|
JUST PUBLISHED!
Click on the preview button below the book cover to see a free sample. "McCann's writing is warm, inviting, immediately charming, and constantly entertaining. Her narrative was so good I found myself wanting to hear more about Cleveland! Now THAT's good travel writing!" Chris Brady New York Times bestselling author #1 Amazon bestseller in Kindle travel books on Spain
#1 Amazon bestseller in Kindle travel books
#1 Amazon bestseller in Kindle travel books
|
 Karen McCann. Photo: John Willis
My checkered past includes working as a journalist, editor, graphic designer, corporate communications director, marketing consultant, and copywriter in Cleveland, California, and Boston. In addition to our day jobs, my husband, Rich, and I volunteered as business consultants to struggling microenterprises in Bosnia, Kenya, El Salvador, Mexico, and the Republic of Georgia.
During our 35 years of marriage, Rich and I have visited more than 60 countries together, and of all those places, Seville is the one that kept calling us back. Vacations here grew longer and longer until we decided to make it our home “for a year.” We’re still in Seville and still in love with the city. We also make regular visits back to the States, because America is something you have to stay in practice for, and we don’t want to lose our touch. When we reached our sixties, Rich and I began to wonder whether we could still have the kind of spontaneous travel adventures we’d enjoyed in our youth, so we set off to find out. One August morning, we walked out of our Seville apartment and strolled to the train station with small, roll-aboard bags, a Eurail pass, and a railway map of Europe. With no reservations, no fixed time limit, and only a loose idea of an itinerary, we spent three months taking trains to obscure destinations, mostly in Eastern Europe. Now exploring Europe by rail has become a way of life. In 2019 Rich and I set off on our five-month Mediterranean Comfort Food Tour, working our way around the Mediterranean rim, sampling the comfort food of Greece, Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Italy, France, and Spain. Everyone we met was incredibly generous, inviting us into their kitchens and sharing recipes that had sustained their families for generations, through good times and bad. 
Thessaloniki, Greece
Our journeys inspired my bestselling books about the transition to expat life (Dancing in the Fountain: How to Enjoy Living Abroad), our three-month rail trip through Eastern Europe (Adventures of a Railway Nomad), and the joy of minimal luggage (Pack Light). I’ve published several travel and expat guides, and my travel tips and stories have appeared in such publications as HuffPost, Lonely Planet, International Living Magazine, New York Daily News, and LA Times. Reviewers have been very kind. Dancing in the Fountain is “reminiscent of British author Peter Mayle and his romps in France, but with a bit more substance.” In Adventures of a Railway Nomad “Karen’s storytelling is, if possible, even more enticing than her astonishing journey.” Pack Light is now in its third edition. Rich and I are now (gasp!) in our seventies, and we’re still active travelers, when world conditions permit. Like everyone else, we’re struggling to make sense of new entry requirements and adapt to the public health concerns of other countries (and our own). We hope someday to resume our longer journeys, but for now we’re content to be in Seville, where I’m busy chronicling the changes that have taken place over the last two years. They're the subject of my upcoming book Seville's New Normal: Insider Tips for Visitors 2022, which is due out in December 2021. |