How does a travel writer travel?
California-based Jeff Greenwald is the author of six travel books, several of which were written in Southasia. His best-known titles include Shopping for Buddhas, The Size of the World (for which he created the first international blog), and most recently Snake Lake, set in Nepal during the 1990 pro-democracy uprising. Greenwald recently spoke with Himal Southasian about which comes first, the travel or the writing.
Did your family travel much when you were a child?
My family didn't travel very much; most of my early journeys were through movies or books. I loved looking through National Geographic, of course, as well as picture books of the American Southwest – a place that seemed as magnificent and alien to me as the Moon. Also I grew up during the dawn of the Space Age, so the lunar landings, Star Trek and movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey fuelled my wanderlust.