Travel Books That Listen to the People Who Live There

In this anthology edited by Don George, travelers tell stories about the people who helped them away from home. A reader can move from one short account to another and compare what different writers notice about those encounters. Choose it when you want a selection of brief encounters with several narrators instead of one person’s long itinerary.

Jamaica Kincaid addresses a visitor to Antigua and asks what that visitor can afford to overlook. The book returns repeatedly to the difference between seeing an island as a holiday and having to live with the history and decisions that shaped it. Read this short essay beside a traveler’s account to hear what the person being visited might ask them to see.