The Way of Wanderlust (40 page)

Putting this book together has made me realize how blessed I have been throughout my life to have the care, support, guidance, and inspiration of a seemingly endless succession of wonderful people. It's impossible to acknowledge everyone who has assisted and encouraged me along the way, but I do want to mention some people who have had an especially profound influence on my life and on this book.

As a teenager in suburban Connecticut, I found an exemplary role model in the Reverend Charlie Luckey, pastor at the Middlebury Congregational Church, who infused the world around him with the love he preached. During this same period, an English teacher named William Nicholson at the Taft School first fired my passion for literature. In college at Princeton, I was lucky to connect with a vivacious community of friends and teachers who widened and deepened my love of literature, learning, and life. I took my first steps on the professional path I would eventually follow under the guidance of the legendary and loveable John McPhee. I was a student in his first Literature of Fact workshop, and it taught me that great nonfiction belonged on the same pedestal as the fiction and poetry I had learned for years to revere—and planted the seed that would blossom into my career.

I'm indebted to Georgia Hesse, the renowned former Travel Editor of the
San Francisco Examiner
, who effected a quantum leap in my life as a travel writer by choosing me to work in her stead when she took a one-year leave of absence from the newspaper. I ended up working at the
Examiner
for fifteen fruitful years, and I'm grateful to my colleagues and to my readers there, who nurtured my fledgling efforts to spread my writing and editing wings, and to Will Hearst and the management team, who provided the resources and autonomy for me to publish the travel section of my dreams. I'm also grateful to the folks at Salon, who, in the heady early days of the Internet, invited and enabled me to create Wanderlust, a website purely devoted to great travel writing. And I'm profoundly grateful to Tony and Maureen Wheeler, co-founders of Lonely Planet and great global friends since the mid-1980s, who offered me the job of a lifetime as Global Travel Editor at LP from 2001 to 2007.

I'm thankful to Keith Bellows, former Editor in Chief of
National Geographic Traveler
, who contacted me as soon as he heard I was leaving Lonely Planet and asked me to write a column for the magazine. Working with the dedicated and insightful editors at
Traveler
has been and continues to be a great gift. And I'm grateful to Jim Sano, Jean-Paul Tennant, and all the passionate staff at the San Francisco adventure travel company Geographic Expeditions, with whom I have been happily consulting, writing, editing, and now tour leading since 2007.

I also want to thank Elaine Petrocelli and Bill Petrocelli, owners of a place that is sacred to me, Book Passage bookstore in Corte Madera, California. More than two decades ago, Elaine approached me with the “crazy idea” of starting a multi-day conference for travel writers in Marin. Twenty-four years later, it has evolved into the celebrated Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference, and it's one of my proudest co-creations. I cannot imagine my world without Book Passage, and Elaine and Bill, and Karen West and Kathryn Petrocelli, who have become cherished friends and conference collaborators.

My life as a writer and editor has been immeasurably enriched by more friendships than I can possibly acknowledge here; so many big-minded, big-hearted, big-talented writers and editors have become intertwined parts of my journey. I do want to mention four writers who have integrally enriched my professional and personal life for decades: Jan Morris, Simon Winchester, Tim Cahill, and Pico Iyer all began to write for me when my career was just starting, and they have helped me grow as a writer, editor, and person throughout. They are truly treasured friends. Equally treasured is the magnificent Isabel Allende, a lusty saint who makes the world a better place with her personality and her prose, and the talented actor-turned-travel-writer Andrew McCarthy, whose generosity of spirit is both humbling and ennobling.

When I landed in the Bay Area—specifically, under the pear trees on the terrace at the Caffe Strada in Berkeley—thirty-five years ago, I immediately knew I had found my home. For me, the Bay Area is the best place in the world, and I feel deeply blessed by the enlightened, impassioned, and embracing travel/writing community here. The richness of this community is manifest every month at the Weekday Wanderlust reading series that I have been privileged to co-create and co-host with the effervescent duo of Kimberley Lovato and Lavinia Spalding, two former students who have become beloved partners in travel lit exaltation (and champagne celebration). And two people who have played profoundly important roles in my life here almost from the beginning are Jeff Greenwald and Larry Habegger. Jeff has woven through my world as my children have grown and my career has morphed and has been a steadfast soulmate through all my incarnations. Larry has been a sympathetic, savvy, sustaining colleague, confidant, and counselor for more than three decades; I cannot adequately express how exhilarated and honored I feel to have this book published as part of his and James O'Reilly's laudable Travelers' Tales series, and how thankful I am for their profound and wholehearted support.

A number of people helped me in the preparation of this book. I want to thank the great editors who first published these pieces—Sara Cuneo, Horace Sutton, Barbara Coats, Susan Shipman, Joan Tapper, Kaitlin Quistgaard, Keith Bellows, Norie Quintos, Amy Alipio, Leslie Magraw, Julia Cosgrove, Derk Richardson, Elizabeth Harryman, Grant Martin, Jim Benning, Allison Busacca, and Ellie Cobb. I also want to thank Kim Fortson, who helped me begin to collect all the material for the book, and Marguerite Richards, who read the entire manuscript and offered valuable suggestions.

I especially want to offer a huge thanks to Candace Rose Rardon. Candace persistently prodded me to pursue this book, efficiently organized all the story candidates to make the task as easy as possible, and then helped me to select and sort the final stories. She also created the enchanting, wanderlust-incarnating cover illustrations as well as the transporting maps and icons that enrich the inside pages. She has been an integral inspiration and support throughout the process of putting this collection together, and without her energy, enthusiasm, and expertise, this book would still be a glimmering dream.

My life's journey began, of course, with my mom and dad, and my deepest gratitude and love go to them. They took me on my first trip abroad, to London and Paris when I was a junior in college, and they supported every step of my wandering way, from college to international adventures after college, to graduate school and post-grad explorations overseas. When I returned to the U.S. to start my career, they assuaged my doubts, encouraged my yearnings, and cheered me on my professional forays. Their unbounded love and support gave me the freedom and the courage to follow my dreams, and their lessons and love interlace everything I do to this day.

And finally, I feel inexpressibly blessed to share a life-path with three joyous, brilliant, sensitive, compassionate, and wanderlust-filled fellow travelers: my wife, Kuniko, and my children, Jenny and Jeremy. From far-flung family expeditions abroad to everyday adventures in our Piedmont home, through trial and triumph, setback and celebration, our journey together has been a source of endless wonder and delight; as they have from the beginning, they grace my days, every one, with the grandest magic, and meaning, and love.

Prologue

“Every Journey Is a Pilgrimage” originally appeared in
Yoga Journal
, April 2004. Copyright © 2004 by Don George. 

Part One: Pilgrimages

“Climbing Kilimanjaro” originally appeared in
Mademoiselle
, November 1977. Copyright © 1977 by Don George. 

“A Night with the Ghosts of Greece” originally appeared in
Signature
, May 1981. Copyright © 1981 by Don George. 

“Ryoanji Reflections” originally appeared in the
San Francisco Examiner
, October 25, 1987. Reprinted courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

“Connections: A Moment at Notre-Dame” originally appeared in the
San Francisco Examiner
, October 2, 1988. Reprinted courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

“Conquering Half Dome” first appeared in Salon, at www.Salon.com, on July 31, 1999. An online version remains in the Salon archives.  Reprinted  with permission.  

“Impression: Sunrise at Uluru” originally appeared on lonelyplanet.com, May 29, 2001. Reproduced with permission from the Lonely Planet website www.lonelyplanet.com. Copyright © 2001 Lonely Planet.

“Castaway in the Galápagos” originally appeared in
Islands
, January/February 2004. Copyright © 2004 by Don George. 

“Machu Picchu Magic” originally appeared on Gadling.com, September 15, 2010. Copyright © 2010 by Don George. 

“A Pilgrim at Stinson Beach” originally appeared on Gadling.com, July 25, 2011. Copyright © 2011 by Don George. 

“Japan's Past Perfect” originally appeared in
National Geographic Traveler
, January/February 2012. Copyright © 2012 by Don George. 

“Home for the Holidays: A Thanksgiving Pilgrimage to Connecticut” originally appeared on AOL Travel, November 27, 2013. Content © AOL Inc. Used with permission.

Part Two: Encounters

“In Love, in Greece, in the Springtime” originally appeared in the
San Francisco Examiner
, June 21, 1987. Reprinted courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

“A Day in the Life of Dubbo” originally appeared in the
San Francisco Examiner
, August 14, 1988. Reprinted courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

“A Passage to Pakistan” originally appeared in the
San Francisco Examiner
, July 22, 1990, July 29, 1990, and August 5, 1990. Reprinted courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

“Insights into Nice at the Musée Matisse” originally appeared in the
San Francisco Examiner
, August 15, 1993. Reprinted courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

“Treasures of Dubrovnik” originally appeared on lonelyplanet.com, July 17, 2001. Reproduced with permission from the Lonely Planet website www.lonelyplanet.com. Copyright © 2001 Lonely Planet.

“Letters from Jordan” originally appeared on lonelyplanet.com, September 25, 2002 and October 9, 2002. Reproduced with permission from the Lonely Planet website www.lonelyplanet.com. Copyright © 2002 Lonely Planet.

“Baja: Touched by a Whale” originally appeared on AdventureCollection.com, June 1, 2007. Copyright © 2007 by Don George.

“Building Bridges in Mostar” originally appeared on AdventureCollection.com, October 15, 2007. Copyright © 2007 by Don George.

“Into Africa” originally appeared on AdventureCollection.com, October 11, 2008, October 15, 2008, October 19, 2008, October 23, 2008, and October 27, 2008. Copyright © 2008 by Don George.

“Making Roof Tiles in Peru” originally appeared on GeoEx.com, September 24, 2012. Copyright © 2012 by Don George.

“Living-History Lessons in Berlin” originally appeared on NationalGeographic.com, August 5, 2014. Copyright © 2014 by National Geographic Society. Reproduced with permission.

Part Three: Illuminations

“At the Musée d'Orsay” originally appeared in the
San Francisco Examiner
, September 18, 1988. Reprinted courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

“California Epiphany” originally appeared in the
San Francisco Examiner
, October 16, 1988. Reprinted courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

“Japanese Wedding” originally appeared in the
San Francisco Examiner
, October 21, 1990. Reprinted courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

“Prambanan in the Moonlight” originally appeared in the
San Francisco Examiner
, April 4, 1993. Reprinted courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

“In the Pythion of Time” originally appeared in the
San Francisco Examiner
, June 27, 1993. Reprinted courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

“Finding Salvation in the South Seas” originally appeared in
Islands
, December 2005. Copyright © 2005 by Don George. 

“The Intricate Weave” originally appeared on GeoEx.com, December 1, 2008. Copyright © 2008 by Don George. 

“Unexpected Offerings on a Return to Bali” originally appeared on Gadling.com, November 22, 2012. Copyright © 2012 by Don George.