Thomas Swick, in the Los Angeles Review of Books, looks back on his career as a travel writer, and his stint as a travel editor in the United States  —  “a society that is weary of a world it has never gotten to know.”

Travel editors were an absurdity in a nation of workaholics; the consumer-driven travel section appeared on Sunday more as a taunt than an escape. By bringing to it some of the qualities of travel literature — by giving subscribers something to read as well as to reference — I was trying to make it less ridiculous and more useful, the very thing top editors periodically grumbled it wasn’t.