Longreads

I thought I had my addiction under control. I always considered the travel bug one of those socially acceptable vices—akin to an obsession with word games or Tuscan reds—that contains…

The first thing Azeb wanted to know about me was if I was on Facebook. After that she got to the less important stuff: Where I was from, if I was married, had kids, believed in God—and what…

This had been happening: Person At A Party Or Something: Neat, travel writing! Which country are you going to next? Me: Texas. West Texas, actually. The Panhandle. P.A.A.P.O.S.: . . . [painful…

In April, the U.K. imprint Faber & Faber published Will Oldham on Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, a book-length interview with Oldham conducted by journalist/musician Alan Licht. Anyone who's ever read a…

AFAR chooses a destination at random—by literally spinning a globe—and sends Andrew McCarthy on a spontaneous journey to Ethiopia. The man who arrested me at dawn in Lalibela was…

Todd Pitock takes a journey into Morocco’s Berber territory, where tradition and modern life meet:

“The elders are dying without transmitting knowledge and values,” he [Boubkou Tajoiti] said. “We are losing our way, but it is not about making a choice between either globalization or tradition. You must find what is good in both.”

He gave the example of producing saffron. The traditional method is labor-intensive, requiring long cultivation until harvesting the red, thread-like stigma of the crocus immediately after the flower blooms, before the sun can damage the delicate threads. To maximize profit—at about $3.50 per gram, saffron is the world’s most expensive spice—the modern, industrial method is simply to cut off the whole flower. That is more efficient but results in saffron of poorer quality, much the way grocery-store tomatoes never taste as good as the ones grown in your garden. Eventually, the compromised quality would undercut demand and prices. With a market willing to pay for quality, Boubkou believed that hewing to tradition was not only right—for tradition provided all kinds of moral guideposts—but also profitable. He had proof in the success of his own saffron exports, which he sold in Saudi Arabia and Europe. The key to revivifying Berber life, he said, was “to create opportunities so that young people have a reason to stay.”

Hoi An’s iconic dish was a mystery for decades. Then writer David Farley came to town. “Ba Le …?” I said to a shirtless man, who halted me from going any farther down…

by Susan Orlean The New Yorker January 7, 2000 All languages are welcome on Bangkok's Khao San Road, including Drunkard. "Hold my hand," a man fluent in Singapore Slings commanded a Scottish…