Kerry Dexter, Music Monday
A sun filled kitchen in Nashville, a midnight singing session in Glasgow, the mist covered mountains of Donegal, historic Club Passim in Massachusetts: these are a few of the places Kerry Dexter has followed folk, country, classical, and Celtic music and the work of singers and songwriters during the last two decades. Music and poetry are always part of her travel kit.
Kerry writes about music, arts, and humanities for publications including National Geographic Traveler, Ireland and the Americas, Strings, CMT, Perceptive Travel, and Wandering Educators. Her blog Music Road has been recognized by the Weblog Awards and the Irish Blog Awards, and featured in Poetry Ireland and Intelligent Travel. She is working on a book about Irish music and a cookbook that features recipes from Americana musicians.
The most beautiful place I’ve seen described in a book: the Highlands of Scotland, in My Heart’s in the Highlands, a poem by Robert Burns. It has also been set as a song.
Places I have not yet been but would like to go: Moscow, Salzburg, Ann Arbor.
Learn more in this interview with Kerry. Contact Kerry through her blog at Music Road. See all of Kerry’s posts at A Traveler’s Library by putting her name in the search box at the top of the right-hand column.
Jessie Voigts, Cultural Travel
Jessie Voigts, pictured here in Ireland, is a mom who loves sharing the world with her daughter. She has a PhD in International Education, and is constantly looking for ways to increase intercultural understanding, especially with kids (it’s never too young to start!). She has lived and worked in Japan and London, and traveled around the world.
Jessie is the publisher of Wandering Educators, a travel library for people curious about the world. She founded the Family Travel Bloggers Association, and the Youth Travel Blogging Mentorship Program. She’s published two books about travel and intercultural learning, with a third on the way. You can usually find her family by water – anywhere in the world.
The most awesome place I’ve seen described in a book: The highlands of Scotland. After reading about it for years and years, when I finally arrived, I felt like I was home. The natural beauty, rugged location, and people and history still amaze and inspire me.
Where I have not been but would like to go: Penang, Malaysia – for the culture, food, and warmer weather!
Learn more from this interview with Jessie. Contact Jessie at jessie (at) wanderingeducators (dot)com See all of Jessie’s articles at A Travelers Library by typing her name in the search box at the top of the right-hand column.
Jane Boursaw, Wednesday Matinee
Jane Boursaw is an entertainment writer whose work is published by hundreds of newspapers, magazines and web sites, including Variety; Family Circle; Ladies’ Home Journal; Woman’s Day; USA Weekend; Parade.Her syndicated family movie and TV columns, based at Reel Life With Jane, give readers the inside scoop on what’s new on the big and small screens.
She’s a contributor to TV Worth Watching, a featured guest on TV Confidential’s radio show, and a member of the Television Critics Association and American Society of Journalists and Authors. As an editor for AOL’s TVSquad.com, staff writer for Popeater.com and Moviefone.com, and family movie critic for Kaboose.com and iVillage.com, Jane is a trusted resource for trend pieces, newsy entertainment stories, fun interviews, and in-depth op-eds.
Where I haven’t been, but would like to go, and the movie that made me want to travel:
I’d love to go to Skopelos, Greece, and see where Mamma Mia was made. In particular, the Agios Ioannis Chapel, where the wedding was filmed. It’s a dreamy little church that sits high atop a cliff with stairs winding up to it.”
Learn more in this interview with Jane. See all of the articles Jane has written for A Traveler’s Library by typing her name in the search box at the top of the right-hand column. Contact Jane at jboursaw at charter.net
Brette Sember, Tasty Travel
Brette Sember
Traveling is about not only seeing new things, but exploring new foods and new tastes. Brette Sember is the author of The Parchment Paper Cookbook: 180 Healthy, Fast, Delicious Dishes!
Brette blogs about food, travel, decorating, collecting, gardening, books, and more at Putting It All on the Table. She is an avid reader, who loves to travel and cook. Travel runs in the family – Brette’s grandparents visited every continent but Antartica in the 70s and she has the world map showing their destinations hanging in her home.
One of her passions is trying new foods while traveling and adding to her “recipe library.” Some of her favorite trips have been to Hawaii, Scotland, the Bahamas, Maine, and Alaska.
What book(s) that you have read have awesome descriptions of place?
Children’s books by Robert McCloskey (Such as Blueberries for Sal and One Morning in Maine) mirrored and deepened my love of Maine (“Clam chowder for lunch.”) where I summered as a child. Anne Rivers Siddons’ novels help me smell the pluff mud and make her long to go back to the Low Country of South Carolina.
Where do you want to go that you have not been?
I am hoping to visit Italy on my next trip abroad and cannot get through a winter without a visit somewhere in the Caribbean.
Learn more in this interview with Brette. See all of the articles Brette has written for A Traveler’s Library by typing her name in the search box at the top of the right-hand column. Contact Brette Sember through her web site.
Jennifer Close, Family Travel
Jennifer Close attributes her wanderlust to life as a military brat and a mother with a penchant for road trips with more stops on the itinerary than miles traveled (and they traveled a lot of miles!). After nine years of teaching 6th to 12th graders to appreciate literature and write, she is finally pursuing her dream of becoming a full-time writer herself. She is an avid reader and has been known to plan a trip around a place that she read about in a book. She blogs about traveling with her family at Two Kids and a Map and is also the creator and author of Pensacola with Kids where she shares her adventures with her kids around their hometown.
Where would you like to go that you have never been? One day I would like to take my whole family on a safari in Africa.
What is the most awesome book about a place that you have read?
After reading Banner in the Sky by James Ramsey Ullman, a young adult novel about climbing a mountain based on the Matterhorn, I planned a trip to Switzerland to see it for myself!
Learn More about Jennifer in this interview. See all of the articles Jennifer has written at A Traveler’s Library by typing her name in the search box at the top of the right-hand column. Contact Jennifer at jennifer at twokidsandamap.com
Pamela Douglas Webster, Pet Travel
Pamela and Honey
By the time she was 21 years old, Pamela Douglas Webster had visited more countries than states. Completing her undergraduate history degree in Europe gave Pamela a sense of perspective and saved her a boatload of tuition.
Over the years, Pamela has developed a fascination with travel without combustion. She doesn’t own a car and a bicycle is her primary form of transportation. Realizing she can go only so far on foot and by bike, Pamela recently took up sailing.
When she’s not fantasizing about hiking the Appalachian Trail or trekking in Nepal, Pamela helps people buy their first homes as a nonprofit housing counselor. She also writes the blog, Hands on Home Buyer.
At A Traveler’s Library, Pamela will explore the joys of travel with pets. Her other blog, Something Wagging This Way Comes, contains her musings on dogs and their people. Her latest explorations involve teaching Honey, her Golden Retriever, how to travel in a bicycle trailer.
What is the most travel-inspiring book or movie you have found?
I guess Lawrence of Arabia. I’ve not yet visited the desert. And the deserts depicted in the film are forces of nature, like the ocean or space. They are beautiful and amazing. And very, very dangerous. I can’t think of any place that that is more enticing and frightening at the same time.
What is the favorite trip you have taken with a dog?
My favorite trip with a dog is camping on Wellesley Island in the Thousand Islands Region of New York State. You have to explore this region by boat and boating is a very dog-friendly form of travel. Something about being able to hose off every surface makes it unlikely anyone will be bothered by dog hair. 
Learn more about Pamela in this interview. See everything that Pamela has written for A Traveler’s Library by typing her name in the search box at the top of the right-hand column. Contact Pamela at somethingwagging@gmail.com
About the Author:
Travel and lifestyle writer, wife, mother and grandmother. Publisher of A Traveler's Library and Ancestors in Aprons>. Also co-authored a biography of Navajo artist Quincy Tahoma.
Vera Marie Badertscher – who has written 254 posts on A Traveler's Library.
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