Highlights

• Travel writer with features in National Geographic, including coverage of Jane Goodall’s Trees for Jane initiative
• Freelance contributor to the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle
• Awards: Bedford Pace, Lowell Thomas (from Society of American Travel Writers), Solas, Independent Publishers (for both The Creative Spark and A Sense of Place) and four-time winner of Travel Classics’ top prize
• Freelance editor for newspaper, magazine and book projects

Michael Shapiro is a 2022 recipient of the Greater Good Science Center grant. Along with San Francisco author Ethan Watters, he will be investigating how travel makes us more open to the world. The U.C. Berkeley grant focuses on the concept of intellectual humility, the idea that not everything you believe is necessarily true. The title of their grant proposal: “Traveler’s Mind: Can Travel Foster Intellectual Humility and Can We Cultivate that Openness at Home?”

Shapiro has recently interviewed Jane Goodall for National Geographic and Fran Lebowitz, Peter Coyote and Sarah McLachlan for newspaper profiles. His tribute to legendary author Jan Morris appeared in National Geographic in November 2020 and his remembrance of adventure writer Dervla Murphy was published by AFAR in June 2022.

He is author of the book, The Creative Spark: How musicians, writers, explorers, and other artists found their inner fire and followed their dreams, published in 2019 and winner of a bronze medal at the Independent Publisher Book Awards. The book is a collection of interviews and biographical sketches that serve as an inspiration for creative endeavors. Among those whom Shapiro interviews in The Creative Spark: Smokey Robinson, Lucinda Williams, Francis Ford Coppola, Pico Iyer, Jane Goodall, Amy Tan, David Sedaris, and Barbara Kingsolver.

A freelance journalist, Shapiro’s features have appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times. He’s written for the following newspaper sections: travel, news, sports, entertainment, business, real estate, home and garden, books, and the Sunday magazine. From 2011 to 2018, Shapiro wrote the San Francisco Chronicle’s weekly gambling column. Since 2008, he’s covered music and the performing arts for The Press Democrat, interviewing Lyle Lovett, Patti LaBelle, Graham Nash, Phil Lesh, and B.B. King.

Among his travel assignments: Shapiro has bicycled down Mongolia’s unmarked dirt roads for the Washington Post, tasted tequila in Jalisco for American Way, played baseball for a week at the San Francisco Giants fantasy camp for Lexus magazine, and tracked pumas in Chile’s Patagonia region on a photo safari for a custom lifestyle publication. He’s written for magazines including the Saturday Evening Post, The Sun, AFAR, Virtuoso Traveler and Alaska Beyond. Years ago, he profiled Jane Goodall for O the Oprah magazine.

Shapiro’s National Geographic Traveler cover story, about Jan Morris’ corner of Wales, won the 2007 Bedford Pace grand award for best feature about Great Britain. His article about sustainable seafood in Vancouver earned the 2016 Explore Canada Award of Excellence. He’s won the Lowell Thomas award from the Society of American Travel Writers, the Solas award for travel essays, and is a four-time winner of Travel Classics’ top prize.

Shapiro’s first literary book, A Sense of Place, is a collection of interviews with the world’s leading travel authors including Bill Bryson, Jan Morris, Peter Matthiessen, and Paul Theroux. In 2008, he wrote the text for Kraig Lieb’s photography book, Guatemala: A Journey Through the Land of the Maya. In 1997, O’Reilly Media published Shapiro’s book, NetTravel: How Travelers Use the Internet, an early guide to online travel planning. Subsequent editions came out in 2000 and 2002, published by Globe Pequot.

He co-directed and produced the 2017 documentary film, Junkyard Alchemist, about Sebastopol artists Patrick Amiot and Brigitte Laurent, who turn junk into art. The film earned Best of the Fest recognition in the short film category at the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival.

Also in 2017, Shapiro delivered a Sonoma County TEDx talk entitled “The Space Between” about how travel fosters understanding and can encourage people to build bridges rather than walls.

Among the countries Shapiro has reported from: Cuba, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Nepal, China, Mongolia, Singapore, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Kenya, South Africa, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Ireland, the UK (England, Scotland and Wales), Guatemala, Canada and Mexico.

Shapiro lives with his wife, Jacqueline Yau, and their two cats in Sonoma County, California, just north of San Francisco. He volunteers as a whitewater raft guide and sea kayak trip leader for Environmental Traveling Companions, a Northern California outfitter that takes disabled people on outdoor adventures.

In 2016, he co-led a 16-day raft trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, somehow rowing his wife without incident through the harrowing rapids of Lava Falls. He enjoys bicycling along the backroads of Sonoma County, playing low-stakes poker with friends, listening to live music, and attending San Francisco Giants games.

PRAISE FOR MICHAEL SHAPIRO’S A SENSE OF PLACE