This book is the fourth in a collection of travel essays that the author has published over the course of a ten-year period.

Its stories are about the author's travel experiences in places across the U.S., Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia.

Some of the stories evolved from sections of old travel journals he wrote while in his twenties, while some date back a decade, and others more recent than that.

He feels extremely fortunate to have had the ability to live in different places abroad as an exchange student, relief worker, and backpacker in an age when travel was relatively cheap and the world a safer place, with health hazards amounting to nothing more serious than malaria and the occasional bout of dysentery.

His wish is that in describing these experiences, readers will regain confidence in the kindness of the human spirit?for without the kindness of strangers he met on my journeys, the author may never have successfully completed them?and become inspired to venture outre-mer, as did Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one of our first great travel writers, did in his book by the same name about his travels in Europe in the 19th century.