An Evening in Conversation with Jeff Greenwald - SF Travel Lectures Series Event

Join the SF Travel Lectures Series on April 28th for An Evening in Conversation With Jeff Greenwald!

Jeff Greenwald has traveled extensively through five continents, working as a writer, artist and photographer. In addition he has prepared exhibits, lectures and educational programs for the San Francisco Exploratorium, the University of California, the Body Shop International, and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.

In the course of his travels, Mr. Greenwald has had the opportunity to participate in a number of unusual projects. In 1979, during his first trip to Asia, he designed urban playgrounds for UNICEF and the Nepal Children’s Organization. Several months later, arriving in Thailand during the Khmer civil war, he served as a volunteer water engineer at Khao-I-Dang–the largest of the Cambodian refugee camps.

Between 1980 and 1983 Mr. Greenwald lived in Santa Barbara, California, where he was employed as Cultural and Features Editor of the Santa Barbara News & Review. Following this he edited an international art journal called Art/Life, ultimately leaving that magazine to publish and edit a limited edition art portfolio called eye.

In the Spring of 1983, he was awarded a Journalism Fellowship by the Rotary International Foundation, and departed for a second trip to Asia. During this 16-month residence he lived in Kathmandu, Nepal, and made excursions to the Himalaya, India, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Japan, Java and Bali. The resulting articles appeared in GEO and Islands magazines.

His first book, Mr. Raja's Neighborhood: Letters from Nepal (John Daniel, 1986), is still in print. Shopping for Buddhas, first published Harper & Row in 1990, was reissued in 1996 by Lonely Planet Publications; the new edition won the Lowell Thomas Gold Award for Best Travel Book of 1996. The Size of the World - a chronicle of his 29,172-mile, around-the-world overland voyage (Globe Pequot, 1995 & Ballantine, 1996)–was a national bestseller, and won the 1995 Lowell Thomas Silver Award. Mr. Greenwald’s travel writing is widely anthologized, appearing in The Kindness of Strangers, In Search of Adventure, Salon Wanderlust, and many volumes of the award-winning “Travelers Tales” series. His new book, Snake Lake, was released by Counterpoint in Fall 2010.

Greenwald divides his time between California and Asia, publishing stories and essays in a variety of publications–including Smithsonian, Wired, National Geographic Adventure, Tricycle and Salon.com. Jeff is also Executive Director Ethical Traveler, a global community dedicated to exploring the ambassadorial potential of world travel.

An anthology of Greenwald’s best short travel writing, Scratching the Surface: Impressions of Planet Earth from Hollywood to Shiraz, appeared in 2002. The following year Jeff began performing Strange Travel Suggestions, an improvised monologue based on his adventures. The critically acclaimed show has continued to draw sold-out houses through February 2011. In January and February 2005 Jeff worked for Mercy Corps, assisting victims of the tsunami in Sri Lanka. His dispatches are archived on the Mercy Corps and Ethical Traveler website.