Sean O'Reilly (4) (1952–)

Take a room full of people, artists, writers, educators, but travelers all. One volunteers, "Let me tell you about this great experience I had in the Canary Islands" and then proceeds to tell about being taken in by a family and treated like one of its members. Someone then describes a Tibetan picnic at 16,000 feet in a mountain pass, another relates being drenched with overripe tomatoes at a carnival in Spain. Others tell of travel experiences in France, the remote Chinese island of Hainan, show more and the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and of special people like a leper in Nepal and an idiosyncratic Thai language teacher. They also relate events like a bus ride in rural Mexico and an encounter with a wounded pelican near Malibu. These and other personal yet very arresting stories collected by Larry Habegger and James and Sean O'Reilly make for enjoyable reading.

These stories, gathered from the editors' award-winning books in celebration of Travelers' Tales fifth year of publishing--reveal in simple and profound ways how travel is one of the best teachers anyone can have. One rarely returns from a trip unchanged, a point that is not lost on the authors of these wonderful true tales of life on the road. show less

If reading Melville, Treasure Island, or the exploits of Gauguin, or the pictures of these beautiful islands have ever made you want to learn more about the islands of the South Pacific, then you will thoroughly enjoy this book. How I wish I was on any one of the islands described in this book right now.

A quick afternoon read but most of the stories weren't nearly as funny as their authors seemed to think they were.

Picked up: Lifeline bookstore, Lutwyche

Mystery: Whether I've read this before. I remember seeing it and wanting it, but don't ever remember getting to read it. However some of the stories, from TT books I've not read, seem familiar so... Don't you hate that feeling?

Highly recommended to fans of the TT series.