The Best American travel writing 2008 / edited and with an introduction by Anthony Bourdain

Extreme chocolate / Bill Buford -- Phenom Penh now / Ian Buruma -- Chasing ghosts / James Campbell -- The border / Peter Chilson -- Brighton Beach memoir / Simon Doonan -- African promise / J. Malcolm Garcia -- Hope and squalor at Chungking mansion / Karl Taro Greenfeld -- Dark passage / Peter Gwin -- Wheels of fortune / Peter Hessler -- Georgia in the time of Misha / Melik Kaylan -- Next stop, squalor / John Lancaster -- Mr. Tingler / Emily Maloney -- The river is a road / Bryan Mealer -- The train to Tibet / Pankaj Mishra -- The most expensive road trip in the world / Annie Nocenti -- Kabul nights / Kristin Ohlson -- Journey into night / David Sedaris -- To Russia for love / Gary Shteyngart -- Looking for mammon in the Muslim world / Seth Stevenson -- Have book, will travel / Thomas Swick -- The woman in the Kuffiya / Jeffrey Tayler -- While the king sleeps / Matthew Teague -- The golden man / Paul Theroux -- Three chopsticks / Calvin Trillin -- Where the roads diverged / Catherine Watson.

Anthony Bourdain, best-selling writer, chef, television host, and traveler, edits this year's collection of the finest travel writing from the past year. "Easy to read and hard to put down, these essays capture with fine detail the extraordinary wonder of travel"