With many emerging from the pandemic cocoon, simply reading about places to go will whet appetites. Which is why New Yorker Gershowitz scores big with these 40 stories of local, regional, and international encounters, from Denver to a Kilimanjaro climb, appealing simultaneously to curiosity and comic jones. After all, as she points out, it's all about adventures. Wandering tips for many of the 90 countries and all 50 U.S. states she recalls visiting are embedded in her stories; better yet are the encounters and anecdotes. Take for example her photographic junket of ceramics studios in Japan, wheedled from the director of a Kansas City art school, or her first business trip, inauspiciously, to Omaha. An unpaid leave of absence from work led her to meander in Alaska, a trip that miraculously netted a paycheck. She offers takes on unique customs, such as Notzozobra in Santa Fe and camel treks in the Atlas Mountains, and affirms a deep appreciation of air conditioning after a summer in Paris. This is the stuff fellow wanderlusters will recognize and smile about, recalling the times when travel was, simply, more carefree.

A diverse collection of true stories by a self-described "travel junkie." Gershowitz, a marketing strategist and researcher in New York City, presents a series of travel tales that one can read as stand-alone stories or as part of a larger narrative. The book reflects the author's love of globe-trotting adventure and describes how she built her whole life around it by getting a job in which she effectively got paid to travel. Her recollections take readers to many places around the world, from Southeast Asia to the Galápagos Islands to the American West, as she trekked for business and pleasure. These stories are also, in some ways, about the passage of time, reflecting on how travel has changed, for better and worse, over the decades. One striking example is her account of hitchhiking from Los Angeles to San Francisco to catch a plane to Japan--and just making her flight in circumstances that would be impossible with today's security requirements. The book's final account is of her last journey before the Covid-19 pandemic hit and of her current, strictly local outings. Gershowitz's collection is often an enjoyable read, and it's bittersweet but not unpleasant to revisit times when unencumbered travel was still possible. However, many of the stories here cut off abruptly, leaving readers hanging; one notable example is an account of a rodeo in Cody, Wyoming, which ends vaguely with the reactions of a visiting French tourist family. Also, occasional comments feel culturally insensitive, as when the author complains about having to wear special garments to enter the grounds of a mosque in Abu Dhabi. A nostalgic but sometimes-problematic travel narrative. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.