Destination: Uncategorized

Last Christmas 2,500 of you joined me in supporting the work of Bread for the World. You gave $100 each and I matched it. Together we raised over $500,000 to empower Bread’s work for hungry people.

Photo: Margaret Nea for Bread for the World

We didn’t directly give any food or material aid…didn’t directly feed a single hungry mouth. So why bother? Because, together, we empowered the most effective advocacy organization in Washington DC that speaks up for hungry people. They lobbied Congress and the results are real.

Rather than just say thank you for your support, I asked Bread for the World to review a few of the legislative triumphs they’ve won in Congress and a few of their upcoming challenges. Here’s a list of government policies you helped make a little more compassionate in 2016:

Low-income working families in the United States will benefit from tax credits. Families driven from their homes in Syria will receive life-saving food aid. With your support, Bread helped win aid for countries in Central America to help give peace and stability to that region – so its people will decide not to become refugees and head north but to stay at home.

And you help lay the foundation for more progress in in 2016. In the weeks ahead, Congress will be making some decisions that will be matters of life and death for many people.

One decision will be the amount of funding for nutrition programs for mothers and children in developing countries. (Because malnutrition is the leading cause of death for children under five, Bread for the World is urging Congress to increase funding for maternal and child nutrition from $115 million to $230 million.)

Congress will also be considering the Global Food Security Act.  Bread has been working to line up a bipartisan group of Senators and Members of Congress to cosponsor this bill.  It will provide long-term solutions for small farmers so that they will be able to feed their families and communities.

Finally, Bread will be advocating for child nutrition programs in the USA –including school meals and summer feeding programs. Every five years Congress reauthorizes these programs. Without vigilant advocacy, too many American kids will go without school breakfasts and food during the summer when school is out.

I know we all have our economic challenges. And I also know half of humanity is trying to live on $2 a day. Even here, in the richest corner of our world, millions of children go to bed hungry or don’t get the nutrition they need to lead productive lives.

Your generous gift last year is empowering Bread for the World to provide hope and opportunity to the most vulnerable people — at home and abroad. It’s compassionate, it’s right, and — as a nation — we can certainly afford it. Thank you!

Each year, Samantha Brown and I join a few other travel celebs at travel shows around the country. We were just at the Bay Area Travel & Adventure Show in California, where thousands packed in to visit booths, hear us give our talks, and then line up after to share travel stories and get an autograph. I always enjoy seeing Samantha at these shows. And the Bay Area show was so exhilarating, we momentarily forgot who was who.

I’ve come a long way since my piano-teaching days, when I had just one self-published guidebook. (That’s the first edition of Europe Through the Back Door on my music rack, back in 1980.)

My publisher (Avalon Travel, an imprint of Perseus) was recently purchased by Hachette Book Group. And reports are that Hachette is happy with our guidebook series because we’re doing so well with American travelers.

Here’s the list of the bestselling travel books in the USA during a recent week. As you’ll see, our books are 15 of the top 40. If you take away the impossible-to-compete-with “escape” destinations of Disney and Hawaii, we’re  15 of the top 33 (and 8 of the top 10). And if you look only at European destinations, we’re 14 of the top 21 — even nicer! Here’s the complete list:

(Photo: Ed Shenkman/American Public Television. Used with permission.)

At a recent national convention for public television programmers, I enjoyed an interview with podcaster Adam Ragusea. Our conversation was pretty wonky, but it wound up going in some fun and surprising directions — including a discussion of my unorthodox business model. I thought you might enjoy this transcript. You can also listen to the audio here.