Moon Handbooks Virginia

Julian Smith has been writing since he learned to read, and traveling since his first family trip to Cape Cod as a toddler. A pre-college summer in Brazil sparked a love affair with (and in) Latin America, fueled by a stint studying the cloud forests of Costa Rica. Days after wrangling a degree in biology from the University of Virginia, he found himself hopelessly entangled in a self-publishing venture that resulted nine months later in the one-pound, eight-ounce On Your Own in El Salvador, the first in-depth guide to the country. Moon Handbooks Ecuador came two years later. Tired of sounding like a third-grader with grammar issues, Julian returned to Virginia, where everyone kept saying the same thing: "Didn't you graduate already?" On top of penning Moon Handbooks Virginia, he has contributed to The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Geographic Traveler, Road Trip USA, Online Travel Planning for Dummies, and other publications. His Moon Handbooks Four Corners won the Society of American Travel Writers' Lowell Thomas Award for best guidebook in 2004. He also managed to earn a master's degree in Wildlife Ecology, along the way eating smoked salmon and studying grizzly bears on the coast of British Columbia. As far as normal jobs go, Julian has done pretty well. He's worked as a Canyonlands National Park ranger, guided tourists through the Central American rainforest, and tried (in vain) to protect the vegetable garden of one of the richest men in the world from marauding rodents. Along the way he's found himself freezing atop Kilimanjaro, meditating in a Japanese Zen temple, doused with rum in a Cuban santeria ceremony, and fleeing from Ugandan pygmies, through absolutely no fault of his own. For more travel writing, photography, updates, and assorted oddities, stop by his website, www.juliansmith.com.Smith, Julian is the author of 'Moon Handbooks Virginia', published 2005 under ISBN 9781566917063 and ISBN 1566917069.