The biggest problem with gastronomic tourism is not packing on the pounds; it is packing in all the restaurants you want to try. An ambitious itinerary combined with limited time yields difficult choices—or very gluttonous days. For the gastronaut, there is perhaps no greater test of commitment and resilience, and no greater rite of passage, than the six-star day—that is, a day composed of back-to-back meals at Michelin three-star restaurants. In all my feeding frenzies, I had never attempted this particular feat, and the gap in the résumé was beginning to weigh on me. I decided to use my visit to San Sebastián to fill this void. Having already eaten at Arzak, I set aside my last afternoon and evening to eat at the city's two other three-star establishments, Martín Berasategui and Akelarre.[more ...]

  "I must own that when the door was shut I began to consider myself as too far from the living and somewhat too near the dead." —Sir Walter Scott[more ...]

  I look over Bill's shoulder to see what he's pointing at. "Fingerprint cyphoma, very rare," he writes on his slate. I swim around him for a better look, tipping my head down and fins up, poking one finger into the sand for stability. Finally, I see it. An inch-long orange-and-black creature clings to a branch of coral.[more ...]

  Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor, a writer and a man of famous charm, has, in his 90s, been all but canonized. Anthony Lane wrote a loving appreciation of him in The New Yorker last year: St. Paddy, patron saint of British travel writing, ideal dinner-party guest, a treasured national secret.[more ...]

  The smartest thing I did in Bangkok was to move from the Buddy Lodge on Khao San Road to the Oriental, which I selected because it has an author's wing with Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maugham, and Noël Coward suites. I feel you should patronize any institution that still pretends to believe writers are more important cultural figures than directors, musicians, or actors. A century from now, it will have Steven Spielberg, Mick Jagger, and Robert De Niro suites.[more ...]