China Williams grew up in the pretty Southern town of Aiken, South Carolina, with romantic tales of her parent's past in California, the state of her birth, and their 1960s backpacking trip through Europe. Surrounded by this family lore and a name too strange for the Bible Belt, China was destined to leave her small town as soon as possible. Her first far-flung escape was to Germany through a high-school exchange program. She attended college in Annapolis, Maryland, a state below the fabled Mason-Dixon line but north of the sweet-iced tea line. After earning a degree in philosophy, she worked for a small geology magazine in Washington, DC, during Marion Barry's encore, post-prison mayoral tenure. Like a lot of gen-X-ers, China escaped to Asia to teach English in northeastern Thailand, an easy country to fall in love with. She backpacked through Southeast Asia as much of former Indochina was opening up to tourism. Returning to the United States, China settled in San Francisco, got married and worked as an editor with Lonely Planet. Later she became a freelance writer, commuting across the Pacific Ocean for twice yearly trips to Bangkok for various Lonely Planet assignments. She now lives in the subdued suburbs of Maryland with her husband and son.