"If you look at a map, you will see that the island chain known as the Caribbean, or, to confuse you, the West Indies, lies between Florida and South America and resembles a string of gems or possibly drool." And so begins author Gary Buslik's tale of tropical adventure. Each chapter of this often hilarious and sometimes poignant travelogue recounts another island-hopping, culture-clashing crisis that pits the homesick author against falling coconuts, hospitals that remove wrong organs, insects as big and dangerous as stealth bombers, ticket agents that put him on hold for hours, mysteriously calculated currency exchanges, over-proofed rum, livestock, singing Rastafarians, garbage-bin sex, peanut-crazed children, Idi Amin, flesh-eating monkeys, dentists, cricket, steel drum bands, and the French. Fortunately, even when making fun of his West Indian hosts, the curmudgeonly author's essential good nature and devotion to his wife twinkle through, and in the end his stubborn geocentricity gives way to a heartfelt appreciation of his island hosts.

The Best Travel Writing 2010 is the seventh volume in the annual Travelers' Tales series launched in 2004 to celebrate the world's best travel writing — from Nobel Prize winners to emerging new writers. The points of view and perspectives are global, and themes encompass high adventure, spiritual growth, romance, hilarity and misadventure, service to humanity, and encounters with exotic cuisine. In The Best Travel Writing 2010 readers will explore the mysteries of superstition in Cameroon, discover the meaning of life with an Irish carpenter on a long flight, take adopted children to Korea on a Homeland Tour, delve deep into a sacred Japanese pilgrimage, travel solo in Panama's forbidding Darien jungle, comprehend the nuances of bargaining in Senegal...and much more.

The Best Travel Writing 2011 is the eighth volume in the annual Travelers' Tales series launched in 2004 to celebrate the world's best travel writing — from Nobel Prize winners to emerging new writers. The points of view and perspectives are global, and themes encompass high adventure, spiritual growth, romance, hilarity and misadventure, service to humanity, and encounters with exotic cuisine. Sweat, suffer, and fall in love in Guyana, meet a traveler who conducts his own detente in Russian baths, and encounter the light of a stranger in Burma. Further tales include methods on comprehending the nuances of bargaining in Senegal and an archaeologist who digs up her own past in Greece.

The points of view and perspectives in The Best Travel Writing 2009 are global, and the themes encompass high adventure, spiritual growth, romance, hilarity, misadventure, service to humanity, and encounters with exotic cuisine. Reading these stories is like sitting in a cafe filled with fellow travelers swapping tales about past adventures and ideas on where to head next. This edition takes the reader on a harrowing raft ride off the coast of Panama, on a whirlwind tour from Florence to Santorini, into the wilds of Patagonia, and to a colorful village in Ghana.

This is the collection of the best travel writing of the year, much of it never published before, from big names in travel literature and emerging new writers. ''The Best Travel Writing 2009'' is the sixth volume in the annual ''travelers' Tales'' series launched in 2004 to celebrate the world's best travel writing - from Nobel Prize winners to emerging new writers. The points of view and perspectives are global, and themes encompass high adventure, spiritual growth, romance, hilarity and misadventure, service to humanity, and encounters with exotic cuisine. Reading these stories is like sitting in a cafe filled with fellow travelers swapping tales about past adventures and ideas where to head next. This edition takes readers on a harrowing raft ride off the coast of Panama, on a whirlwind tour from Florence to Santorini, into the wilds of Patagonia, and to a colourful village in Ghana.