Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind. The Best American Travel Writing 2004 transports readers from Patagonia to Ivory Coast to small-town Vermont. Readers are treated to car and truck trips across America, can fall "in lust" in the South Pacific, and go into the heart of the Congo to rescue gorillas. This year's volume is edited by Pico Iyer, who writes in his fascinating introduction, "Restlessness is part of the American way. It's part of what brought many of the rest of us to America." The Best American Travel Writing 2004 displays American restlessness at its most tantalizing and entertaining. "This dizzying collection proves that travel writing goes far beyond the romance and adventure most readers associate with the genre. . ." Publishers Weekly JASON WILSON,  series editor, is the author of Godforsaken Grapes, Boozehound, and The Cider Revival. He is the creator of the newsletter and podcast Everyday Drinking. Wilson has been the series editor of The Best American Travel Writing since its inception in 2000. His work can be found at jasonwilson.com. The Best American Travel Writing 2004 By Jason Wilson Houghton Mifflin Company Copyright ©2004 Jason Wilson All right reserved. ISBN: 9780618341269 Introduction American travel writing is about looking for the light. Or so, at least, I told myself, rather loftily, as I landed in Atlanta on my ?rst trip to the city, got into a new Aspire, and proceeded to drive around the "Phoenix of the South." I passed Perimeter Point and Perimeter Mall, drove through a web of of?ce parks and shopping centers, passed a couple more Perimeter sites, and then arrived at my fancy hotel, in the midst of an area of jockey clubs and faux-European mansions. Afternoon tea was served in the lobby, I was told (with sterling silver strainers, no less), and a notice in my room, on "Guest Attire," reminded me that I should be formally attired for breakfast or even when passing through the lobby. Another sign in my room advised me that "for security reasons" I should call the Housekeeping Department if ever I considered leaving my shoes in the corridor for a complimentary shine. I was taken aback to see shoes linked to security: Could tennies stage a presidential assault? Or a pair of brown oxfords represent outlaw values? Yet undeterred, I decided, my last night in the place, to take my courage in my hands, so to speak, and place my sixteen dollar Payless Shoe Source loafers outside, in order to be polished to a Buckhead sheen. I called the Housekeeping Department to advise it of my intended maneuver, and was told, since it was close to midnight, to leave the shoes outside the door. "But it says, for security reasons . . ." "That"s okay. It"s close to midnight." The next morning, as I got ready to check out and ?y to my next stop, in California, I looked out into the perilous corridor and saw . . . nothing. I have to check out soon, I said, calling Housekeeping, and I was wondering . . . "We"ll get right on it, sir," a voice replied, with something of the ?rmness of Mission Control (and I was reassured just to be called "sir," as I"d almost never been before). Minutes passed, then close to an hour. I placed a call or two to the desk; it placed a call up to me. Living up to every fear of security violations, my shoes had apparently ?ed the hotel and might even now be hotfooting it to Mexico. An expert was put on the case, but she was no use at all. The concierge desk summoned a woman called Ellen (or Helen or Yellin") to go out into the city to purchase for me the ?nest shoes that money could buy. But shopping for someone else"s feet is notoriously dif?cult, and soon Yellin" was sending an agent to my door with shoes perfectly sized for Shaquille O"Neal. The whole process was complicated, of course, by the fact that walking shoeless through the lobby would be to violate every last item of the hotel"s unbending dress code. Finally — my ?ight was leaving soon, and whatever APB had been put out on my loafers had yielded no results — the hotel decided to take things ?rmly in its hands, so to speak: I would be permitted to walk through the lobby in my socks, indeed to check out without my shoes, so as to accompany a bellboy (the only dark face I"d seen in the place) to a Benny"s shoe store in a nearby mall. Outside, as I hopped and hobbled through the lobby with my suitcase, stood a long stretch limo. And so the day went on and on, and as the time of my check-in dre