BootsnAll Travel Community

We are blessed with having a diverse of writers from many different lands and with varying points of view.

If you had to pick one BootsnAll writer as being particulary enjoyable who would it be?

What article of theirs is your favourite?

-Nick-

Okay I'll kick this off. A favourite writer of mine is Emily Silbert who is almost at the end of her 3 month trip to India, Pakistan and SE Asia.

I like her sense of humor, attention to detail and relaxed personality. Its also very cool how she managed to stay with different families in some of these places.

Here's the start of her travellogue.

http://www.BootsnAll.com/cgi-bin/gt/travelogues/emily/index.shtml

Nick

-don't worry Brandon, you're up there too

Two thumbs and ten toes up for Emily. I couldn't stop reading her story

I really like the way she gets her personality across in her writing as well as her refreshing honesty and lack of pretentiousness. She reminds me of a female Bill Bryson, which, coming from me is a huge compliment! Well done and best of luck!

Kat

Curiosity never killed anything except perhaps a few hours!

The writer of "Istanbul to Cairo in a G-String" rocks my world. Her sense of humor and courage came through clearly to me, and I wanted to follow her all over the mid-east.

Mary

Full Moon at Mani Rimdu by Chris Card Fuller is probably my favourite story. She really made me see and smell and taste Nepal. It's pretty long, so I read it in installments, but I thought it was truly wonderful. I don't know if she wrote any other stories.

Hmmmm...may I make a suggestion? It would be great if there were a link where we could find all the stories written by a particular author. For instance, if at the end of Chris' story there had a been a link for "other stories by Chris Card Fuller", I'd have been there in an instant!

Cheers,
Random

absolutely, we are working on that exact feature at the moment. It would be very handy and I expect to be as well.

Cheers and keep the suggestions coming,

Sean

I don't have half enough surfing time as I'd like to scour/search all the stories, by destination/author, whathaveyou, unless say, 'I'm about to go/had been somewhere' or was thinking about a particular place, etc... so it's not really a 'balanced' judgement [sorry, latent journo coming out], BUT, I did get absolutely hooked to the point of waiting with baited breath, and laughing, no, convulsing out loud, on Vin/Vincent [shit what's his surname [Yanez?], erm, sorry]'s Europe travelogue! It was one of, if not, the first series of articles I read when I stumbled upon Boots and I guess 'cos I'd done the Euro thang, I thought I'd compare notes... Immediately, I loved his tone, by god his brilliant SARCASM! His experience/writing style/in the words of a true backpacker felt 'so' familiar - taking the piss out of himself/situations/inevitable travel hiccups/disasters, with an appropriate amount of 'namedropping' without being all 'look at me, look what I've done', yet still being informative... I've also been reading bits and bobs of oh, here I go again, the american dude currently down under [I'd go 'Back', but don't wanna lose my place here - I'm so cyber-inept sometimes!], which is a bit amusing too! I also loved the way Jen Leo described/praised Brisbane chemist workers, but y'know, that's just a personal thing!

There's no doubt loads more out there! Oh, and that Jeanette Bergman chick is fucking brilliant... ahem. Oh c'mon, I didn't think I'd be the first to get on up and be all self-admiring! Someone has to!

So, go the Boots site for giving we wannabe writers a 'professional', creative, open-minded outlet!

ginch
ps. Living and having travelled extensively in Ireland, I was curious to read Ant's Ireland travelogue - really cool, informative, detailed, well-written, even a bit romantic - quite surprising for a yankee dumbarse! He he he! Hang on, all the above writers I've praised are American... yeek!

Random,

Just as Sean said, that is something we are working on improving. At the moment, as we get authors in and get more and more stories from individual authors, often you can look in the left column of a story and see links to their other work on BootsnAll. Some of these writers include Fred Perry, Jeanette Bergman, and Craig Guillot, and many many others... but again, that is something we're working to improve, because it isn't site-wide yet.

You'll be seeing some improvements on this, and lots and lots and lots of other things BootsnAll, over the next few months. Rockin' idea - and as Sean said, keep 'em coming. Really and truly - no corporate flack and BS here - our community really helps Sean, Chris, Nick and I improve this site. So thanks, and we look forward to more feedback!

Until we get the new features that Sean and Ant have mentioned, a useful way to track down all the articles by a particular author is to use the search function on the home page. Just type in the author's name and you'll get a listing of all articles they've contributed.

Random, Chris Card Fuller has just begun to write some stories/guides on Paris. We also have a bio page for her which will have all her articles linked:
Chris Card Fuller's bio page

I have to agree with Ginch. I just read Vince Yanez' European travelogue from start to finish, and I thought it was absolutely hilarious! I printed it out and put it in a binder, because I'm sure I'll want to read it again. Kudos on some great writing, Vince!

Cheers,
Random

A special award should go to a couple of writers for their willingness to get hurt if necessary for a good story.

Firstly there's William Koplitz, who was actually shot while in El Salvador.

http://www.BootsnAll.com/cgi-bin/gt/travelstories/ca/dec01elsal.shtml

I also take my hat off to Kelly Sobczak who attended an anti-American demonstration in Iran ( she's from Pittsburgh ) and told them she is from the States.

http://www.bootsnall.com/cgi-bin/gt/travelstories/me/nov01anger1.shtml

If anyone feels the urge to dance with danger we're all ears.

Nick

Christine Michaud who wrote Cairo to Istanbul on a G-string. I thought it was wonderful. Though I like many other writers on the site, she stood out because she beat odds and had one helluva trip. Made me more inclined to go (I've been reading Lonely Planet's similar book for a while)

Stephanie

Justin Pushman, I highly recommend some of his stories for those who have not had the opportunity to read them. He is very honest with the readers as well as with himself. I say “honest with himself” because I believe he is aware of he fact that he is a crazy man, but beautiful in the same breath.

Just one man’s thoughts,
Macondo