse meat and 'admire' their embroidered Stalin pillow. Earlier I watched a re-creation of a WWII battle with children being saved by men in traditional costumes on horseback. A local told me, 'Those guys in black are Germans.' After the battle I joined hands in a coiled dance of the couple thousand and tried to follow along with the dancing and chanting. I've not seen its equal anywhere.

I recorded the footage above last year, including the soundtrack of a Jews harp concert replicating a horse.

Observations of Tourism Event in Brooklyn

The Brooklyn Visitor Bureau, housed in Borough Hall in the borough's downtown, turned five recently, and is having various travel-related businesses, tour agents and 'press' members out for a little sandwich-and-cheese cake party. It's still going, but I ducked out after a couple hours.

I showed up on time, and was one of four people to do so. No one greeted us. We guessed to sign in, as staff set up sandwiches and sparkling water and Brooklyn Ale bottles at curtained tables of the marble-floored rotunda. A few cameras were set up, pointing to a display of press clippings and a TV showing Brooklyn-related movie cameos on a loop.

After 10 minutes or so of milling about awkwardly, I saw the tiny Marty Markowitz, the borough president -- who recently declared Brooklyn a 'republic' -- speed out of his office to pose in front of a US flag with three firemen in fancy uniforms. Then watched him shuffle back into his office.

I went downstairs to kill some time and browsed thru the brochures, picking up a few to be polite. Then returned for a sandwich as a hundred, perhaps, Brooklyn reps -- usually in their 20s, filling in for busy bosses -- filed in.

Eventually Marty spoke about his republic, and why tourism brings in the bucks. 'I challenge any beach in the world to be as beautiful as Coney Island's.' Afterwards, he had a short interview with a Korean TV channel, and rushed off to his office again.

Meanwhile, the 'press' tables sat empty. A visitors center rep called out three times for 'press' to sit and 'hear pitches' from Brooklyn businesses. On the opposite side of the room, I joked 'naughty press, huh?' to a fellow second-sandwich taker, who had no idea what I was talking about. But finally a few press reps did sit. And four lines quickly formed, ten deep each.

I stood by the four side-by-sidelines, making my own press stand, and breaking into conversations with reps holding the most interesting brochures: eg a new B&B in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The woman running it bought the townhouse on Hanover St 23 years ago and opened as a guesthouse last year. 'YOU stay in touch.' I agreed. Shortly after another announcement, this time asking everyone to speed up the pitches -- 'this is a speed date, just chat a bit, kiss if you want' -- a guy running a pizza tour told me, 'I have no idea what press is up there, but I'm waiting anyway.'

And I left.

Top 41 Reasons Why I'm Asking North Dakota to the Prom

My tux has a big stitched-on heart fed with 41 aortas that pump only in the company of North Dakota. Here's why:

1. It's the least visited state.
2. If you leave your shorts at Sully Inn in Medora, they'll call the Cowboy Cafe to see if you there to get them back to you.

3. Grand Forks is the birthplace of creamed wheat.
4. Causes of death at cemetery at Ft Buford: 'drowned,' 'murdered,' 'murdered,' 'suicide.'
5. When you ask how business is at a bagel cafe in Williston, they'll answer 'very North Dakota-y.'

6. Locals call themselves Nodaks. That's just cute.

7. The North Dakota capitol in Bismarck looks like a Stalinist school of dentistry, and has been criticized as looking 'fascist.'

8. There's a 38-foot-tall cow in New Salem.
9. The Fargo visitor's center is made to look like a grain elevator
10. Fargo's Motel 6 attendant says 'fun' four times in a three-minute conversation, eg 'it's fun going to the visitor's center for free bags and pencils and stuff.'
11. At Fargo's kid-oriented Space Aliens Grill there's a fully stocked and visible bar.

12. Its shape.
13. North Dakota regularly threatens to drop the 'North' of its name and become Dakota, thus infuriating South Dakota.
14. Peter, who pours cafe at a hiply retro Fargo cafe, insists you take a copy of the Fargo phonebook.
15. Apparently not one local has ever pronounced UND (University of North Dakota) as 'und.'
16. Promoter for Grand Forks' Westward Ho bar/comedy club on North Dakotans: 'People here are basically hicks, they just look hip because they know how to call 1-800-SCREW.'
17. The film Fargo was set in Minnesota, and some locals don't like it. One Fargo residents says, 'Those who get upset are the ones with the same accents.'
18. Lewis & Clark spent more time here than any other 'state.'
19. Listening to Standing Rock Indian Reservation radio, the DJ cuts off every song 75% the way through, and friends drop by to request 'Stairway to Heaven' for their moms; 'she loves that song.'

20. If you call the Theodore Roosevelt National Park and ask if the sun on the North Dakota is rising or falling, they will make every attempt to figure it out.
21. The left-handed waitress at the 4 Bears Casino & Lodge in New Town, in a reservation of the three affiliated tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa, Anikara) who said 'all the best people in the world are left-handed.'
22. Asking for a cafe in Rugby, locals will point out one and say 'it has coffee, espresso, capuccino...' then look back to see if you're impresssed. 'The real stuff.'

23. After WWI, North Dakota teamed up with Manitoba to end all wars by forming the trans-national International Peace Garden, which spans the border. Shortly after its creation WWII began.

24. The guy running the visitor's center in Rugby -- the geographical center of North America -- stocks travel brochures from states and provinces of the US and Canada, sells Mexico flags, and can tell which states have the biggest/smallest tourism budgets. 'New Jersey sent cartons of brochures and 1000 New Jersey maps, Virginia sent just one.'
25. The waitress in Medora, with permed bleached hair and reddish cheeks, who noticed me talking with a local and brought me a full pot of coffee. 'Go ahead and have some more coffee if you're going to sit and talk a bit, or am I going to have to twist your arm?'
26. Ask at Dickinson's Dinosaur Museum to speak with the fossil-collector and he'll show you the bones he personally found.
27. People snow-kite.
28. Dakota Territory was split in half as two states in 1889 because Republicans wanted an extra senator in Congress.
29. Sacajawea is the most famous North Dakotan on a US dollar coin. Roger Maris almost made the North Dakota quarter.
30. Theo Roosevelt credits North Dakota for his rise to the presidency.
31. The Red River, the naughtily flooding Red River, flows northward.
32. Kevin, an almost perfectly round diner cook in Medora, says of prairie dogs 'people from the east expect dogs, but they're just little rats.'
33. Minot rhymes with 'why not?'
34. The Grand Forks Herald took recent (and faulty) criticism from USA Today last year that ND was the most corrupt state in the US very personally. Link, if you're willing to pay $2.95.


35. There's a 28-foot tall buffalo in Jamestown.
36. I once made a bad song about North Dakota called 'North Dakota.'
37. Fargo is the biggest city of the coldest state and its tourism slogan is 'always warm.'
38. The buffalo have black tongues.

39. Theodore Roosevelt National Park may be one of the most overlooked in the US.
40. If you show up at the International Peace Garden out of season, and desperately want a t-shirt, someone will unlock the store and let you pick out one.




41. Lawrence Welk? Big-time Nodak.

Travel Tip: Follow all Sandwiches with Pie Chart

DATA ACCUMULATION IS THE NEW MUSEUM
While working for Lonely Planet in London earlier this decade, I started up the LP Sandwich Club. A handful of willing folks and I would head out once weekly, usually within Clerkenwell, and go to a local restaurant and order sandwiches. The same sandwiches. We'd eat togtether, but keep our impressions to ourselves. Back at the office, we'd indivdually rank the sandwich, (1 for a baddie, 5 for top-shelf), then pool together our cumulative rankings, record the individual and group scores on an Excel document and forward the results, with a challenge!, to LP's Oakland office to do the same.

We sought to alleviate a little cubicle boredom and get some mid-day nourishment and, if lucky, mystify local business while doing it.

In today's New York Times, I see that Manhattan has its own (newer!) version with a Burger of the Month Club, who go to various restaurants, record rankings of 13 factors with ratings of +4 to -2. Members alternate choices, and pre-plan with the hopes of getting one of the year's best, thus advancing to a post-season tourney to determine the city's best burger spotter, and best burger. (Primehouse at Park Ave & 27th St has their best. I've particularly enjoyed Queen's Donovan's Pub in the past, which makes their top five.)

They seem a bit macho for my tastes, but I'm a believer in their tactics. I think travel -- or a lunch, Super Bowl party or group screenings of The Patriot -- deserves more than the ol' passive flow. Often introducing a theme -- one requiring acquisition of data!, which can be turned into flow charts!!, and comparative graphs (as I attempted while counting moustaches in Russia a few years ago)!!! -- can give the experience a broader meaning.

So I applaud the Burger of the Month Club, even if they're website is down right now.

NYC Gives Away July 4 Show to Jersey

Per the New York Times today, New York City is snubbing its residents by moving the July 4 fireworks from the East River (amidst population-heavy areas of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens) to the Hudson River. The move gives New Jersey residents -- who don't pay for the fireworks -- a better front-yard look than anyone in New York City (except Nicole Kidman*).

That ain't right.

I want to like Jersey. I really do. It's the most slighted state in the country -- and one of the most tolled (Pennsylvania and Oklahoma are also in the running) -- and I like an underdog. Just not one who bites.

To quote Michael Stipe, consider this:

Newark charges New Yorkers more for public transit rides to its airport than at any major city on earth. And until they change that I want my fireworks show back.

For the 12-mile ride to Newark Airport from Midtown's Penn Station, the NJ Transit's AirTrain link charges $15 per person for the 24-minute trip. It's a commuter train, with little room for your bags. And it's priced to punish New Yorker airport-goers. If you get off at the station before the airport (Newark's Penn Station), it's only $4 one way; if you exit one station after the airport (North Elizabeth) it's $5.50.

NJ-NJ fares to the airport are far far cheaper. The 60-minute ride from Trenton (at the end of the line, on the Pennsylvania border) to Newark's Airport is only $9.25, a 38% savings for 150% jump in travel time.

Compare this with other world airports:

• In Tokyo, passengers can make the 40-mile trip to Narita on a Keikyu train for $4.
• In London, just how on the tube for the 15-mile trip to Heathrow ($8 one way).
• Paris' commuter train -- the RER (my initials) -- charges $11.50 for the trip.
• San Francisco's airport is reached directly by its BART commuter train -- about $5.

Jersey's looking for payback after New York stole Liberty Island, home to the Statue of Liberty. I GET IT. But if the inflow of tax money New Yorkers give by flying out of Newark doesn't allow for more rational, let-love-rule pricing, then I hope the fireworks will bring NJ Transit to their senses.

Brothers! Sisters! Stop the madness!

* With the exception, I hear, of Nicole Kidman (and a few other richies) who has a flashy pad on West Side Highway downtown.

Top 57 Things in Bulgaria

Bulgaria -- in legend, if not tourism -- sometimes gets lost amidst its neighbors: Greece, Turkey, Romania. I've gone four times on research trips and it's kinda my favorite country. I like it more every time I go.

I could probably say why with ten highlights, but why stop there when 57 feels so good?

In no order:

1. Locals shake head yes, nod head no.
2. The love of yogurt.
3. Ketchup on pizza!
4. Hitchhiking is OK.
5. That Plovdiv is littered, really, with Roman ruins.
6. Going on NDK roof deck, without permission, in Sofia.
7. The little Sofia ice cream stands on Vitosha Boulevard.
8. That Veliko Tarnovo has the same birthday as me, and William Shatner (March 22).
9. The northernmost point of Bulgaria -- near Vrav -- is marked by an insane asylum on the Danube.
10. Wine's great. Really great.

11. Shumen's kinda ugly mountain-top '1300 years monument' of Cubist Don Quixote sculptures (above).
12. Renting cars CAN be very cheap -- try Veliko Tarnovo.
13. The Black Sea isn't at all black.
14. Revival architecture, cute Hansel & Gretel type villages.


15. Sofia's Studentski Grad -- commie dorms turned into nightclubs. I wrote about it for The New York Times.
16. Varna AWAY from the beach.
17. Thracian ruins, like Perperikon near Kardzhali.
18. Mountain roads.

19. Beaches with no one on them (or maybe two people), like the pictured shot near Sinemorets.
20. Sofia has a yellow brick road center.
21. Cute village of Shiroka Luka in the Rodopis has a clickety clackety name and dung heaps.
22. The vistor's information center in Smolyan (the one not in the center) is run by a woman that looks like Joe Perry of Aerosmith.
23. The bus station lady in Shumen likes talking about her grandkids.
24. You stumble upon old Roman roads everywhere, like the cliff hike above Bachkovo Monastery (where I lose my sunglasses -- you see them?)
25. Crafts. People do them, like in villages such as Tryavna.
26. Rakiya brandy.
27. Walking along the river and up to ancient forts in Rumenski Lom National Park, near Ruse at the Romanian border.
28. Belogradchik looks like a lost Lords of the Rings setting, fort walls surrounding animated rock formations (pictured at top of post).
29. Kotel has bad hotels, but a really nice B&B.
30. Views of Kazanlak from Shipka Pass.



31. The heavy metal town of Kavarma (above), which has murals of Uriah Heep and William Idol on commie-era housing blocks.


32. The land's end fortress at Kaliakra Cape (above).



33. The northwestern corner of Bulgaria -- the 'pinkie' -- and its overlooked Danube town Vidin.
34. Stopping at village homes and having them slaughter a 'baby lamb' for you.
35. Banitsa -- pastry with white cheese -- for breakfast.
36. A statue of a man with a very large moustache in Ruse.
37. Soviet soldier statues.

38. That you're supposed to stop for buffalo yogurt when you drive up Shipka Pass (above).
39. The purple-haired woman in Dobrich who insisted on interviewing me for Dobrich TV for no apparent reason.
40. Hostel Mostel in Veliko Tarnovo and Sofia.


41. People make you dance.
42. You can buy very good quality 30-year-old Soviet cameras for $10 outside Sofia's Nevski Cathedral.
43. Rila Monastery.
44. Mountain hikes in the Rodopi, Rila or Pirin mountains and overnights in hizha (huts).
45. That its Tsar refused to hand over Bulgarian Jews to the Nazis, and died for it.
46. It's the birthplace of the Cyrillic alphabet -- not Russia.
47. The hike to ruined churches on the hill south of the wine town Melnik.
48. Watching the Citadel light show in Veliko Tarnovo for free when the tour groups shell out a couple hundred dollars for it.
49. Getting invited to wilderness birthday parties with emptied Coke bottles filled with wine.
50. Getting drunk with truckers who tearfully lament Freddie Mercury's death.
51. Trying to like chalga, the much maligned trashy Balkan disco.
52. Serious off-the-train-now, passport-checking interrogations entering Bulgaria at Ruse, at the same time taxi drivers offer rides, and goofy security guards ask about California.
53. Shumenskoe beer. Better than Zagorka.
54. Plovdiv's cobble Old Town.
55. The very cozy, very personal Rodopi Smile Hostel in Kazanlak.
56. Getting mineral water, like the locals, at one of many wells around the country.

57. The unreal, scary 'UFO' building -- gutted, and surrounded by cow dung -- near Shipka Pass.

Traveler of the Week: David Lida

Mexico PR has had a rough year. First it was the drug crime, then a flu, that may or may not be pandemic, and may or may not be the fault of pigs, and may or may not be a big deal.

David Lida, who lives in Mexico City and has a new book First Stop in the New World: Mexico City, The Capital of the 21st Century, is my traveler of the week, not necessarily for "traveling" but going about his adopted home when the rest of the world seemed to cower in fear, killing a country full of pigs, canceling Cancun flights and rerouting cruises from Acapulco stops to Santa Barbara.

While all this was happening, I just wanted to know what it was like for locals -- not at the clinics, but on central streets, for commuters, and beer drinkers. I wasn't asking for machismo reports -- going recklessly into harm's way for show -- but wanted to hear a bit more than "the country of 11 million is in lockdown."

In a New York Times op-ed Friday, Lida wrote that "despite reports that Mexico City had turned into a ghost town, by Thursday there were still a lot of people in the street," just they looked a little different:

"On the streets of the city’s historic center, nearly everyone wore a surgical mask. Some moved them to the sides of their faces while they puffed on cigarettes."

When he couldn't find flu medicine at pharmacies, he went to a dodgy cantina:

"The waitresses, short and squat, encased in tight skirts and suffocating beige hose, circulated among the customers. The woman who served me a drink lowered her mask to flash me a crooked-toothed smile. Customers laughed, argued, played dominoes and lowered their masks to drink or eat."

The next day it was closed.

I hope things are OK there. The reason I travel is Mexico City. No city in the world is more of a mesh of east and west. I went at age 5 and somewhere between Aztec canals and pyramids was hooked on travel (and Mexico) for life. When the Mexican air force announced a few years ago that they had spotted UFOs, I wasn't surprised. If UFOs were to land on earth, why wouldn't they go to the center of the universe first?

I might pick up Lida's new book. But I might not. It would certainly take some effort after seeing his regrettable choice of an author photo.

Meanwhile, nice op-ed.

Best Travel Tweets

World Hum's now voting on the Top 10 Travel Tweets of the month -- an interesting idea, and one I wouldn't want to be responsible for figuring out.

Brings up the question, what are tweets for?

Many are joke responses to friends, others are simply 'blog billboards' with simple posts that link to writers' own blogs. That can be useful in moderation -- I do it -- particularly if there's ENOUGH in the tweet to make the tweet itself interesting. 'Swine flu is no scare for locals and travelers here in Palenque: see link.'

All too often, some people ONLY give links, and I lose interest in following them.

That brings up the art of the one-off tweets without links. An idea/message conveyed in 140 characters or less -- and that's it. World Hum is right to reward the best of that sort of tweet. I've try to do that every now and then.

I'm not on the road these days, and my walk to my rented office isn't exactly a real travel experience most days, so I have to play with such tweets. And I was sort of proud on my ROLLING STONES GUIDEBOOK TO NEW YORK CITY last week:

@reidontravel Rolling Stones' guidebook to NYC: walking through Central Park, west-side rats, uptown bedbugs, meeting divorcees, futile charity on 7th Av

Lyric references:

• 'Miss You' ('I've been walking in Central Park, singing after dark, people think I'm... cra-zy')
• 'Shattered' ('rats on the west side, bedbugs uptown')
• 'Honky Tonk Women ('I laid a divorcee in New York City')
• 'Shattered' ('shmata! shmata! shmata! I can't give it away on 7th Avenue')

Best Travel Diaries Aren't Found at Home

Once the Gilder and Franc and Lira rolled into the euro, European travel became a lot less interesting. But there's always been shopping for stationary products. I love picking up locally made journals, oddly covered spirals and whatnot from shops when I travel. It's a key way I fill that space between meals on the road, and I liked having my journal itself linked with a part of my trip too. But it's becoming harder, I've noticed in recent years, as shops in Vladivostok, Plovdiv, Bogota and Danang seem to carry the same imports these days: imported Chinese cheapies with cartoon covers, or nicer -- but not too nice -- Italian ones.

Top 2 Notebook Purchases
My favorite notebook-procuring experience was a few years ago in Shumen, Bulgaria, where a snappy older woman insisted on the color of the of my belezhnik (notebook), a sickly yellow. When I returned two years later, alas, the store had become a trashy boutique selling neon purses.

Runner-up was in a walk-up stationary stand in Batambang, Cambodia, where I waited and waited behind a monk agonizing over which pen to get -- testing out several, then chatting a bit. It gave me plenty of time to consider my options, and the eventual winner: a tiny maroon one that read 'PP Book.'