Travel Tales

THIS SERIES: True Travel Tales Over the last five decades, I've interviewed nearly 2,000 world travelers and adventurers. I am weaving the best of their almost 10,000 fantastic tales into a psychology of travel as revealed by these very telling stories. I've encountered these travelers on planes, trains, buses, ships, tours, safaris, as well as in campgrounds, bars, cafes, restaurants, and pubs. These courageous travelers have freely shared with me their most personal and profound travel and life experiences, including many good and wonderful as well as even horrific and potentially life-threatening ones, which I, in turn, get to share with you now through my True Travel Tales series. THIS BOOK: Travel Tales:100 Faces - Passing for Others! Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be someone whose appearance allows you to blend in, be confused for, or be mistaken for local people in various countries and cultures worldwide that you've traveled to? In this book, I share the best travel stories I have gathered surrounding this recurring theme in all my interviews. This phenomenon is often associated with individuals of mixed ancestral heritage or those with features not so easily categorized into a single ethnicity. These "100 faces" individuals frequently surprise local people when they speak fluent English or reveal their true origins. This can lead to funny, engaging, and usually unexpected interactions and unique travel experiences. My '100-faces' concept highlights how a person's appearance can influence interactions while traveling and demonstrates the complexity of cultural and ethnic identities in our increasingly globalized world. DISCLAIMER Please be forewarned that some stories in the True Travel Tales series may be graphic, unpleasant, and disturbing. Reader discretion may be advised. This series is generally aimed toward a more mature adult audience, yet, no doubt, some material ought to be communicated clearly and responsibly to younger and relatively inexperienced and na?ve travelers, who could benefit by knowing how to travel and live more safely and securely. The author does not necessarily agree with all the opinions expressed by contributors. Finally, no story in the series is meant to depict any country, people, culture, religion, or gender in a negative light. Good and bad things can and do happen anywhere and to anyone. Finally, some stories may appear in multiple True Travel Tales series books, depending on the subject matter and countries covered.

THIS SERIES: True Travel Tales Over the last five decades, I've interviewed nearly 2,000 world travelers and adventurers. I am weaving the best of their almost 10,000 fantastic tales into a psychology of travel as revealed by these very telling stories. I've encountered these travelers on planes, trains, buses, ships, tours, safaris, as well as in campgrounds, bars, cafes, restaurants, and pubs. These courageous travelers have freely shared with me their most personal and profound travel and life experiences, including many good and wonderful as well as even horrific and potentially life-threatening ones, which I, in turn, get to share with you now through my True Travel Tales series. THIS BOOK: Travel Tales:100 Faces - Passing for Others! Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be someone whose appearance allows you to blend in, be confused for, or be mistaken for local people in various countries and cultures worldwide that you've traveled to? In this book, I share the best travel stories I have gathered surrounding this recurring theme in all my interviews. This phenomenon is often associated with individuals of mixed ancestral heritage or those with features not so easily categorized into a single ethnicity. These "100 faces" individuals frequently surprise local people when they speak fluent English or reveal their true origins. This can lead to funny, engaging, and usually unexpected interactions and unique travel experiences. My '100-faces' concept highlights how a person's appearance can influence interactions while traveling and demonstrates the complexity of cultural and ethnic identities in our increasingly globalized world. DISCLAIMER Please be forewarned that some stories in the True Travel Tales series may be graphic, unpleasant, and disturbing. Reader discretion may be advised. This series is generally aimed toward a more mature adult audience, yet, no doubt, some material ought to be communicated clearly and responsibly to younger and relatively inexperienced and naïve travelers, who could benefit by knowing how to travel and live more safely and securely. The author does not necessarily agree with all the opinions expressed by contributors. Finally, no story in the series is meant to depict any country, people, culture, religion, or gender in a negative light. Good and bad things can and do happen anywhere and to anyone. Finally, some stories may appear in multiple True Travel Tales series books, depending on the subject matter and countries covered.

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: 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: Getting Away With It — Or Almost! is about what travelers get away with doing themselves. Yes, they may perpetrate their own schemes on fellow travelers or even the locals themselves. Sometimes you succeed and sometimes you don't. This book collects the curious along with some extraordinarily funny situations travelers sometimes get themselves into that they'd normally not do at home. This book includes the true tales of what travelers try to get away with while free of the controls of their normal daily lives at home. While traveling, you often strive to be all you can be, good or bad, and sometimes rightly or wrongly so. You behave, after all, often just to see if you can do it — if you can get away with it! You are an 'Actor' playing roles you'd never dream of doing back at home. You might try foods or drinks you'd never dream of consuming back home. Or you might steal ashtrays, bathrobes, hotel keys, and even license plates as souvenirs that you'd never dream of doing back home. You might try to get into places without paying. You might pretend to be someone you're not, like crashing a party given by a famous movie star. You might try to sneak around the Metro without paying, not because you didn't have the money, but because you just wanted to see if you could do it. Some stories may border on being abject criminal acts like the guy who treated his friends to free dinners by paying for them using fraudulent credit cards. Some travelers smuggle. Some things people get away with are silly, funny, mischievous, or ridiculous even. One man, for instance, poured bubble bath in London's Trafalgar Fountain flooding the square with soap bubbles! Some tales involve doing some not-so-good things to fellow travelers. We don't condone some things that travelers have done, but don't we secretly admire some things some people manage to pull off? For example, some people secretly rooted for DB Cooper who hijacked an airplane over the Pacific Northwest. Travel is often a time to test yourself, to see what you are made of. Oh, we all get away with some harmless silly things that hurt no one. And to some extent, that is who we are. We travel, we grow up, we mature. Yes, we do things we wish we hadn't and that we're not proud of. In our True Travel Tales series, in Pickpockets & Other Thieves, we help you travel more safely and securely, helping you to avoid pickpockets who will happily relieve you of your money, valuables, and passport. In Cons, Scams & Ripoffs we help you steer clear of cons and scams that separate you from your money in a variety of deceitful ways that also cause you untold discomfort and distress. And finally, in this book, Getting Away With It, it's your turn to learn the accounts of the sorts of things that some of us pull off that are not strictly legal and sometimes smack of things that we're not all that proud of doing. Yes, this book may cause you to take a closer look at yourself and see some of the things that you as a traveler do that maybe you wish you hadn't done at all. Pickpockets and other thieves, and con artists and scammers are the sorts of people we want to stay away from. And our getting away with some things ourselves that we may not be all that proud of is a part of the process of growing up and learning what we should avoid doing in the first place or at least grow out of.

Travel Tales: The African Safari Readerisa 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, namelyTravel 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: 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: Getting Away With It -- Or Almost! is about what travelers get away with doing themselves. Yes, they may perpetrate their own schemes on fellow travelers or even the locals themselves. Sometimes you succeed and sometimes you don't. This book collects the curious along with some extraordinarily funny situations travelers sometimes get themselves into that they'd normally not do at home. This book includes the true tales of what travelers try to get away with while free of the controls of their normal daily lives at home. While traveling, you often strive to be all you can be, good or bad, and sometimes rightly or wrongly so. You behave, after all, often just to see if you can do it -- if you can get away with it! You are an 'Actor' playing roles you'd never dream of doing back at home. You might try foods or drinks you'd never dream of consuming back home. Or you might steal ashtrays, bathrobes, hotel keys, and even license plates as souvenirs that you'd never dream of doing back home. You might try to get into places without paying. You might pretend to be someone you're not, like crashing a party given by a famous movie star. You might try to sneak around the Metro without paying, not because you didn't have the money, but because you just wanted to see if you could do it. Some stories may border on being abject criminal acts like the guy who treated his friends to free dinners by paying for them using fraudulent credit cards. Some travelers smuggle. Some things people get away with are silly, funny, mischievous, or ridiculous even. One man, for instance, poured bubble bath in London's Trafalgar Fountain flooding the square with soap bubbles! Some tales involve doing some not-so-good things to fellow travelers. We don't condone some things that travelers have done, but don't we secretly admire some things some people manage to pull off? For example, some people secretly rooted for DB Cooper who hijacked an airplane over the Pacific Northwest. Travel is often a time to test yourself, to see what you are made of. Oh, we all get away with some harmless silly things that hurt no one. And to some extent, that is who we are. We travel, we grow up, we mature. Yes, we do things we wish we hadn't and that we're not proud of. In our True Travel Tales series, in Pickpockets & Other Thieves, we help you travel more safely and securely, helping you to avoid pickpockets who will happily relieve you of your money, valuables, and passport. In Cons, Scams & Ripoffs we help you steer clear of cons and scams that separate you from your money in a variety of deceitful ways that also cause you untold discomfort and distress. And finally, in this book, Getting Away With It, it's your turn to learn the accounts of the sorts of things that some of us pull off that are not strictly legal and sometimes smack of things that we're not all that proud of doing. Yes, this book may cause you to take a closer look at yourself and see some of the things that you as a traveler do that maybe you wish you hadn't done at all. Pickpockets and other thieves, and con artists and scammers are the sorts of people we want to stay away from. And our getting away with some things ourselves that we may not be all that proud of is a part of the process of growing up and learning what we should avoid doing in the first place or at least grow out of.