Joel Balsam
| Address: | Rio de Janeiro |
Joel Balsam is a freelance journalist and travel guidebook author who writes for publications such as TIME, National Geographic Travel, Lonely Planet, the Guardian and BBC Travel. He shares stories about how others see the world in unique, fascinating, and often uplifting ways ie. how an Indigenous community made a river into a legal person, or how one man is saving a viper that could unlock the cure to breast cancer. Other stories demonstrate challenges, like those who say nickel is poisoning their air or homesteaders whose cob house has them in trouble with regional authorities. Some stories show surprising cultural traditions like naked night runners in Kenya, Creole cowboys in the Deep South and bread of the dead in Mexico. While others are just plain interesting, like the rise and fall of Montreal’s melon, Tuscany’s mysterious cave roads and the Amazon River wave that you can surf. He also has a passion for distilling complex histories and cultures into easy-to-comprehend language as a Lonely Planet guidebook author. He has contributed to eight Lonely Planet “blue spine” guidebooks to destinations including Armenia, Morocco, Albania, Quebec, Mexico and New Mexico.
