James Rosenthal

Contributing food writer James Rosenthal has traveled the globe for several years in pursuit of the perfect hot lemon pie—a dessert so idyllic, so bathed in divine evanesce, that it defies any ordinary classification. His search ended briefly after discovering what passed for "perfection" in a small, exclusive restaurant on the outskirts of Siena. Within the walls of a former convent/monastery, he supped on locally-produced Chianti and Italian cheeses until the dessert course was presented and—alley oop—the hot lemon pie (no more a tarte au citron than a home-baked apple pie) appeared on the table a la Godrick Gryffindor’s sword in Harry Potter’s latest epic. In the end, the joy of this culinary experience seeped out of its container rather quickly-it raised the bar ever higher for perfection, but could not end his silly and expensive quest for a glorified pastry. When he’s not searching the globe for desserts, James Rosenthal is often checking out top-of-the-line kitchens at posh resorts and urban gastronomic centers in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Western Europe. His first installment in a monthly column on food and beverage takes us to Vancouver’s Lumiere, where a spectacular meal came accompanied by the wit and banter of its chef/owner Rob Feenie.

Skip Kaltenheuser

In the decade he has mostly written for a living, Skip Kaltenheuser’s work has appeared in more than 100 domestic and international publications, due in part to maintaining his strict standard of writing for whomever will have him. A recovering lawyer and a former assistant attorney general for Kansas, he migrated to Washington, D.C. in 1979 to do "guvmint work" after his former boss, the AG, lost reelection after being seen in a Joplin motel with a woman who vaguely resembled the AG’s wife. When told he’s not in Kansas anymore, Kaltenheuser asks "Are you sure?" Kaltenheuser’s young son and daughter, Jack and Katie Jane, 7 and 10, have spent their entire lives in the middle of D.C., yet remain unindicted. Most of Kaltenheuser ’s topics focus on business, law, politics and ethics, with occasional op-ed pontifications, but when lucky he works in travel and culture, rounding off much of the world’s loosely defined four corners. He is partial to adventure/eco travel, and also pursues carnivals across different cultures, admiring their unique melting pots and common themes of renewal and a clean slate. He was recently invited to be a featured photographer for a camera company website. Kaltenheuser also does media consulting - Have Pen Will Travel. Despite a highly varied career, he has never been accused of exercising undue influence in Washington, and denies all responsibility for the current mischief. Occasionally he observes elections in far flung countries, from the Balkans to Kazakhstan, trying not to take a small comfort in others' mistakes. skip.kaltenheuser@verizon.net

Bill Scheller

Bill Scheller’s first piece for naturaltraveler.com came about while he was on assignment for Islands magazine in the Dominican Republic. While there, Bill decided to take a road trip through the Cordillera Central, the highest and most rugged mountains in the Caribbean, so far off the beaten path he described it as "real adventure, the kind where you’re a damned fool who doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing." While this may have been a bit "over the top," even for Bill, it was part of a lifetime of adventure and award-winning writing about his journeys.

Like almost everybody else in his adopted state of Vermont, Bill Scheller comes from New Jersey. In a travel writing career that he has been stubborn enough to drag out for more than 20 years, he has canoed through northern Ontario and around Manhattan Island; retraced much of Christopher Columbus’s 1492 route through the Bahamas; twice completed the transcontinental "One Lap of America" road rally; driven the entire Italian coastline from France to the former Yugoslavia; covered a 700-mile route through Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula by snowmobile; bicycled the length of Prince Edward Island; and crossed North America seven times by train. With his friend Chris Maynard, he is co-author of the legendary "Manifold Destiny, a guide to cooking on car engines," and of "The Bad For You Cookbook, a collection of high-calorie recipes."

Bill lives with his wife and son at the end of a dirt road 17 miles south of the Canadian border, which he finds handy because his student deferment has expired and you never know when they’ll call up 53-year-olds. In his office, he has a Frederick Remington print of two Canadian voyageurs in a canoe and an 18th-century engraving of the Grand Canal, reminders that one of his ambitions is to paddle through Venice - if his 16-foot Merrimack will fit in one of Alitalia’s overhead compartments.

John H. Ostdick

During the past 25 years, John has worked in newspapers (The Dallas Morning News: copy desk, international and national wire desk, assistant business editor, 1979-1993) and magazines (American Way magazine: editor-in-chief, 1993-1998), as a freelance writer contributing to various magazines, including Diversions, Delta Sky, Hemispheres, The Robb Report, Texas Parks & Wildlife, Scouting, and newspapers throughout the country (through his company, The Write House, 1998-present), and contributed to book projects (Boone Pickens: The Luckiest Guy in the World, Beard Books 2000, and Fodor’s USA 2000.) He is a founding writer of the Travel Arts Syndicate, a cadre of travel writers with its headquarters in New York (clients include the Miami Herald and the Boston Globe), a member of the Society of American Travel Writers, and a former board member of The Press Club of Dallas. Much of John’s work involves travel, outdoor adventure, and family travel (he likes to hike, bike, and camp) but he’s also written extensively on consumer technology (Personal Technology section, The Dallas Morning News), about business people and trends for both corporate and editorial publications, and environmental issues (Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine). John coordinated many award-winning projects while at The Dallas Morning News and during his tenure as editor-in-chief American Way magazine earned many regional and national Best Magazine honors. Most recently, two of his magazine stories earned recognition at the 2003 SATW Central States Chapter Writing Competition. During 2003, John and Naturaltraveler.com founder Tony Tedeschi instructed bartenders throughout rural Argentina in the proper technique for making the perfect martini. He lives in Dallas with his writer-editor wife, Michelle, and children, Hunter and Madeline.

Aglaia Davis

No one knows what came first, writing or riding, but Aglaia Davis has been doing both since her earliest years. Born and raised on a farm in rural Maine, Aglaia moved to New York City at 17 to write and attend New York University. She lived on Benton Moore's Ranch in Groesbeck, Texas, while attending Baylor Law School, then returned to New York where she began working as a freelance appellate attorney. She continues to ride religiously to this day, and, though Benton passed away suddenly from a heart attack over Labor Day Weekend 2005, his horse Jan remains the best Aglaia ever rode

Ken Aiken

            Ken Aiken is a native Vermonter who divides his time between Vermont, Montreal, and being on the road. He was catapulted into a career as a travel writer when “Touring Vermont’s Scenic Roads” for Down East Books was published in 1999.  “It was happenstance,” he says, “the serendipitous collision of two seemingly unrelated written statements that were read on a particular day that motivated me to spend two years creating my first book.  I had no overt intention to become a writer.”

With a professional background as a master goldsmith and gemologist he taught foundry at Goddard College and Fine Metals at Vermont Community College before taking on the task of developing jewelry and numismatic products utilizing ancient artifacts for International Coins & Currency. His work in restoring the treasure recovered from the 1641 wreck of the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de la Concepción brought him international recognition. “When Skindiver magazine asked me to write an article about sunken treasure I had no clue as to how to proceed. I had been writing a weekly column on gemstones for a local newspaper for more than a year, yet didn’t consider myself to be a writer,” he states, “and asked a friend, David Edlestein, to author the piece.”  Another decade would elapse before he would write his next published article.

Although best known as a motorcycle journalist he claims that two wheels are simply his preferred method of travel.  “When I’m doing historical research in a museum, searching for fossils, or tasting wine in a vineyard the subject of what vehicle brought me there simply isn’t germane to these stories, but I probably arrived on a motorcycle. Flipping these experiences around to transform them into motorcycle touring adventures is merely another way of looking at them.”

He’s been listed in Marquis“Who’s Who In The World” (6^th Edition) and “Who’s Who In Finance and Industry” (22^nd Edition), was the recipient of the John T. Amber Literary Award of 2001, and was recognized by the Vermont Legislature for his efforts in the adoption of hessonite garnet as the state gemstone.  In 2007 he was invited as a guest speaker at the Ward Francillon Time Symposium (NAWCC) where he presented “New England’s Revolution in Precision Manufacturing, 1847.”

Pedro Pereira

Pedro Pereira left the University and Massachusetts at Amherst in 1989 with a degree in journalism and a mission: comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, as the old newsman mantra goes. In 1993 he stumbled onto the Information Superhighway and racked up several $100-plus AOL online monthly bills. In the spring of 1994, he left daily newspapering for a weekly computer publication, where his mission shifted to reporting on technology and business trends to help high-tech types make more money. The Internet revolution came and went. He now works as a newsletter editor for one of the few software companies that survived. On the side, he edits a songwriting newsletter and writes songs with his Martin guitars. Whenever possible, he and his wife Diane steal away to assorted destinations in Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean. In September 2003, the couple traveled to China to adopt a baby girl. Pedro documents the trip in the March 2004 edition of www.naturaltraveler.com.

Ken Taylor

Contributing Writer/Photographer Ken Taylor is a long-time travel writer who describes himself as "a border-line friend of the editor, which probably accounts for my being included in this section." Between the two of them, separately and together, they have accounted for a good portion of the known world. Many tales of their adventures are true, especially their visits to the dives of Central America and the Caribbean. On one evening in the tropics, they drank nervously in a dump so low and rancid, the only place to set their beers down was on a greasy engine block. Instead of being content with exploring India, Australasia and the Pacific, Latin America and Europe, Taylor carps incessantly about places not yet experienced: Africa, China, the Straits of Molucca. He hopes to go there, and to return to other places well-loved, like Paris, and to write about them in his own unique and personal way. Berlin is a city that has held a fascination for him since he first saw it in grainy newsreel images before World War Two. With its long history of being at the center of world events, he found it much changed yet again – if only from a tourist’s point of view.
(The editor disputes the "borderline friend" characterization, although without much conviction. As for Taylor’s inclusion in this issue being a result of this borderline relationship, let the reader decide.)

David Hubler

David Hubler has been a professional journalist for more than 30 years. He's worked for several news operations, including the Voice of America, the Washington Post Company and UPI, and has two books and numerous newspaper and magazine articles to his credit. At present he covers the U.S. Department of Education and Capitol Hill for Education Daily, based in Northern Virginia, but still manages to find time for travel writing, baseball and golf.

Nancy Nichols

For nine years Nancy Nichols has been the food and travel editor of D Magazine, the city magazine of Dallas. Her travels have taken her to Africa seven times where between game viewing drives, she toured the "kitchens" of local villagers and learned how to de-feather a dove and make stew. Some of her more glamorous foodie destinations have included eating her way across the Czech Republic, Caribbean, South America, and Italy. Most recently she traveled to Sardinia to the medieval village of Orosei, the home of two notable chefs, Francesco and Efisio Farris, who operate the popular Sardinian restaurant Arcodoro & Pomodoro in Dallas and Houston. The results of her trip can still be seen on her thighs.

Joseph Scott

A native New Yorker, Joseph Scott writes the Javits Center Guide to New York City, and he has written for more than 50 major newspapers and magazines, including New York Magazine, Travel & Leisure, Good Housekeeping and American Way. His favorite place in New York is Central Park, where he once won a kite flying contest, which he considers the "highlight" of his life. He is editor of the Travel Industry World Yearbook - The Big Picture, an independent annual report on the worldwide travel industry, and is a frequent contributor to Delaware Beach Life magazine and The Fisherman. His stories about fishing are not to be believed.

Donald Bain & Renee Paley

Donald Bain & Renée Paley Bain Donald Bain, a contributor to naturaltraveler.com, is author or ghostwriter of more than 85 books, including his recently published autobiography, Every Midget Has an Uncle Sam Costume: Writing For a Living, and 23 books in the Murder, She Wrote series of murder mystery novels. His 1967 bestseller, Coffee, Tea or Me?, was republished in 2003 by Penguin Books as a Penguin Classic. Charlie and the Shawneetown Dame, a dramatization of a madcap gang war in Southern Illinois during the Prohibition era, is being reissued September 2004 by Purdue University Press. Don’s wife, Renée Paley-Bain, who once wrote about real murders as a newspaper reporter and editor, now collaborates with him on the Murder, She Wrote books. A Vote For Murder, the 21st book in the series, is due out in hardcover this fall. Destination Murder, set in Vancouver and British Columbia, was published in hardcover in 2003, and is now available in paperback. The Maine Mutiny, with a Cabot Cove lobster festival as the backdrop, will be published in paperback in April 2005. The duo is currently at work on the series’ next mystery, The Mariachi Murders, which takes Jessica Fletcher to the central highlands of Mexico. For more information on the Bains, click: www.donaldbain.com

Marialisa Calta

Marialisa Calta writes a weekly column ("Food") syndicated nationally by United Media. She is the co-author of four cookbooks − including two with Today show personality Al Roker − and the author of "Barbarians at the Plate: Taming and Feeding the Modern American Family," to be published by Perigee/Penguin in June, 2005. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Gourmet, Food & Wine, and People magazine, among other venues. She is a contributing editor of Eating Well magazine.

Patrick Downes

Patrick Downes turned to photography in high school after he had failed in all other artistic media. It also seemed like a good way to meet girls in a dark room.

He is the publisher of Audubon magazine and lives in Staatsburg, N.Y.

Kara Grobert

Nature enthusiast and aspiring nature photographer, Kara Grobert, grew up on Long Island in a family of animal fanatics. There was hardly a time that she did not have the company of dogs, cats, and ferrets alike to keep her company. Though Kara has a professional background in public relations, she enjoys taking photographs of and writing about her excursions in the natural world. She spends the rest of her spare time on the eastern end of Long Island in the summer and hibernating on the slopes of Vermont in winter. Her photographs have appeared in publications such as the New York Times, The Charleston Post & Courier, Budweiser.com. Kara has contributed to Audubon magazine, AKC Gazette, and AKC Family Dog. Not discriminating between all creatures, both great and small, Kara is the proud owner of "Sniffy" and "Scratchy," two domestic rats. She hopes that her background in P.R. will help reverse the negative publicity that these entertaining creatures get.

Emily Mears Grey

Emily Mears Grey, a native of Onancock, Virginia, is a global photojournalist, naturalist, and attorney. Several years ago she followed her heart and commenced freelance writing and photography.  She volunteers for various conservation and historical entities and lectures on wildlife gardening and her remote journeys to Antarctica, Borneo, Belize, and other wild destinations.

Her articles have appeared in Washingtonian Magazine, The Washington Post WildBird, National Wildlife, Chesapeake Life, and many other state, regional and national publications. She contributes regularly to Virginia Wildlife, Cooperative Living, and Leisure Publications and writes the bimonthly wildlife column for Virginia Living.

She has won many state essay, photo essay and photography awards. Grey hopes that her images and human interest stories lift the viewer’s spirit. 

emgrey@softhome.net

Carolyn Walton

Carolyn Walton’s six-year-old granddaughter, Zinnia, recently observed: "Grandpa Ross lives on the farm, Grandma Carolyn doesn’t. She just visits him sometimes!" Thus is the life of a travel writer. Around the world in 36 months... French Polynesia, Fiji, Italy, France, Spain, Brazil, French Guiana, Barbados, Tobago, England, Holland, Estonia, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and if it’s Tuesday it must be Belgium! California, Rhode Island, Québec, Western Canada, Ontario.

Returning to journalism in the 1980’s after raising four daughters, investigative journalism became her passion, writing features for Harrowsmith Magazine,Canadian Geographic and Nature Canada, winning a national award for Outstanding Investigative Reporting in Canada presented by the Centre for Investigative Journalism in 1986. She also sold travel stories and photos to the Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen, Globe and Mail, Diplomat Canada, Fifty-five Plus, ToDays’ Seniors, among others.

And in the ‘90s, Carolyn launched two national mature travel magazines: The Intrepid Traveller and Footloose. In 2001, she won top prize in the category of Travel Writing and Photography for Magazines over 100,000 circulation presented by TravelMedia Showcase in Atlantic City and, in 2003, was a First Prize winner in the Cruises category , part of the North American Travel Journalists Association Writing Awards. Presently, she is a regular contributor to Good Times Magazine, Canada’s national retirement magazine and to national newspapers across the country. She says she could write a book about her misadventures. Her advice to readers: Do as I say, not as I do!

When not traveling, she and husband Ross live in a 1853 stone farmhouse on 130 organic acres in the scenic Ottawa Valley of Ontario, Canada. "Yes, Zinnia, Grandma Carolyn does have a home!"