When I was Editor of Men’s Health magazine, and before that, articles editor for Playboy, I was pretty good at my jobs. But I was great at taking vacations—Moscow and Minneapolis, Bermuda and the Badlands, Kathmandu and Kauai, Key West and the Congo, plus all those national parks you’ve been meaning to visit (Acadia, Great Sand Dunes, Everglades, Point Reyes National Seashore, and on, and on). I live to travel because every trip changes and enriches my life, starting with an epic run through Paris-London-the South Downs-Belfast-Sligo-Oslo-Zagreb (!)-Venice-Rome just after I graduated from college. The Road2Elsewhere will track my own gleanings and mistakes from a lifetime of purposeful travel, harvest insights from the best memoirists and travel writers, and include paintings and drawings and cartoons I made along the way. Not all who wander are lost…they’re on the Road2Elsewhere.

After twenty years at Men's Health magazine--writing award-winning articles and NYT bestsellers, editing a perennial NatMag winner, hosting the MH radio show, and making national media appearances--I left to chase my own multimedia brainstorms. It's exhilarating. And now the 'storms are turning into hurricanes, typhoons, and general climate disruptions. Can I conjure up a lightning strike for you?

Exploring the world of "better living through cannabis," until that dang coronavirus struck.

How can you sum up 20 years of blood, sweat, and abs? Twice in my tenure as editor, Men's Health won General Excellence at the National Magazine Awards; an article I wrote--"A Tale of Three Hearts"--was Rodale's and Men's Health's first-ever NatMag. I also wrote three New York Times bestsellers for Rodale (all ghostwriting gigs), hosted a national radio show, and was tapped for more than 2,000 radio and TV interviews. I interviewed Barack Obama on his campaign plane and in the Oval Office, I interviewed Michelle Obama below decks in the White House, and I spent a week hanging around with Matt Damon in India, to write about his work at water.org. Once I called my boss from the top of Grand Teton to report on an assignment. Yes, that was a fun gig.

Yes, I edited the articles, plus Playboy Interviews with Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley, two years worth of "girl copy," and captions for Hef's many autobiographical features. Obligatory Hef story: Once I was visiting in the upstairs office at the Playboy Mansion in Holmby Hills, and I sensed a change in the energy in the room. I looked over my shoulder and saw Hugh M. Hefner walking toward us down the corridor that connected his residence with the office. He stepped into the room, darted challenging looks at everybody, and then blurted out "Who burned down Atlanta?" (This was before the internet, mind you.) One of the staffers stammered out, "General Sherman?" Hef nodded, and returned to his residence, no doubt to impress nubile and barely-clad twins with his knowledge of Civil War history.

Have you seen the excellent Russell Crowe movie "The Informant," all about exposing R.J. Reynold's nefarious plot to hook young smokers? Well, shamefully, I was part of that initiative as the editor of Moviegoer, a free magazine distributed in movie-theater lobbies. And yet, we had a hell of a run there, completing major interviews and photo shoots with the biggest stars and directors of the day--Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, Mick Jagger, Woody Allen, Susan Sarandon, and on, and on, and on. Favorite, surreal, early career moment: Presenting my Amex card, at age 24, to pay for a $6,000 industry party (Kathleen Turner was in attendance) at the Russian Tea Room. The card cleared!