The Best American Travel Writing 2000

HThe travelers Bryson (In a Sunburned Country) and Wilson (a travel writer) have collected here aren't the high-adrenaline survivor sort so popular these days. What these writers all share is a love of a place, a moment, a people (okay, David Halberstam bemoans the influx of nouveau riches to his precious Nantucket). Culled from the expected travel magazines, plus a couple of more unlikely sources (Coffee Journal), these highly personal accounts represent the best of the best (an appendix lists the many runners-up). From Bill Buford's plan to sleep overnight in Central Park to Dave Eggers's memories of picking up hitchhikers in Cuba; from Tom Clynes's ride through the Outback with ""The Toughest Trucker in the World"" to Mark Ross's harrowing tale of being kidnapped by rebels in Uganda, every one of these short pieces spins everyday details into memorable life. On the lighter side, Clive Irving rhapsodizes about ""The First Drink of the Day"" and David Lansing offers the educational ""Confessions of a Cheese Smuggler."" As Wilson points out in his entertaining foreword, we've all written about ""What I Did on My Summer Vacation."" These writers have raised that to an art; all of these tales remind us of how amazing the world truly is. (Oct.)