As part of our series on ethical travel writing, we recently spoke with Faith Adiele, travel writer, author, and founder of the nation’s first workshop for travel writers of color through VONA (Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation). We discussed misconceptions about the travel writing genre, how we can diversify the publishing industry, and whether or not we should make a distinction between travelers and tourists.

Voices of Our Nations Arts (VONA)—at the time the largest and preeminent multi-genre summer workshop for writers of color—asked me to start a travel writing workshop. My heart thrummed. If any literary genre were in need of desegregation and decolonization, it was travel writing.

As part of our series on responsible travel writing, we recently spoke with Zabrina Lo, an arts and culture reporter for a storied English-language magazine in Hong Kong. We talked about the many ways Chinese and British legacies influence her hometown, her life, and her work.

As part of our series on responsible travel writing, we recently spoke with Tarryn Tomlinson, a TV presenter, travel writer, and accessibility consultant based in Cape Town.

Bolts of lightning flashed across the night sky, the only lights besides those flickering in the distance more than 3,000 meters below at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, glimmering evidence of refuge I would do just about anything for.

As part of our series on responsible travel writing, we recently spoke with Xu Xi 許素細, Indonesian-Chinese-American, born and raised in Hong Kong. She is the author of fourteen books of fiction and nonfiction and one of Hong Kong’s leading writers in English. She is also editor of five anthologies of Asian writing in English, most recently, The Art and Craft of Asian Stories: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology. She currently occupies the William H.P. Jenks Chair in Contemporary Letters at the College of the Holy Cross and leads international writing retreats through Authors at Large.

Travelers invaded my childhood. They were always there—well-heeled Westerners who stayed at the Peninsula Hotel; less affluent tourists from other hotels at the tip of the Kowloon peninsula jutting into the Hong Kong harbor; American sailors who poured out of battleships for their R&R, especially during the Vietnam war years; British and other expatriate hires relocating to their well-paid jobs as civil servants, university professors, medical, legal and other professionals, teachers in the foreign schools, diplomats and foreign correspondents.

We are trying to expand our sense of self, and expand our empathy, and ability to hold stories that are not ours. That's for me what my work is about. And pushing conversations without pushing folks away, is central to that.

As part of our series on responsible travel writing, Dr. Anu Taranath explores the politics of writing by contributing a series of TIPS Letters, an exercise that has become a cornerstone of her teaching on culture, diversity, and social justice. You can use the exercise to engage more deeply with Things, Ideas, People, and even yourself.

My hair elicits a global response. Its reception shifts like dialects do, as slight reinterpretations on a theme. In Rodez, France, I wore it as a lion does its mane. The stares were unrelenting, as though we were on safari.

While planning a work trip to Mexico City, a location I already loved, I hatched a plan to bring back the ultimate reward: a patio-full of the legendary Talavera clay pottery the city of Puebla is revered for. I pictured myself buying and shipping huge multicolored hand-thrown pots, pewter accents, maybe a huge ceramic yellow sun to turn my rather drab patio into the tropical paradise I’d always known it could be.

We talk with Heart Radical author Anne Liu Kellor about agnostic Buddhism, the power of relationships abroad, and the challenges and opportunities about writing from your life.

Clarissa Wei is a journalist who has worked around the world, seeking out little-known stories that speak to the heart. After living in Central America, she packed up and moved to Taiwan, where she's currently working on her first cookbook, Made In Taiwan: Recipes From the People.

Only nine months after being laid off from our jobs in New York, my husband and I were about to open the doors to our brand-new bar and art gallery in Altea, Spain. We’d invested our life savings and the renovations had just been completed.

Conceived by Anthony Bourdain and completed by his longtime co-author and assistant, Laurie Woolever, World Travel takes us around the globe one last time with Bourdain’s signature wisdom, humor, and open-hearted curiosity.

I stumbled into The Queen Vic in Aberdeen, Scotland after 16 hours of travel. My taxi driver from the airport had said, looking at my AirBnB address, “I think you live close to the local here in Rosemount. It’s one of the best locals in Aberdeen, so you are a lucky lass.”

In crossing oceans for our 40-day honeymoon trip through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, my wife and I had put ourselves back in the closet for a constellation of reasons. Public displays of affection were frowned upon in these countries, so we were careful not to kiss or cuddle in restaurants the way we would’ve back home in Boston.

I can’t feel my right foot and my legs aren’t even in the lotus position. Cici, my husband’s former grad student, and Shifu, as we call the Buddhist master, have folded their lower bodies into tight packets — knees down, soles and palms turned heavenward. Shifu’s posture mirrors the row of buddhas and bodhisattvas, radiating stillness on the shelf behind her close-cropped head.

Features Editor Yi Shun Lai provides an inside look at disaster relief over her decade-plus of volunteering for ShelterBox.

Memoirist Janice MacLeod brings Paris alive with a new collection of her painted letters spanning almost a decade.

Tegan Aileen Wylie is an international plus-size model and the mastermind behind The Travel Curve, a website that focuses on travel and fashion tips for “full-figured” women. We loved Wylie’s tone and her message, and wanted to get to know her and her mission a little more. Undomesticated talked to her about getting into modeling, being an influencer, and more.

Pam Logan, author of Compassion Mandala and founder of the Kham Aid Foundation, an NGO bringing resources to Tibet, talks about everything from starting an NGO to international relationships to the opportunities and challenges facing today’s non-profit organizations.

To access world literature beyond what was translated and censored in the Islamic Republic, I had to improve my English and enter the world of banned books which were smuggled in alongside alcohol, Western film, and music. Limited and expensive, but accessible through the right contacts. Reading books from across the world was a turning point in my life.

Four years ago, I moved to Brazil from my home in Chicago. And when people asked me what my calling as a Black American journalist in Brazil was, I said: To save Afro-Brazilians. I wanted to help Black Brazilians confront racism, rise out of poverty, and achieve their full potential in life. Two years passed before the first person challenged my aspirations.

Whether it’s called the farmers’ market, the wet market, or the central market, it’s one of the first destinations on my itinerary, no matter where I land in the world. The reasons can be practical—simply buying some fresh fruit to eat—but they can also extend far beyond that as a means of entry into a culture.