Jeff Greenwald

Background

Jeff Greenwald was born on March 6, 1954 in Bronx, New York, United States, in the family of Robert Greenwald and Roslyn Greenwald-Miller.

Education

Jeff attended the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Career

On Jeff Greenwald's first trip to Asia in 1979, he designed urban playgrounds for UNICEF and the Nepal Children’s Organization. Arriving several months later in Thailand during the Khmer civil war, he served as a volunteer water engineer at Khao-I-Dang—-the largest of the Cambodian refugee camps. These early travel experiences shaped his career and philosophy about travel.

Greenwald made excursions to the Himalaya, India, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Japan, Java, and Bali. His articles about those trips appeared in the magazines GEO and Islands.

It was around this time that he began writing "Mr. Raja¹s Neighborhood: Letters from Nepal." Four years later, his travels in Nepal and Tibet would inspire "Shopping for Buddhas," first published by Harper and Row in 1990. As he circled the globe writing The Size of the World in 1993-1994, Greenwald posted dispatches to GNN, the Global Network Navigator, describing his journey.

In 2003, Jeff Greenwald co-founded the organization Ethical Traveler, of which he serves as the Executive Director. A project of the Earth Island Institute, Ethical Traveler is a global community dedicated to exploring the ambassadorial potential of world travel, as outlined in Greenwald's "Thirteen Tips for the Accidental Ambassador."

Using his many travel adventures as material, Greenwald also developed a one-man show in 2003 called "Strange Travel Suggestions." The show, which premiered at The Marsh in San Francisco, is an improvised monologue whose content is determined by the spin of an on-stage "wheel of fortune".

Achievements

• His later edition, published in the Lonely Planet "Journeys" series, won the Lowell Thomas Gold Award for Best Travel Book of 1996.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Best Tennis of Your Life: 50 Mental Strategies for Fearless Performance 2007
  • Snake Lake 2010
  • The Size of the World 1997
  • Shopping for Buddhas: An Adventure in Nepal 2014
  • FearlessTennis: The 5 Mental Keys to Unlocking Your Potential (2 Disc Set) 2002
  • Scratching the Surface 2008
  • Future Perfect: How Star Trek Conquered Planet Earth 1998
  • Mister Raja's Neighborhood: Letters from Nepal 1987
  • anazitontas ton vouda / αναζητώντας τον βούδα 2003
  • If You Find the Buddha 2006

Religion

Describes himself as “Another Buddhist Jew.”

Politics

Describes himself as “Democratic socialist cynic.”

Views

Quotations: "For anyone with an appetite for fantastic legends, a thirst for color (especially red), and a general craving for utter theological wonder, Nepal is a case study in all-you-can-eat."

"We go where we need to go, then try to figure out what we're doing there.”"Every time I set off on a journey, I feel like God has thrown me the keys to her car.".

Membership

• PEN

Interests

• Scuba diving, science fiction, tennis, Thai cooking.

Connections

Father:

Robert Greenwald

Mother:

Roslyn Greenwald-Miller