TIM CAHILL

"Most of us abandoned the idea of a life full of adventure and travel sometime between puberty and our first job.  Our dreams died under the dark weight of responsibility.  Occasionally the old urge surfaces, and we label it with names that suggest psychological aberrations; the big chill, a midlife crisis."
- Tim Cahill, Jaguars Ripped My Flesh

ABOUT TIM CAHILL

Tim Cahill is a renowned adventure travel journalist, recognized for exploring all corners of the world and finding the beauty, humor, and meaning when things inevitably don't work out as expected.  He is the author of several popular travel books and a frequent contributor to publications like Outside Magazine,  Men's Journal, and National Geographic Adventure.  Cahill first wrote for the San Francisco Examiner and then worked for Rolling Stone.  When Rolling Stone decided to launch Outside Magazine in 1977, he was well positioned as one of the only two writers who actually liked the outdoors.  He became one of the first contributing editors and has been an editor-at-large for over 20 years.  His popularity perhaps stems from his lack of self-righteousness; Cahill is at heart an everyday person who tells interesting stories about adventure travel, rather than an professional adventurer trying to just describe the adrenaline-filled highlights of the event.  His writing brings the perspective of anyone making that first step to peer into the void of the unfamiliar and to confront fear of the unsettling and unknown.  

A5 RECOMMENDATIONS - TIM CAHILL BOOKS

GREAT QUOTES:

“I have no problem with the adventure travel movement.  It makes better, more sensitive people.  If you get people diving on a coral reef, they're going to become more respectful of the outdoors and more concerned with the threats that places like that face and they're going to care more about protecting them than they would have before."
- Tim Cahill

“A lot of the physical flirtation with fear I did early on in my career, when I was a much younger person - stuff I wouldn't do now. But I was very interested in the mechanics of risk and fear in those days. And I found out fear pretty much always feels the same, whether it's doing a rock climb or speaking in front of an audience."
- Tim Cahill


INTERESTING LINKS:

  • Read Michael Shapiro's interviews with Tim Cahill in A Sense of Place, a collection of face to face discussions with some the world's best travel writers.  He is featured, along with many other authors featured here.
  • Tim Cahill was the guest editor for The Best American Travel Writing in 2006.

TIM CAHILL - 2009 INTERVIEW