When In Roam: Conversations With Travel Writers

My next guest has me in awe! Journalist Kim Barker's travels make all of my adventures abroad seem like Travel Lite, & I don't mind telling her, because she's earned every single one of her stories. As the South Asia Bureau Chief for the Chicago Tribune from 2004 to 2009, Kim has covered major stories like the assassination of former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto, & the rising militancy in both Pakistan & Afghanistan. Kim shared some of her hair-raising tales with me at Hostelling International in New York, & revealed what did...& didn't...make it into her book called, "The Taliban Shuffle." My biggest take-away from Kim's conversation (besides the fact that she's a famously funny & incredibly lovely human being), is that if she could survive living in the Middle East as a single Western woman, then to all my ladies out there, we simply have no more excuses! Don't ever let fear hold you back...unless maybe there's a national revolution going on. I hope Kim's stories were