Chicken Soup for the Traveler's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Steve Zikman

This particular book in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series is one of the better ones in my opinion. But maybe that's the wanderlust in me speaking. All I know is, I enjoyed a good portion of the stories in this book for the Traveler's Soul.

The Chicken Soup for the Soul series is known for short, inspiring stories. This one is no different, although it mostly goes over travel. But not travel in the usual sense of the word. We have a trip to the moon included in this book in addition to trips out of country. I especially liked the stories about the Peace Corps, and there were a couple in this book. I was glad to see they included that as part of their travel stories. But there were a few stories I didn't enjoy. It seemed a big portion of these were about small trips made by dying people or as part of a wish program for dying children. Yes, it is technically travel, but do they have to include stories that will make you cry in every one of these books? Just a light-hearted one in full once in awhile would be nice.

Because this involves travel, it talks about meeting people all over the world and what can be shared even if you don't speak the same language. There were stories where the people spent hours together even though they didn't understand each other. They didn't have to, because the feelings were there. And that's a beautiful thing. It seems that every traveling soul shares a common theme of wanting to meet different people. Because that's part of the whole traveling experience. And these stories showed that.

The short story format is a good one. You can read a story a night or sit down with the book for one read straight through. The enjoyment doesn't lessen either way. I do feel that this is one of their shorter collections though, which surprised me, because with the whole world as a topic, you wouldn't think there'd be a lack of stories. And surprisingly, this one had quite a few stories based on religion. Now I realize this is a Christian publication, but with the world having some many religions, I was surprised that these were so dominant in the book.

As said before though, I think this is one of the better Chicken Soup books. It inspires a love of travel and a want to see new things.

Chicken Soup for the Traveler's Soul
Copyright 2002
356 pages