Peter Jon Lindberg
Editor-in-Chief

Checked bag or just a carry-on? “Just a carry-on”?? Oh you must have the wrong guy.

When you arrive at your hotel, do you (a) unpack immediately, (b) gradually unpack, or (c) never fully unpack? It’s imperative that I unpack immediately. Drives my wife (Nilou Motamed) bonkers, but she indulges me.

You’re flying with your companion in a 3-3 seating configuration. Do you request the middle seat? Aisle + aisle across? Aisle + window with a stranger in between? Ha! Funny you should ask.

What’s your current screen saver? It rotates between Rockhouse in Jamaica (where I’ve spent more nights than at any other hotel) and a shot of the horses on the beach at Nihi Sumba in Indonesia (where I’d be happy to live, were it not for the occasional scorpion in your beach bag).

Was there a trip you took when you were young that shook up your worldview in some lasting way — one that literally changed your mind? At 23 I spent six months backpacking through India, and I’m still trying to sort through all the revelations from that trip. That journey inspired the first travel story I ever published, 31 years ago this spring. (I’m old, in case that wasn’t clear already.)

What item or souvenir do you most regret not buying on a trip? I’ll tell you what I do regret bringing home: the dozen Thai mangosteens that got me blacklisted by Customs & Border Protection in the early 2000s. Mangosteens are my #1 fruit, but they’re illegal to import into the U.S. — which didn’t stop my dumb self from trying to smuggle them home. (Sorry, CBP.)

What was your first vivid place memory? The London Underground. When I was three my family lived in England while my dad was on sabbatical, and I was absolutely mesmerized by the Tube — so much so that my parents gifted me a subway train set, which I still have somewhere.

What was the last place you visited that took your proverbial breath away? A perfect moonrise over Joshua Tree National Park during a solo road trip last winter.  I’ve got a serious jones for the Desert Southwest.

In what city or town do you feel most inspired? Mumbai, London, Hanoi, Sydney, Rome, Los Angeles, and my home city of New York. Also Johannesburg. Can’t forget Istanbul. Wait, did I mention Trancoso, Brazil?

Is a “bad” trip as worthwhile as a “good” trip? Oh absolutely. Also, the trips that go horribly, hilariously wrong are more fun to write about (and read about). I’ve got enough bad-trip stories to fill three books, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Meal you’d travel all day for? A four-hour lunch at Lo Scoglio on the Amalfi Coast. On a good day — meaning any day I’m at Lo Scoglio — it may be my happiest place on earth.