Travel Lit & Animal Racism

Today, I sit on my Mexican ranch with a warm sun overhead and a fresh breeze rustling the cornfields all around. My black labrador Jack rolls and yawns luxuriously. I'm reading a Macmillan lit collection called simply Travel Stories while fading in and out of a bliss coma. Sometimes, it's nice to sample classic journeys without committing to entire books.

This compilation joins Graham Greene in Mexico, Eric Newby in India, Ewan McGregor in Mongolia, Michael Palin in Tibet, Bill Bryson in Norway, and Robert Louis Stevenson on the Atlantic Ocean. Yet, one thing is odd. The selected authors are overwhelmingly British (and Bill Bryson is quite Brit-ish), but no mention is made of this attribute of the collection. I think that's a mistake. This feaure should be noted for 3 reasons.

Bryson Stumbles On The Appalachian Trail

There's a big difference between a bestselling travel book and a great travel book. No work illustrates this better than Bill Bryson's A Walk In The Woods. The book was immensely popular for two reasons: fans of his folksy humor and his other works were salivating for the next offering, plus the Appalachian Trail is a must-read subject for many people who feel they should learn about this part of the American landscape if not someday hike it themselves.

So, Bryson's project was set up for huge success. He only needed to deliver a quality product. Yet, at that step in the writer's journey, he apparently slipped on some bear scat and fell off a cliff. The book began enjoyably enough. Bryson used his wilderness unpreparedness to make his epic trek relatable to couch potatoes as well as nature lovers. He also used data about the Appalachian Trail to create a sense of its vast length and significance. Thus, he made the trip seem both accessible and important.