Excellent online travel mag Perceptive Travel has a new issue (and it’s going bimonthly now, up from quarterly). I’ve been so buried in food talk right now that tales of exotic travel seem like a mental stretch.

But Darrin DuFord’s Subdued by Street Vendors is a good transition, praising the street-snack culture of Nicaragua.

I also appreciated The Backpacker’s Pilgrimage: Ko Phangan, by Joel Carillet, because it makes me feel less lame for 1) not traveling to Thailand this January and 2) not wanting to party on the beach anymore. Back when I lived in Cairo and went to Dahab for the weekend, I realized the folly of my hedonistic dreams: Sure, I’d love to go lie on the beach and smoke pot. I just don’t want to do it with lots of other people who probably want to do it even more than I do. I try to remind myself of this whenever I start feeling like I should go to more reckless-abandon kind of events; now Carillet’s essay is a good reminder too, complete with morning-after pictures.

And on a more serious note, I also liked Stephanie Elizondo Griest’s Officially a Woman in Mexico, just as a little anthropological interlude. I think I need to take some dance classes…