I grew up in Minnesota in a family of seven children, all boys until the last one. After graduating from Dartmouth College I began to travel (I wished I'd been doing it while in college!) and found that writing about my experiences helped me understand the places and cultures I was encountering. I also discovered that newspaper and magazine editors responded as well, and that's how I got started working as a freelance writer. Not long after that I hooked up with James O'Reilly to write a series of mystery serials for the San Francisco Examiner, one of which ran for 104 episodes over five months. We then began writing travel stories together and in 1985 started a syndicated column, World Travel Watch, that has appeared in newspapers in five countries. In 1993 we founded Travelers' Tales with James's brother Tim O'Reilly, and since then we've published some 100 books. I teach workshops on the art and craft of the personal travel story on a regular basis: for information go to LarryHabegger.com.