An eclectic compendium of the best travel writing essays published in 2018, collected by Alexandra Fuller. BEST AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITING gathers together a satisfyingly varied medley of perspectives, all exploring what it means to travel somewhere new. For the past two decades, readers have come to recognize this annual volume as the gold standard for excellence in travel writing. Overlooking Guantanamo / Benz, Stephen — The Great Divide / Crowell, Maddy — Uncomfortable Silences: a walk in Myanmar / Fettling, David — Finished / Gregory, Alice — How the Chile Pepper took over the world / Gross, Matt — I walked from Selma to Montgomery / Haile, Rahawa — Morsi the Cat / Hessler, Peter — A visit to Chernobyl:Travel in the Postapocalypse / Hewitt, Cameron — Paper Tiger / Jarvis, Brooke — Keepers of the Jungle / Knafo, Saki — Mother Tongue / Loredo, Lucas — Is this the most crowded island in the world? (and why that question matters) / MacGregor, Alex — Taming the Lionfish / MacGregor, Jeff — If these walls could talk / Markham, Lauren — The floating world / Mauk, Ben — Irmageddon / O’Neil, Devon — Water and the wall / Paumgarten, Nick — How Nashville became one big bachelorette party / Petersen, Anne Helen — These Brazilians traveled 18 hours on a riverboat to vote. I went with them / Sims, Shannon — Cursed fields / Sneider, Noah — The end of the line / Vollmann, William T. — The Greatest / Wilson, Jason — Tributary / Yen, Jessica — Tourist Trap / Zha, Jianying