The Best American Travel Writing 2013

This highly anticipated annual collection of essays comes this year from Eat, Pray, Love author Gilbert and series editor Wilson. This well-told story takes readers around the world, letting them dip their literary toes in many aspects of travel from understanding another culture to learning a place's history and current political situation to finding out new things about ourselves. Travel the streets of Egypt first dressed fully covered in a niqab and then as a Westerner. Learn the history of pirates in New Orleans. Run with the bulls in Pamplona. Visit the illegal gold mines in Peru. Relish the peace of returning yearly to the same vacation spot. Go snowboarding in Sarajevo and experience cockfighting in Afghanistan. Laugh as David Sedaris describes his French dental care. See the changes in modern Cuba. Essays in this year's edition focus primarily on earnest reporting rather than the reflective, adventurous, or humorous aspects of travel but nonetheless are a treasure to read.