Elliott Hester is a recipient of the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award, presented by the Society of American Travel Writers. A former Salon.com columnist, his current column, Continental Drifter reaches more than 10 million readers each month. His work has appeared in prominent magazines such as National Geographic Traveler, Reader's Digest, Caribbean Travel & Life, Maxim, Details, and Endless Vacation.

His humorous narratives are included in the Traveler's Tales anthologies Hyenas Laughed at Me and Now I Know Why and Not So Funny When it Happened. The editor of The Pelican Guide to the Bahamas (the world's first "Internet interactive" travel guide), Elliott was more surprised than anyone when his first book, Plane Insanity, became an international bestseller. His latest, Adventures of a Continental Drifter, was published in September, 2005, by St. Martin's Press.
 
Born and raised in Chicago, Elliott graduated from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He has since lived in New York, Sydney, Miami Beach, and recently spent six months holed up in a 200-year-old Barcelona apartment where much of the second book was written. Unattached and blissfully homeless, the "Continental Drifter" moves from one foreign destination to the next, writing his column and toting his worldly possessions in a rolling duffel bag.