Away from it all

Patricia Schultz’s first memory of travel was with her family to the Jersey Shore when she was 4.

“It was very exotic for me,” said the author of “1,000 Places to See Before You Die,” recalling the sand, surf and sun. “If it was August, we were packing the car for Jersey.”

But it was what she calls her “first passport experience,” a trip to the Dominican Republic at 15, that changed her life.

“I went for two weeks to visit a friend in the Dominican Republic and it was an out-of-body experience,” she said. That trip would cement her dreams to be one of those nomadic travel writers we rely on for vacation ideas. She said her parents got her that ticket and supported her dreams to be a travel writer.

With the second edition of “1,000 Places,” Schultz delivers an updated version of the 2003 groundbreaking book with more than 200 new places to visit and 28 additional countries.

Of course, the usual places are well represented: Britain, Italy, Germany and Latin America. However, the book now includes more locations from Eastern Europe, such as Lithuania, and from the Middle East, like Qatar.

You can expect the normal destinations of Paris and the Eiffel Tower and London and Buckingham Palace, but you’ll also find Schultz directing you to Loch Ness and the Corn Islands off the coast of Nicaragua for adventures off the beaten path.

The author estimates she has visited about 80 percent of the locations she de scribes in her book, with notable exceptions being New Zealand, Tibet and some other far-flung locations.

Even though she has been traveling for decades, she said she is still most surprised by local cuisine.

“I’m not Anthony Bourdain when it comes to food,” she said. “I’m still surprised by things I see on menus. They eat guinea pigs in South America and in the Taiwan food markets everyone sells things on a stick — still moving.”

Schultz said one of the things she believes that keeps people from traveling is fear and apprehension, but she underlines that she is not afraid of what she might encounter.

“I’ve done my homework, and I never put myself in the lap of danger,” she said. “I love to travel alone and any fears often translate to thrills in a nanosecond. When you travel alone it is a very special experience and a very different experience from traveling with a group or another person.”

She’s convinced that women traveling alone are empowered.

“It’s cool and adventurous,” she said. When you press Schultz to name a place she would go back to time and time again she named Italy — she lived for a couple years after college.

“It’s the most remarkable place in the world,” she said. “It has an amazing cultural history, and you can’t get a bad meal there.”

Schultz said that the most dramatic change she has observed in her decades of travel is the advent of the cell phone and the ubiquitous Internet.

“It’s not necessarily a horrible thing, but you are connected 24/7,” she said. “I loved the sense of travel when you could, after a long trip, just appear back home. It was exotic. Today, we share everything.”

Schultz says she makes it a point while traveling of not posting details on Facebook.

“I want the experiences to be mine. It’s very sad when everything goes to Facebook. You lose the specialness of the moment,” she said. “The first thought a traveler now has is ‘I have to capture it’ and send it straight to Facebook. Isn’t connectiveness what you tried to get away from?”

Schultz said one reason she’s visiting Michigan is to see what’s going on in Detroit.

“I’ve heard so much about its demise, I’m curious,” she said. She recalls the first time she visited Michigan and the revelation the “massive the inland seas.” Michigan gets one mention in the new edition of the book: Mackinac Island and the Grand Hotel.

Speaking on the phone from her home in Midtown Manhattan, which she describes as “just steps from Central Park,” Schultz said when she’s asked her favorite place, she says “home.”

“I get to enjoy home so rarely — I’m a real homebody,” she said.

Although New York is filled with surprises, she said an experience during a recent trip to Papua, New Guinea, probably represents what she like best about travelling. She writes in the book that the island is home to hundreds of tribal groups that host annual festivals called sing-sings, a relatively new phenomenon, starting as a way to halt tribal warfare in the 1960s. She said the warriors come together in full regalia with dramatic face painting and bodies covered in war paint.

“It is almost like time travel and the warriors are menacing,” she said. “It’s kind of freaky, but when relaxing the warriors will reach under their grass skirt to pull out a phone and show you their photos.”

Patricia Schultz

Author talk and book signing 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 16 Schuler Books & Music, Meridian Mall 1982 Grand River Ave., Okemos (517) 349-8840, schulerbooks.com