Death by Tartar Sauce: Welcome to my world.
Travel writing ruined my academic career. The day I discovered that other people were traveling the world and getting PAID for it, was my last day that teaching medical students the arcane Coolidge Effect and the mysteries of parallel play held me in thrall.
Since that happy day, my wife Effin (who also quit honest work for the writer's life) have traveled this wide world over. As a travel writing-shooting-filming team, we've test-tasted wine in California, skied and snowboarded in Colorado, fled from gators in Florida, witnessed a near-death experience with tartar sauce in Maryland, got punk'd in Montana, drove wayyy too fast in New Hampshire, discovered ancient dirty pictures in New Mexico, got kicked out of an opera in Australia, retched at the national dish in Iceland and had bodily encounters in Japan.
I've also lost my wallet New Zealand, my swimsuit in Switzerland, my shirt in San Francisco, my heart in the Virgin Islands.
It's all here in Death by Tartar Sauce; rambunctious kids, weird food, insane skiing, nightmare at the opera and too fast cars racing along too narrow roads.
They're my strangest, wildest, funniest, most humiliating experiences as a travel writer. Plus, observations on ethics, Arizona, censorship, and the ways I love Colonel McBurger.