Live Talk: Traveling Around the World

Clearwater, FL: Can you tell us 3 places that you'd describe as "do not miss" that are not typically listed as tourist destinations. Thanks.

Gayle Forman: I see someone else asked my favorite places, so I'll combine your two questions.
My favorite places were the locales that surprised me. I loved UzbekistanSamarkand and Bukhara were amazing ancient cities and I had the best meal of the entire trip in Samarkand (for three bucks!). I also adored Malawi and think it will eventually become a big tourist draw in Africa. My absolute favorite place was probably India simply because it is so all encompassing. We were there two months, during which I acted in a Bollywood musical, went on a meditation retreat and made friends who I will know the rest of my life. It could be insanely maddening at times, but thats just the flip side of a culture (or cultures) so vibrant. We flew in and out of India on our way to Central Asia and as the Air Uzbekistan flight returned to Delhi, I caught sight of a turbaned Sikh guy guiding the plane to the gate and I just felt this sense of joy to be back. Of course, it was just for six hours; we flew on to Africa later that day.

_______________________

Baltimore, MD: Any comments or feelings about visiting Croatia this year?

Gayle Forman: There's a film festival in Croatia in June. I'd love to check that out. I haven't been to Croatia since before the Balkan Wars, but the islands of the Adriatic coast were simply gorgeous.

_______________________

Clearwater, FL: How much of your trip was carefully planned and how much just evolved as you went from place to place?

Gayle Forman: Again, I see a bunch of questions on this, so pardon my consolidation of this question and another couple:
We decided where we wanted to go, more or less, and bought a skeleton ticket (LA-Tonga-New Zealand-Hong Kong, then overland to Thailand-India-Kenya). If I had to do it over again, I would have just bought the beginning portion of our tickets (to New Zealand or Hong Kong) and booked the rest as we went. It would have made better sense if wed gone to SE Asia after New Zealand, and then worked our way up to China, across to Kazakhstan and then to India. We ended up zigging and zagging a lot.
As for hotels, I booked a place in Tonga, our first stop, and we left there a few days later. After that, I never booked in advance. We always managed to find places, most often really great places.
The one caveat on this one is if youre going somewhere wildly popular (Paris) during a high or shoulder season. You can usually find last-minute places but youll have far fewer options.
We got too many visas before we left and ending wasting money on them. If you're going to be in big cities, you can get visas as you go.
Some of our favorite places (Malawi, Uzbekistan) were last-minute destinations. We literally jumped off a train in the middle of Tanzania (one that was supposed to take us to Zambia) because we wanted to go to Malawi.
Don't overplan.
The serendipity can be the best part.

_______________________

Simsbury, CT: After finding out about the recent breakouts of the bird flu in Asia, I'm wondering if there are any precautions or vaccines that I need to take to prevent contraction? I plan on travelling to Taipei, Taiwan in the near future; I'm also a vegetarian.

Gayle Forman:
I wouldnt be too worried about avian flu. Exotic new diseases make good fodder for cable TV but in reality your risk of contracting avian flu or Ebola virus (or even SARS) is tiny, nothing like your risk of getting hurt in, say, a car crash. Sorry.
As for vaccines, the International Society for Travel Medicine (http://www.istm.org/) offers guidelines for what vaccines youll need. So does the CDC (www.cdc.gov/travel). Im pretty sure that you wont need anything for a trip to Taipei, a very modern metropolis.

_______________________