Great interview! I’m a big fan of Rolf Potts.

Even though I’d already read most of the narrative essays in his new book Marco Polo Didn’t Go There, I believe it’s a good thing to have them all there on one shelf. It saves scampering around like a myopic rodent gnawing around archives at web stops like Worldhum.com and Salon.com, where Rolf first made his mark.

What’s interesting is: even in Rolf’s interviews, there is always that literary gleam, a polished elegant phrase in the wait, which he uses to save his pieces in a pinch. His diction is unerring. His subjects are as amusing as they are farfetched. And he brings a fresh philosophic approach to the field of long-term travel, wherein the writing is always secondary.

Along with jetsetter Jason Wilson and the peripatetic Tony Perottet, Mr. Pott’s is emblematic of the New Travel Writing, which isn’t some postmodern nonlinear experiment in confusion. Rather, it is a return to the old days when travel essays not only made sense, they made us, if I may be a bit grandiloquent, laugh and bawl, and moved us to emotion.

John M. Edwards