"The follow-up to the classics Holidays in hell"-- Cover.

"A war correspondent experiences frightening vacation fun"-- Cover.

Introduction: a former war correspondent experiences frightening vacation fun -- Republicans evolving: The Galapagos Islands, April 2003 -- Monumnetal [i.e. Monumental] generations: The national World War II Memorial, Washington, D.C., June 2004 -- Round on the ends and "Hi!" in the middle: Ohio skiing, February 2005 -- Riding to the hounds versus going to the dogs: Britain after the hunting ban, March 2005 -- My EU vacation: reading the European Constitution on a French Beach, Guadaloupe, May 2005 -- On first looking into the Airbus A380: Toulouse, June 2005 -- If you think modern life is awful, you haven't seen modern art: Venice Biennale, July 2005 -- My wife's got a gun: Brays Island Plantation, South Carolina, February 2006 -- A freedom ride through China: Spring 2006 -- Side trip up the Yangtze: June 2006 -- A horse of a different color: Kyrgyzstan, July 2006 -- Sweet-and-sour children and twice-fried parents to go: Hong Kong, December 2007 -- The big stick, or Why I voted for John McCain: USS Theodore Roosevelt, April 2008 -- White man speak with forked tongue: The Field Museum, Chicago, May 2008 -- The decline and fall of tomorrow: Disneyland, June 2008 -- A journey to-- let's not go there: Summer 2008 -- The seventy-two-hour Afghan expert: Kabul, July 2010 -- Capital gains: Washington, D.C., August 2010 -- Home unalone: New Hampshire, March 2011.

A follow-up to "Holidays in hell" collects classic travel pieces written throughout the author's post-retirement years, a period marked by his haphazard journeys with and without family to such regions as China, Kyrgyzstan, and America.