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JUST RELEASED
#1 Bestseller 
MY OTHER BESTSELLERS 
#1 Amazon Bestseller in Tourist Destinations, Travel Tips, Gastronomy Essays, and Senior Travel
Winner of the Firebird Book Award for Travel “A rollicking culinary adventure seasoned with a dash of history, a sprinkling of heart-warming characters, and a liberal shot of humor.” Jackie Smith, author of TravelnWrite
#1 Amazon bestseller in Kindle travel books on Spain
#1 Amazon bestseller in Kindle travel books
#1 Amazon bestseller in Kindle travel books
#1 Amazon bestseller in new Kindle travel books on Spain & Portugal
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I'm a travel writer dividing my time between Seville, Spain and the San Francisco Bay Area where I grew up. Moving abroad is a wonderful experience; you'll find it's the best opportunity to reinvent yourself outside of the witness protection program. You get to hit the reset button on your life.
I still spend plenty of time in California, too. America is something you have to stay in practice for, and I don't want to lose my touch. 
In San Franciso's iconic Greens restaurant
Last spring, as I prepared to return to California after six months in Spain, I was taken aback by the gloomy public perception of San Francisco as being in a horrifying “doom loop” of non-stop crime and hopelessness. Was it really? Or was this just more media hype and political hot air targeting the Left Coast? I decided to find out, taking 20 day trips through the city, exploring dozens of neighborhoods from the Tenderloin to Nob Hill, seeking the cheap and cheerful San Francisco I'd known all my life. The stories — constantly surprising, often hilarious, occasionally heartbreaking — inspired my new book, My San Francisco: 20 Extraordinary Walks in America's Quirkiest City, which became an instant bestseller. My San Francisco is my way of pushing back against the rising tide of misinformation that’s flooding our lives. I wrote it to help restore my beloved city’s street cred and — if you are lucky enough to visit San Francisco — to give you fresh ideas about where to go, what to see, why it matters, and most importantly, where to go out to eat afterwards. 
I'm currently in Seville, which I wandered into during a visit to Spain twenty years ago. I fell instantly in love with the city's vibrancy, and after multiple visits, my husband and I decided to move here "for a year." We're still here. I wrote about my transition to expat life — the good, the bad, and the gobsmackingly ridiculous — in my book Dancing in the Fountain: How to Enjoy Living Abroad. A few years later, after more or less coming to grips with the challenges of living in a foreign country, I took a three-month train trip through Eastern Europe. It was marvelous, and I wrote another book to share all the best bits: Adventures of a Railway Nomad: How Our Journeys Guide Us Home. Having lived in Seville for two decades now, I’ve learned to view eating as the Spanish do — not as squandering time but as making the most of it. Good food and congenial companionship around the table are often the best antidote to the stresses of these turbulent times. That's what inspired my five-month journey that became the award-winning memoir, The Great Mediterranean Comfort Food Tour. My backstory: I am a fourth generation Californian, born in Palo Alto and educated at the University of California Berkeley. I have worked as a journalist, copywriter, editor, and marketing director in California, Cleveland, Boston, and Seville. I am 73 years old and see no reason to stop exploring the world. So far my travels have taken me to more than 60 countries. I've done volunteer work assignments assisting struggling microenterprises in Europe, Africa, the Caucasus, and Central America. These days I divide my time between California and Seville, Spain — when I'm not on the road in pursuit of another great story. |