True Travel Tales

THIS SERIES. Over the last few decades, I've interviewed nearly 2,000 world travelers and adventurers. I am weaving the best of their nearly 10,000 fantastic travel tales into a psychology of travel as revealed by these very telling stories. These are travelers I've encountered on planes, trains, buses, ships, tours, safaris, and in campgrounds, cafes, and pubs. These courageous travelers have freely shared their most personal travel experiences, some good and wonderful and others even horrific and life-threatening, which I, in turn, get to share with you now through my True Travel Tales series. Expect upwards of 100 eBooks covering many different countries and travel themes as well. THIS BOOK. Travel Tales: Michael's Own Best 150, is Volume 2 of the True Travel Tales series which is the expanded full collection of the best of all my own personal travel stories in my rich, varied and adventurous travel life that has taken me to more than 125 countries. My travel tales include a selection of my best, worst, funniest, and truly most horrible travel experiences, that, by virtue of their emotional impact upon me at the time, whether positive or negative, have now become my most memorable and interesting travel stories today. From my unique perspective of being the world's first and probably only travel psychologist, I think you'll find my own travel experiences riveting, informative, funny, and entertaining. Please enjoy! While some people say that some of my stories are riotous, others say that I should be kept locked up at home and not allowed to travel anywhere! These events, as unbelievable as some of them may seem to be, really did happen to me! Read on! Note: The 150 travel stories included in this book are divided into three parts. The first part includes my own personal 25 top travel stories in their entirety that make up Volume 1 in this series, Travel Tales: Michael's Top 25. The second and third parts contain an additional 125 of my own personal best travel stories. So, if you are obtaining this full expanded Volume 2, Travel Tales: Michael's Best 150, please note that it also includes the lite version, Volume 1, Travel Tales: Michael's Top 25, in its entirety in Part 1 (Parts 2 and 3 include 125 more of my own personal best travel stories.)DISCLAIMER! Please be forewarned that some stories in the True Travel Tales series may be graphic, unpleasant, and disturbing. This series is generally aimed towards a more mature adult audience, yet, no doubt, some material ought to be communicated in a clear and responsible manner to younger and relatively inexperienced and naive travelers, who could benefit by knowing how to travel more safely and securely. The author does not necessarily agree with opinions expressed by contributors. Finally, no story in the series is meant to depict any country, people, culture or religion in a negative light. Good and bad things can and do happen anywhere and to anyone. Note: Some stories may appear in more than one eBook in the True Travel Tales series, depending on the subject matter and countries covered.

THIS SERIES. These are the true travel tales of solo women travelers being sexually harassed and assaulted in their travels around the world and what some of them were able to do about it! They are shouting "Me Too!" to you through these pages! No one should be subjected to the despicable, disgusting and degrading behaviors that these women have had to put up with at the hands of men who should be relegated to the dregs of humanity! I've interviewed nearly 2,000 world travelers. I've weaved the best of their 10,000 travel tales into a psychology of travel as revealed by these very telling stories. These are travelers I've met on airplanes, trains, buses, ships, tours, safaris, and in hotels, campgrounds, cafes, and pubs. These courageous travelers have shared their most personal travel experiences, some good and wonderful and others horrific and life-threatening, which I, in turn, share with you now through my True Travel Tales series. THIS BOOK. Travel Tales: Women Alone is Volume 3 of the True Travel Tales series and deals with safety and security of the woman solo traveler. It is about how to travel safely throughout the world. Unfortunately, travel today finds us in a world of growing terror threats, the imposition of severe and strict cultural and religious restrictions on women's rights and freedoms, as well as decreasing tolerance for cultural and religious differences and diversity around the world. For women traveling alone, having to deal with hassles and assaults is daunting in the least. For women alone, travel mostly is exciting and relatively safe, but for many women, traveling in some countries, particularly in North Africa and the Middle East, can often be traumatic and downright dangerous. I have tales of women constantly being bothered and harassed. And, sad to say, some women have even disappeared, never to be seen again. To be a woman and to travel alone in such forbidding places is not for the faint of heart. Many young women are naively unaware and must be exceedingly careful in their interactions with men overseas. Just because men are well-dressed and speak your language does not necessarily mean that they can be trusted. Every woman traveling abroad needs to know about and prepare herself for dealing with such things. Again, while travel is mostly safe, it can also be foreboding and downright dangerous at times and one must be prudent. If I were you, I'd think very carefully about traveling to some parts of the world as a woman ALONE! Women have shared hundreds of travel stories with me about how they have had to fend off - yes, even fight off at times - the unwanted advances of men, ranging from verbal harassment, unwanted touching, exposure, and, yes, even rape! Women have said to me, "Yes, I should have known better; I should have seen the signs." DISCLAIMER: Please know that some stories in the Travel Tales series may be graphic, unpleasant, and disturbing. This series is aimed towards a mature adult audience. Yet, some material ought to be communicated in a clear and responsible manner to younger and relatively inexperienced travelers who could benefit by knowing how to travel more safely and securely. No story in the series is meant to depict any country, people, race, culture or religion in a negative light. Good and bad things can and do happen anywhere and to anyone.

Travel Tales: Egypt, Morocco & North Africa Is a collection of travel stories of one of the travel world's most mystical sought-after destinations-the top of Africa, also known as the 'Dark Continent.' Certainly among the world's handful of the most eagerly sought out places on Earth to visit, without a doubt, the pyramids in Egypt, the souks of Morocco, and the lure of the Sahara on camelback loom large in the minds of armchair travelers and would-be adventurers. And while North Africa, especially, the pyramids of Egypt and the souks of Morocco are so very untypical of the relatively innocuous and mellow travels in Europe, travel to North Africa is often beset with experiences that are always exciting for most yet potentially challenging for others. It is particularly recommended, for instance, that relatively inexperienced solo women travelers to North Africa keep its challenges clearly in mind regarding safety and security issues that would be well taken into consideration. To be sure, North Africa's marvelous exotic foods and drinks and sights do not disappoint. And there truly is no world equal to the view of the pyramids in all their splendor that may very well be the most amazing sights to be seen the world over. Indeed there are some ridiculous behaviors of the oft hilarious and embarrassing comings and goings of crazy stupid scoundrel tourists on their (our) own National Lampoon-like (summer) 'Vacations' who cannot seem to help themselves (ourselves) by behaving at times as the ugly Americans who we sometimes cannot help but be! I mean, really! Climbing to the top of the pyramids which is patently illegal? It is also one of our purposes of the True Travel Tales series to provide a cross-section of travel life in the World's most popular places, along with the good comes sometimes a portion of the bad as well. In the True Travel Tales series, we aim to pull no punches. You'll see the good and best sides of Egypt, Morocco, and North Africa, and you'll also perhaps sample some of the more discomforting or disquieting darker aspects as well that sadly are also part of the cycle of travel life in such a diverse and exotic region as North Africa.

Travel Tales: Toilet Stories is all about taking care of your daily business as best you can - doing your daily duty, so to speak… finding and using toilets and the like - in your travels. No matter where you are traveling to, no matter what you are doing, and no matter who you are when Nature calls, you had better answer.Talking about your bathroom needs is, indeed, one of the top ten daily topics discussed by fellow travelers among one another when they meet and talk and trade stories.Whether you are just a tourist or a seasoned traveler, rich or poor, old or young… King or pauper, no matter what and who you are, everyone shares this one absolute necessity in common of attending to your daily toilet needs post haste.Nature calls but waits for no one!Being under the weather toilet-wise definitely puts a damper on things - on every thing! One thing is for sure, if you do not have your bathroom and toilet ducks all lined up in a row, you will for sure be dead in the water.Of course, there is much disdain and disgust expressed by travelers in regard to their daily bathroom needs, especially the often gory details! No one really wants particularly to have to talk about it.But one thing is for sure whether or not you are a seasoned traveler or one of the world's truly great adventurers, when it comes to bathrooms and such, you had better have your act together!Last but not least, despite how disgusting tales of travelers' accounts of dealing with their number "ones" and their number "twos" may be, there are nonetheless many riotous accounts of toilet stories, too. Some of the funniest travel stories are about this very subject matter.This book collects the variety of interesting situations travelers and residents sometimes find themselves in especially in regard to their daily toilet experiences and encounters.This book includes the true tales of the sorts of things that you might expect to occur when Nature just does happen to call you - and know this for sure: Mother Nature will call you, sooner or later, sometimes even when you least expect it and often when you are not in a particularly appropriate space either to deal with it.You may very well be surprised when - not IF - Nature calls and you are just not prepared at that very instant to best deal with it. Nature cares not who you are, where you are, or what you are doing - when Nature does call you you had better be prepared to deal with it right there and then on the spot!

Travel Tales: Ghost Encounters Collects Michael Brein's ghostly accounts of the nearly 2,000 interviews with travelers he has met in his own travels around the world over the last four decades. Although the typical travel stories collected in the True Travel Tales book series are ordinarily oriented towards safety and security in travel, the very scary and spooky accounts of ghosts and hauntings and all the variations in between can and do occur to travelers. Mostly these things will not happen to you. But you never know. You'll read in the series plenty of examples of the wide variety of spirit and ghost encounters that may pop up now and again in your travels as well as your own home life. This book, however, pauses all of this. Instead of dealing with all sorts of true accounts of close calls and great escapes in connection with all sorts of scary travel situations including chases, foiled kidnappings, attacks, roadblocks, scary places, trips from hell, borders, and police, hitchhiking, international spying, smuggling, and intrigue, being in the wrong places at the wrong times, terror attacks, bandits, Mexican standoffs, airplane crashes, accidents and mishaps, white slavery, robberies, sexual harassment and assaults and more-the series now pauses to explore the spooky world of ghosts and spirits and many of the no doubt related variations in between! Instead of reading about the dangers and mishaps of others, whereby you'll focus on and gain healthier respect for the true dangers and risks of travel and adventure... the point of this book is purely to explore a virtually little known aspect of reality. By all means, haunted places abound, and where it was heretofore a forbidden subject to bring up, it is now relatively good sport to seek out haunted establishments and even to write down your experiences in a variety of guestbooks and ledgers provided at these establishments for just that purpose. And make no mistake, whereas some of these stories are profoundly scary and unnerving, many are the stuff of keepsake memories and smack of efforts on the part of spirits to be recognized and even be remembered. Many of the scary accounts of travelers in this book are tales of times gone by. Many ghosts seem to be intent on making others remember them. Other ghost experiences seem to be never-ending repeating replays of cycles of discarnate entities seemingly trying to resolve conflicts of times long gone by. Yes, indeed, we are often the recipients of visits from ghosts and spirits on our own home turfs. It, therefore, behooves us to think of this book as not only a compendium of ghostly visits that we seek out or experience despite ourselves in our travels, but perhaps we ought to consider the visits of ghosts and spirits as similarly traveling themselves in a way from their own alternate space-time realities which conjoin or overlap with ours in one massive Contiguous Universe? In this Reader or compendium of ghost and spirit tales, we broaden our look at not merely what we think of as the typical shadows, spirits, or apparitions reported by so many, but also to a much broader reality of similarly related behaviors of presumably a wide variety discarnate supernatural entities that cut across in mysterious ways broad swaths of what we may typically refer to as ghost or spirit visitations and their interactions with us. Such ghostly encounters may not ever happen expressly to you, but assuredly something strange of an apparitional manifestation will invariably happen to a friend, a neighbor, or perhaps even a relative.

Travel Tales: Cons, Scams & Ripoffs is a collection of tales of schemes perpetrated against travelers. If you're conned or scammed in your travels we hope you escape them with only minor inconveniences. This book collects a variety of schemes that happen to travelers, but mostly these won't happen to you. You'll read examples of often elaborately orchestrated schemes that unscrupulous actors create and carry out on you if you're unwary. This book includes common schemes designed to separate you from your money. Although scammed victims will often credit con artists with undo creativity, most often victims would just as soon not be victims to begin with. Indeed, the stories in this book run the gamut of clever ruses played out on unwary travelers. Even the manufacturers of alluring beautiful carpets for sale in the Middle East see you coming! How easy they fool you. Travelers pay ridiculous prices for items they could've paid far less. Is bargaining so distasteful, or have they not bargained nearly long enough? Scams have been around since time immemorial. Other cons lure unsuspecting victims into bars. And gambling cons are run on tourists looking for quick and easy wins, too trusting players, and unwitting losers.There are countless stories of ripoffs involving taxis, camels, rickshaws, boats, and what have you, whereby travelers would've been much better off had they negotiated fares in advance. "Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate" we're told before getting in cabs. You'd be surprised how many travelers still fail to do this! People love to be fooled by clever magicians. Americans are often easily conned into taking for granted so-called self-styled 'experts,' who fool you into believing they really know what they're doing when clearly they do not. It's no surprise that some river guide 'experts' have fallen victim, themselves, to crocodile and hippo attacks while guiding travelers on jungle rivers. This book is the place to read abou the perpetrators and the victims of cons and scams to get a good idea of what some are and how to avoid them. You'll gain a healthy respect for what it is to be the victim of one of the seemingly endless variety of schemes designed to lure the unwary traveler. And with a better knowledge of dangers of falling victim to these cons and scams through reading the accounts of others, hopefully, you'll gain a better sense of safety, security, enjoyment, and appreciation of your travels. This book includes many examples of bad things that can happen to the unwary traveler. But bad things DO happen, and the best thing is to avoid them in altogether. We should try our best to escape them. While there's no easy miracle fix for dealing with the seemingly endless variety of cons and scams, there are, nevertheless, meaningful takeaway strategies in this book that should better enable you to make you more aware of the schemes in travel to help you reduce the risks of succumbing to them. While many of the cons and scams are not particularly dangerous, many are about difficult, embarrassing, and otherwise annoying nuisances that we'd all do very well to avoid. Some of the cons, scams, and ripoffs may surprise you, and some would never likely even occur to you. Indeed, such misadventures may never happen to you, but reading about them should at least give you some pause. Who knows, maybe you'll never suffer the indignity and inconvenience of a con game or scam after all. Sure, you'll read the stories that'll alert you to situations you've never heard of, but if you avoid even one con or scam through reading this book, then I'll have accomplished a very useful purpose.

“Travel Tales: Scary Stories” is also a collection of the fearful sorts of things that can and do happen to some travelers on occasion, but mainly these things will not happen to you. But if they do, you may get to experience real, raw fear including sometimes even fear for your very own life. These are very unsettling occasions that pop up now and again in your travels. This collection of true travel tales is the place to hear about them. I hope they don't happen to you, but if they do, I hope you'll manage to escape and overcome. Hopefully, you'll be all the wiser for reading about the scary tales of others told throughout these pages. “Scary Stories” includes many examples of bad things that sometimes do happen to travelers despite their best efforts to avoid such things. But bad things DO happen on occasion, and the best thing to do is to avoid them in the first place. But if we cannot, we should certainly at least do our best to escape them. And reading about the scary stories of others is helpful. While there's no easy, simple list of failsafe strategies for always staying safe and surviving each dangerous situation that may arise in life and travel, there are, nevertheless, meaningful takeaway strategies from the many examples presented in this reader of scary and frightening tales that'll enable one to develop and keep in mind ways to enhance personal safety and reduce the risks of potentially dangerous outcomes. While many of the tales in this book are not strictly about life and death situations, some of them are, and some are about difficult, embarrassing, and otherwise annoying nuisances, situations that we all would do well to avoid and certainly do without. The scope and variety of the scary tales in this book may surprise you. And some would never likely even occur to you. Some are even funny like, for example, El Diablo Rojo Loco, the story of riding the Crazy Red Devil "chicken bus" along the horrifying scary mountain roads of Panama.

Travel Tales: Italy, Rome & More Is a collection of travel stories of one of the travel world's most favorite destinations. Without a doubt, Rome, Firenze (Florence), Venezia (Venice), and the rest of Italy are to be sure among my favorite destinations in the world to visit. The travel stories in this book are basically divided into a number of parts. And you may ask why is the book divided in this way? The short answer is that when asked to share their most interesting travel tales of their visits to Italy, it is no surprise that in addition to some of the more touristy stuff, there are some metaphysical stories of visitors as well because, simply stated, Italy does have its own share of the psychic and the paranormal that affect visitors to Italy just as elsewhere. There are also travelers' stories about some of the not-so-pleasant aspects of travel in Italy, particularly the fairly common occurrence of pickpocketing, especially by the Roma (Gypsy) populace, so travelers need to be particularly cautious and aware. Finally, solo women travelers often report a fairly common occurrence of aggressive sexual harassment in the form of fairly assertive, intrusive, verbal, and sometimes even unwelcomed physical advances. So, it is only fitting that I provide these stories for you as well-be they as they may-since these are the tales that travelers feel are important enough and therefore want to share with you. Mostly, your own Italy travels will typically be interesting, exciting, rewarding, safe, and without incident, but odd and unpleasant things can and do happen on occasion in your travels, and visiting Italy is certainly no exception. To be sure, with its marvelous food and drink, artwork, architecture, museums, and magnificent scenery, Italy with its great cities has so much to offer. It is also one of our purposes of the True Travel Tales series to provide a cross-section of travel life in the world's most popular cities and countries, but along with the good comes sometimes a portion of the bad as well. In the True Travel Tales series, we aim to pull no punches. You'll see the good and best sides of Italy and its cities and some of the more negative and regrettable travel occurrences in this area of the world as well.

Travel Tales: Hawaii Paradox & Paradise is all about travel to Hawaii. Sometimes Hawaii is the paradise you hope and expect it to be. But sometimes Hawaii is much more the paradox and less the paradise. And it is surprisingly so that Hawaii is sometimes home to the unusual, the paranormal, as well as even UFOs. This book collects the interesting situations travelers and residents sometimes get themselves into. This book includes the true tales of the sorts of things that you might expect to occur in a tropical paradise but also perhaps occurrences of the totally unusual and unexpected. Perhaps you are a visitor for the first time coming to Hawaii. Of course, you'll experience the wonder of the beautiful beaches, the weather, and the incredible surroundings and scenery. But you may not expect the unexpected or the unusual and just might be surprised at what can only be termed "a paradox," i.e., things you just might not expect would occur in paradise. You might try delicious foods or drinks you'd never dreamt of consuming back home. And you just may try some new things that are beyond the pale even. Some tales involve interacting with the locals. Some are about Hawaii visitors themselves. In our True Travel Tales series and Hawaii Paradox & Paradise, in particular, we encourage you to travel safely and securely and abide by all the rules. We expect that you will read about aspects of Hawaii that you have had no idea about. You'll see that Hawaii is a very complex blend of the incredible paradise that most visitors have in their imaginations Hawaii to be before they arrive. But you'll also see that Hawaii, like most anywhere else, is also a fascinating blend of some very unusual kinds of experiences that people would not normally expect. It is no wonder, then, this book will portray to you very important aspects of ancient Hawaiian history and culture that you would not normally expect to see or hear. So be surprised and yet expect the unexpected that makes up Hawaii to be both the paradise that you have learned to love and expect as well as the paradox full of wonderment and surprise that you never expect to see.

Travel Tales: Sea Stories - The Ways of WaterI have collected so many fascinating stories of traveling the World's waterways from tales of ocean-going travel by huge ocean liners, and cruise ships to even sailboats. Indeed, if you expand the notion of travel along the World's waterways as well to include some of the Planet's most famous rivers, and if you consider the huge variety of means of water transport to also include small boats, canoes, rafts, and even scuba and snorkeling, and the like, you have an idea of the huge panoply and wealth of the means of water travel which travelers and adventurers are known to traverse and enjoy across the Globe.Indeed, if you consider the variety of purposes that travelers make use of bodies of water as well you will appreciate the wealth and variety of water-borne activities travelers and adventurers engage in from basic means of transport from one port to another to participate in an enormous variety of water-borne activities, including sports, entertainment, and exploration that travelers involve themselves with.It's so huge, after all. the why and the wherefore of how we engage in so many water-related activities that it does nothing less than boggle the mind, so much so, that in my True Travel Tales book series I have dedicated one entire volume to the myriad of water-travel and traveler-adventurer-related waterborne activities that travelers engage in whether for the simple purposes of transport from say here to there to the almost limitless variety of entertainment, and adventure activities as well as mind expansion that travelers engage themselves in.To be sure, the huge wealth and variety of water-related traveler-adventurer activities that people engage in will be seen to include an almost unimaginable variety of activities that a mere perusal of the chapter titles in Travel Tales: Sea Stories - The Ways of Water will be impetus enough to stir your imagination to appreciate more the huge scope and variety of possibilities, many of which you may not have even ever thought of.So relax and engage yourself in reading some of the most interesting travel tales that have resulted from my interviews of some 2,000 world travelers and adventurers on the particular subject of traversing and experiencing some of the World's most engaging waterways.On a more serious note please be advised some of the stories in this book take a more somber look at some of the more serious close calls, great escapes, and some not-so-lucky waterborne encounters of travelers during their travels and adventures around the Globe. In travel and adventure, just as in any other human activity, there are some serious personal safety and security issues that we must all engage ourselves in.Finally, very sadly and very somberly, no book on travelers' and adventurers' experiences could ever be complete without paying homage to those solo women travelers who through no fault of their own have fallen victim to disappearing and even losing their lives at times to the dastardly (still very likely occurring)… North African slave trade as well as elsewhere throughout the World.

Travel Tales: The African Safari Reader is a collection of African wildlife safari stories including some very scary tales of coming close to possible trouble with wild animals in your African travels but fortunately managing to just escape unscathed. It is also a collection of some of the fearful sorts of things that can and do happen to travelers, but mostly these will not happen to you. But if they do, you get to experience real, raw fear including sometimes fear for your very own life. These are very unsettling occasions that may pop up now and again in your travels. Travel Tales: The African Safari Reader, includes specific tales of close calls, and, hopefully, even occasional great escapes by travelers, specifically on safari in Africa with lions, snakes, hippos, elephants, Cape buffalos, crocodiles, baboons, hyenas, and more. This collection of true tales is the place to hear about African wildlife. I hope dangerous African wildlife encounters don't happen to you, but if they do, I hope you manage to escape and overcome them. Hopefully, you'll be all the wiser for reading about such things throughout these pages. By reading the accounts of others on safari you'll gain a healthier respect for what it is like to experience the true wild. And you'll gain a better respect for Mother Nature in all her glory as you witness and enjoy her magnificent African wildlife creations. Travel Tales: The African Safari Reader includes examples of bad things that occasionally happen to travelers despite their best efforts to avoid such things. But bad things DO happen on occasion, and the best thing to do is to avoid them in the first place. But if we cannot, we should do our best to escape them. Again, while there's no easy, simple miracle list of failsafe strategies for always staying safe and surviving each dangerous situation with wild animals that may arise, there are, nevertheless, meaningful takeaway strategies from the many examples presented in this book that'll enable one to develop and keep in mind ways to enhance personal safety and reduce the risks of potentially dangerous outcomes. While many of the tales in this book are not strictly about life and death situations surrounding wildlife, some of them are, and some are no less about difficult, embarrassing, and otherwise annoying nuisances that we all would do well to avoid and do without. The scope and variety of close calls with African wildlife in this book may surprise you. And some would never likely even occur to you. Some are even funny, like, for example, some of the examples of exotic wild animal meats you'd maybe try in Africa but would never eat even on a dare back home. Yes, such African wildlife encounters might never even occur to you, but after reading about it in this book, it may give you some pause-who knows? Please note: another book in our True Travel Tales series, namely Travel Tales: Wild Animals includes all of the African wildlife content included in this book plus more wildlife stories from all around the world. If by reading this African Safari Reader you avoid even one unexpected travel danger that you might never have even thought of other than by reading this book, then I'll have accomplished a very useful purpose.

Travel Tales: Russia & The USSRIs a collection of travel stories of one of the travel world's most, shall we say, duplicitous destinations - a bit mysterious, somewhat alluring, yet still demanding a modicum of caution. Russia, formerly the Soviet Union, aka the USSR, is a place you can never quite get comfortable with. Oh, for sure, things improved much when the Soviet Union as such collapsed and morphed into what is now a more modern-day Russia, or more formerly "The Russian Federation." Russia, for sure, abounds with history and untold artistic treasures and has modernized considerably bringing itself into the more modern-day 21st century. Maybe not quite among the world's most eagerly sought out destinations on Earth to visit, like, say, the Mediterranean, the pyramids of Egypt, the shopping and culinary meccas of Western Europe, or the wilds of Africa, Russia remains, however, in the minds of armchair travelers and adventurers alike looking to travel one day to Russia, say, to St. Petersburg or Moscow, or perhaps, even take a river journey between these two cities, or take a train trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Russia, though lacking in the relatively innocuous and more mellow travel like, say, to Europe, certainly now has suddenly become one of the more challenging countries to visit. Given the current world political arena, travel to Russia from the West for the foreseeable future will virtually cease to nil. Shall we say that this book on travel to Russia during the Cold War, through its return to the world stage, and now to its presence in the world as a pariah nation - now in the negative news media on a daily basis - is certainly not recommended as a destination for the unknown foreseeable future. This book, then, is more attuned to the armchair adventurer and those travelers who are now more curious than anything else and now more than ever before - about what travel to Russia has been like in the recent past, and now that Russia is largely off the plate for travel at least for the foreseeable future. Now is the time to sit back and contemplate more about what travel to Russia was like in the recent past, now that it is not likely to return any time soon as a goal for future travel adventures. So, given our True Travel Tales destinations sub-series, what was travel to the old USSR and Russia like, at least at the beginning of the more modern-day twenty-first century and slightly beyond? It is one of our purposes of the True Travel Tales series to provide a cross-section of travel life in the world's most popular and alluring places, that along with the good comes sometimes a portion of the bad as well. In the True Travel Tales series, we aim to pull no punches. You'll see some of the good and best sides of Russia as it reached the more modern era, and in so doing, you'll also sample some of the more discomforting or disquieting darker aspects as well that sadly were also part of the cycle of travel life in such a diverse and exotic region as the USSR and our token look of travel to Russia in its greater glory in the more modern day.

Travel Tales: The Mexico Reader Is a collection of travel stories to one of North America's no doubt favorite winter destinations. The allure of Mexico, whether its magnificent beach resorts, its exciting Latin culture, or its sumptuous food and drink… is a magnet to adventure, and is one of the easiest and closest escapes from the harsh American winter. But travel to Mexico has always been something of a mixed bag - like one of Forrest Gump's famed boxes of chocolates - for in Mexico you never quite know what you're "gonna" get. In fact, so many stories of corrupt police, dangerous outlaws, the cartels, and other occasional unfortunate occurrences leave people who travel to Mexico always a little wary. Mexico with all its wonder is not entirely without its dangers. And one need always be circumspect. While many North Americans love Mexico, Mexicans, and their culture, so many travelers to Mexico warn that aspects of visiting the country portend at times distinct potential dangers, so much so, that I have divided the book into three sections, modeled after the famous Clint Eastwood movie, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Succinctly said, the chances are that nothing untoward or unpleasant will happen to you. For the most part, your visit to Mexico will be memorable. But know this: you must always maintain a healthy respect and be circumspect in so far as your activities and actions in Mexico go. Betwixt and between most travelers' safe and secure travels to and within Mexico are distinct reports of some horrific and dangerous things that do happen on occasion to tourists. Mexico has had a history of kidnappings, robberies, police extortions, as well as occasional rapes, and even murders. If you act rationally and carefully and abide by common sense, again, your visit to Mexico is almost entirely likely to be among the most memorable of all your travels.

Travel Tales: England, Ireland & The UK Collects travel tales of one of the world's multi-faceted favorite destinations. The allure of the UK or Ireland is a magnet to comfort and convenience, yet marvelous sightseeing, and is one of the easiest adventures to make without worrying about the language. "Comfort" and "convenience," because, for the English speaker, a foreign language is not necessary. Gone are the fears of negotiating menus; it is the relief travelers feel. There are occasional different accents and some expressions, but these are less a bother and more cute bumps on the culture road that bring occasional smiles.Unlike Mexico, for example, where safety and security necessitate keeping a wary eye on things… but with Ireland or the UK you can subtract that right out of the equation: fear is gone!Driving on the "wrong side of the road" can be scary, but rather think of it as a fun adventure. You haven't experienced true exhilaration until you've mastered driving on the left! Also, factor into the equation - ancestry! What a great draw that is, for there is scarcely anywhere else in the world that bests ancestry hunting in the UK or Ireland. The possibility of finding a long-lost relative is huge!Of course, we have roots all over, but for many Americans and other English speakers, there's hardly a one of us who is not touched by the hint of a possible ancestor lost and found again somewhere, somehow in Ireland or the UK. And still, there's one more significant draw for people to the UK: the interest in archeology, the metaphysical, spiritual, and even the occasional paranormal including UFOs and crop circles. Surely, Britain and Ireland also have an ancient history replete with mysteries that are ever more alluring. For all these reasons a sightseeing or ancestry adventure to Ireland or the UK is unexcelled anywhere else in all your travels.

Travel Tales Collections: Airplane Stories is part of Michael Brein's Collections travel tales series and contains some of the best travel stories from Michael's huge collection of travel tales, which he has gathered in interviews with nearly 1,750 world travelers and adventurers during his four decades of travel to more than 125 countries throughout the world. Travel Tales Collections are groups of very interesting, similar travel stories that address a variety of very specific travel subjects, themes, or countries, such as close calls, great escapes, pickpocketing, scams, safety and security in travel, Paris, Morocco, Mexico, and so on. Eventually, hundreds of Collections titles on all sorts of specific travel subjects, themes, and countries will be available. An airline story is in the news today! And so it goes. There's hardly a day now that an airline incident of some sort or another is not in the news. We're taking a lot closer look at air travel these days than ever before. Therefore, as regards the psychology of travel, we should take a much closer look at what actually happens on airplanes. So, in The Travel Psychologist Travel Tales Series, that's exactly what I do. Air-travel-life stories include the full range of the human air travel experience, from preboarding incidents to arrivals; from the cabin to the loo; from the public and private lives of airline personnel as well as passengers-from the pilots, to the stews, to you; from that which makes us laugh to that which makes us cry as well as, unfortunately, to that which creates abject fear and terror in the skies.

Travel Tales: Pickpockets & Other Thieves is the next book in the True Travel Tales series of very scary travel stories of pickpocketing and theft in travel. If you are pickpocketed or robbed we hope you manage to escape in your travels with only minor consequences. This book is a collection of the fearful and potentially dangerous sorts of things that can and do happen to travelers on occasion, but mostly these will not happen to you. You'll read examples of the real, raw fear and very unsettling occasions that may pop up now and again in your travels. This book includes true tales of the variety of robberies, thefts, assaults, scams, some cons games, and even close calls of kidnappings (yes… a form of theft, after all). Also included are tales of successes and failures in connection with all sorts of travel situations including chases, foiled kidnappings, bandits, sexual harassment and attacks, roadblocks, scary places, trips from hell, borders, and police, hitchhiking, international spying, smuggling, intrigue, and sometimes merely being in the wrong places at the wrong times. Also included is, say you just happened to catch a pickpocket. What then? What in the world do you do with the pickpocket? This book is the place to read about the accounts of the dangers and mishaps of others. And you'll gain a healthier respect for what it is like to experience the true dangers and risks of travel and adventure. And with a better knowledge and respect of travel and its potential dangers and risks, hopefully, you'll gain a better sense of safety, security, enjoyment, and appreciation of your travels. Pickpockets & Other Thieves includes many examples of bad things that happen on occasion to travelers despite their best efforts to avoid such things. But bad things DO happen on occasion, and the best thing to do is, of course, to avoid them in the first place. But if we cannot, we should at least do our best to escape them. Again, while there's no easy, simple miracle list of failsafe strategies for always staying safe and secure in dangerous situations that may arise, there are, nevertheless, meaningful takeaway strategies from the many examples presented in this book that will enable you to better enhance your personal safety and security and reduce the risks of potentially dangerous outcomes in travel. While many of the tales in this book are not strictly about life and death situations surrounding travel, many are about difficult, embarrassing, and otherwise annoying nuisances that we all would do well to better avoid and do without. The scope and variety of pickpocketing and thievery in this book may surprise you. And some would never likely even occur to you. And, indeed such misadventures may never happen to you, but after reading about such things in this book, it should at least give you pause - who knows? maybe you'll never suffer the indignity and inconvenience of a pickpocketing event, other thefts, cons, or scams after all. Sure, you'll read stories in the True Travel Tales book series that will alert you to situations that may never even occur to you. But if you avoid even one new travel danger that you might never have even thought of by reading these books, then I'll have accomplished a very useful purpose.

Travel Tales: Down Under - Australia & New Zealand Is a collection of travel stories of among the travel world's most favorite destinations. Without a doubt, Australia, New Zealand also known affectionately as Downunder), as well as nearby neighboring islands of the South Pacific are to be sure among my favorite destinations in the world to visit. The travel stories in this book about this area of the world are basically divided into a number of geographic parts. When asked to share their most interesting travel tales of visits to Downunder and other nearby island nations, it is no surprise that in addition to some of the more touristy stuff, there are some interesting metaphysical-related stories of visitors to tell as well since, simply stated, this part of the world does also have its own share of the psychic and paranormal aspects that affect visitors to just about anywhere. There are also a few travelers' tales about some of the not-so-pleasant aspects of travel to these areas as well. So, it is only fitting that I provide some of these stories for you too - be they as they may - since these are the tales that travelers feel are important enough and therefore want to share with you. Mostly, your own Downunder travels will typically be interesting, exciting, rewarding, safe, and without incident, but odd and unpleasant things can and do happen on rare occasions in your travels, and visiting the Southern Pacific is certainly no exception. To be sure, with its marvelous food and drink, artwork, architecture, museums, and magnificent natural scenery, Downunder with its great cities and natural vistas has so much to offer. It is also one of our purposes of the True Travel Tales series to provide a cross-section of travel life in the world's most popular cities and countries, but along with the good comes occasionally a portion of the bad as well. In the True Travel Tales series, we aim to pull no punches. You'll see the good and best sides of the world and its cities as well as some of the rarer possibly negative and regrettable travel aspects in this area of the world as well.

THIS SERIESOver the last few decades, I've interviewed nearly 2,000 world travelers and adventurers. I am weaving the best of their nearly 10,000 fantastic travel tales into a psychology of travel as revealed by these very telling stories. These are travelers I've encountered on planes, trains, buses, ships, tours, safaris, and in campgrounds, hotels, restaurants, cafes, and pubs. These courageous travelers have freely shared their most personal travel experiences, some good and wonderful and others even horrific and life-threatening, which I, in turn, get to share with you now through my True Travel Tales series.THIS BOOKTravel Tales: France - Paris & the Riviera!Is a collection of travel stories of one of the travel world's most favorite destinations, if not certainly among the world's handful of the most popularly visited places anywhere. Without a doubt, Paris is by far my favorite city, not only in Europe but in all the world. And I love France as well. And while modern Paris is always exciting for me to visit, it is the old Paris that remains particularly etched in my memories. To be sure, with its marvelous food and drink and phenomenal sights Paris and France certainly do not disappoint. Paris may very well be the most popular city in all of Europe as well as the rest of the world for that matter. The tales perhaps of what we eat and drink in France you will read or hear interesting and riveting tales of the wide variety of occasions where food and drink create for us such great memories of the best that the world of fine dining has to offer. Indeed there are some ridiculous behaviors of the oft hilarious and embarrassing comings and goings of crazy stupit scoundrels on their (our) own National Lampoon-like (summer) 'Vacations' who cannot seem to help themselves (ourselves) by behaving at times as the ugly Americans who we sometimes cannot help but be! It is also one of our purposes of the True Travel Tales series to provide a cross-section of travel life in the world's most popular cities, along with the good comes sometimes a portion of the bad as well. In the True Travel Tales series, we aim to pull no punches. You'll see the good and best sides of Paris and France, and you'll also perhaps sample some of the more discomforting or disquieting darker aspects as well that sadly are also part of the cycle of life in such a diverse metropolitan city as Paris.