Doug Lansky

Doug Lansky was born on the Third World island of Manhattan, grew up in Minnesota, and graduated from Colorado College with a B.A. in a subject he can no longer recall. After working the copying machine at "Late Night with David Letterman," "Spy Magazine," and "The New Yorker Magazine," Doug rejected a career as a professional intern, hit the road with his backpack and has been traveling around the world ever since—for the last seven years in over sixty countries, chronicling his adventures in his nationally-syndicated humor column, "Vagabond."
When he's not blowgun hunting with Jaguar Indians in Peru, test-driving Ferraris in Italy, hitchhiking through Syria, riding the Trans-Siberian, sailing down the Nile, or trekking across Ecuador on a horse, he tries to get a little rest in Sweden, his current base camp.
Doug Lansky is also editor of a new travel-humor anthology called, There's No Toilet Paper on the Road Less Traveled. He is also coming out with a new book called Up the Amazon without a Paddle.

The following is an excerpt from The Art of Riding a Third World Bus, Doug Lansky's article in There's No Toilet Paper on the Road Less Traveled:

I'm often asked what I'm most afraid of when I travel to Third World countries. People expect to hear something like: catching the Ebola virus, being detained by the secret police, getting mugged in a dark alley, or catching the Ebola virus from the secret police in a dark alley. Now, I don't want to marginalize the image of any of these dramatic foreign tribulations, but they generally don't worry me. I mean, as tribulations go, they're right there at the top of the list. But riding a Third World bus has got to be one of the most dangerous (and thrilling) rides on earth.