Planning a Road Trip? Check out David C. Kravetz!
Like me, David C. Kravetz loves road trips to offbeat and overlooked places. By sharing his playful travel and nature photos online, this self-proclaimed “selfie king” spreads cheer everywhere he goes. I truly admire David’s eagle eye for quirky goodness. Anyone who enjoys offbeat and overlooked road trips needs his “Less Beaten Paths” series.
If you’ve visited my site before, you may already be familiar with David C. Kravetz. He wrote an excellent guest post (All About Jackalopes), and I interviewed him when his first book, Unique Town Names, was released. David’s also featured on the #IndieBookmas Holiday Gift Guide, a shopping list that helps you find the perfect book for all the readers on your Xmas list.
David C. Kravetz is among the handful of writers I’ve met through Twitter whom I’ve also had the privilege to meet up with in person. It’s an honor to count him among my friends and I’m happy to share him with you as part of my 4 Question Author Interview series today:
1. Like me, you often write about quirky travel featuring offbeat and overlooked places. What makes these places so appealing? Why should we celebrate them?
To me, these places represent the ingenuity and creativity of people. They invite smiles and rolled eyes and even guffaws! Folks have been making quirky art since prehistoric times (ever seen the cave paintings in France?) Perhaps to some of these people, the creators of said art, there was some importance behind them.
As people started traveling on US Highways, the real birth of the “offbeat and quirky” roadside attractions gained steam as these people needed places to stop for food, drinks, and breaks from the road. It was a new opportunity to attract business. Just ask Wall Drug in South Dakota or the town of Bemidji, MN which is home to the giant Paul Bunyan and Babe, his big blue ox. Both of these have been drawing tourists and travelers since the 1930s and continue to do so nearly 90 years later.
2. Why did you start writing books?
Interesting question actually. For years I have been writing my Less Beaten Paths Travel Blog detailing all of the sites I have ventured into in my travels across the 50 U.S. states and many of the Canadian Provinces. Though most are quirky, not all are. I basically have written about National Parks, small and unique towns, art installations and, of course, the quirky and offbeat.
Since about 2008, many of my readers have asked for a book or books that include all of my travel stories so they have something they can take with them and refer to in their travels. So, in 2017, the first book was born and people were thrilled.
3. Please tell us about the books you’ve written so far.
As of this interview, I have three books. You can consider them part of an ever-expanding series of books, with each having its own theme. The Books are all titled “Less Beaten Paths of America” and then have sub-titles Unique Town Names (which is about towns with strange and colorful names), Quirky and Offbeat Roadside Attractions (which has dozens of unique singular attractions such as big pink elephants, giant dinosaurs, car art installations and more), and finally, my third book is Beyond Description – More of the Strange and Unique (and features some of America’s best tourist destinations and tourist traps. It also features a special chapter about American artist Peter Toth, creator of the “Whispering Giants,” tall, hand-carved wooden statues of Native Americans).
In the future I plan on adding books about murals and wall art, National Parks and Monuments, Scrap Metal Giants and other Road Art, Unique Museums and Galleries, Offbeat Eateries and Diners, Geologic Wonder, America’s Highways and by-ways and more.
I should also point out that I do not write about any places I have not been to. All photography in the books is mine (except for a couple of instances). So, these can be considered my Travel Stories.
4. What can readers expect from you next?
I am already working on Book 4 which looks at murals, wall art, ghost signs and graffiti from all over the U.S. and Canada. In the past decade, this has become the new form of Art Gallery as many wall artists/graffiti artists have become world-renowned for their giant works of art on the sides of buildings and water walls.
The real challenge I have is that some of the places eventually become obsolete and, rather than write a book revision, I plan on keeping tabs and writing a book about the long-gone places and things I have been to but are no longer. They remain in the annals of the “Collector of Places.”
Learn more about David Kravetz:
BIO: David Kravetz, 63, resides in Lexington, KY and is the owner and creative mind behind Sumoflam Productions, where he works with dotcoms, writes blogs, and does nature and travel photography.
David is a freelance travelographer and focuses on the normal, the wacky, the wonderful and the quirky things of this wide world. His popular travel blog is called Less Beaten Paths and has over 350 posts about offbeat and back roads travel. David also has sites that present photography of the world as he sees it.
Sumoflam, as he is known to thousands of friends and followers around the world, has a passion for traveling and has been to all 50 of the states in the United States, as well as five provinces in Canada, numerous states in Mexico, the Philippines, China and Korea.
He lived in Japan for 6 years and is fluent in Japanese. He is the father of five and has TEN grandchildren who call him Grampz. He has been married to his lovely wife Julianne for more than 40 years. He will admit that he truly Married Up!!
Books: Find David C. Kravetz on Amazon
Websites: LessBeatenPaths.com and Sumoflam.biz
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