Travel Books

Postcards From My Fun Working Holiday In Paris

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I returned a week ago from a travel memoir writing workshop in Paris where a dozen participants, 11 from around the U.S. and one polite Canadian (thank you, Garrett), communed with fellow travelers, writers, and American travel writing legend and all-around good guy Rolf Potts who organized the event.

I been basking in the glow of that marvelous 6-day experience ever since.

The Eiffel Tower beams its blue light over the Seine River, where the French people and we tourists crowded its banks every night to wine and dine into the wee hours.

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Guides and Guidebooks: Reasons Why I Rarely Use Them

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The massive interior of the cave church of St. Simon the Tanner in the Garbage City neighborhood of Cairo, worth seeing, unlike the mural that Lonely Planet recommended.

I’d been to Garbage City a couple of times already but agreed to return with a new friend from Sydney who just moved into the Holy Sheet Hostel where I was staying in Cairo.

“Justin” was traveling solo on holiday from his job managing a bar, restaurant and gaming facilities in Australia’s largest city.

He had a four-year old Lonely Planet guide book with a paragraph about Garbage City which mentioned a French-Tunisian graffiti artist who had created what Lonely Planet described as “one of the most astonishing pieces of street art in the Middle East” in Garbage City in the 1970s. But it could only be seen in its entirety from an upper floor of a particular building near the massive cave church of St. Simon the Tanner.

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