Pico Iyer

“And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, in dimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end."
- Pico Iyer, "Why We Travel"

ABOUT PICO IYER

Pico Iyer is a well-known travel writer and novelist, perhaps most famous for his insights on globalization and the modern meaning of “home” in an increasingly global world.  British-born and of Indian origin, he spent a lot of his childhood growing up in California, giving him a very real global perspective.  Iyer studied at Eton, Oxford and Harvard, later returning to teach writing and literature at Harvard, and most of his writing has a very academic feel.  He contributes regularly to a number of prominent publications and is an active speaker at literary festivals and writing events.  Perhaps his best-known travel book is Video Night in Kathmandu and Other Reports from the Not-So-Far East, a collection of essays and articles covering his travels through Asia.  He served as the guest editor for the 2004 publication of Best American Travel Writing, and his writing has appeared in a number of editions.

A5 RECOMMENDED TRAVEL BOOKS - PICO IYER

GREAT QUOTES:

“We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.”
​- Pico Iyer, "Why We Travel"

"Almost everybody I know has this sense of overdosing on information and getting dizzy living at post-human speeds ... All of us instinctively feel that something inside us is crying out for more spaciousness and stillness to offset the exhilaration of this movement and the fun and diversion of the modern world."
- Pico Iyer

INTERESTING LINKS:

  • Read Michael Shapiro's interview with Pico Iyer in A Sense of Place, a collection of face to face discussions with some the world's best travel writers on their craft and on their inspiration.
  • One of our favorite essays on travel comes from Pico Iyer, with his article for Salon.com written in 2000 called "Why We Travel".  See it here.​

TED TALK - Where is Home?