He has also contributed to several business books and is co-author of Hip-Hop, Inc.: Success Strategies of the Rap Moguls.

 

He has published travel articles in newspapers, in magazines, and on the web for 16 years, dispatching articles from five continents. He has been a regular columnist for Transitions Abroad magazine since 2002 and has reviewed hundreds of hotels in 14 countries for a travel trade publication. His work has appeared in Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, St. Petersburg Times, Every Day with Rachel Ray, Imbibe, Travel Smart, International Living, South American Explorer, International Travel News, Bargain Style, Outpost, Worth, and Specialty Travel Index, as well as on a variety of web sites, including his regular column in Tripso.com, syndicated by MSNBC. 

 

He is editor of the narrative travel site PerceptiveTravel.com, which features unusual articles from authors on the move. The publication won two of the four Grand Prizes in NATJA's annual awards and many of Perceptive Travel's features have been published or highlighted in the Best American Travel Writing anthologies.

 

Leffel has circled the globe three times and has also worked as an English teacher in Turkey and South Korea.

 

After a historically awful year for the music label he worked for in the mid-90s, Leffel and his then girlfriend (now wife) Donna made plans to quite the rat race and go traveling around the world. The trip turned out to be a good test for their eventual marriage. As Leffel explains, “Try being with anyone 24 hours a day, every day, and having to make daily decisions about where to eat and what train or bus to take where. If you can do that for a year and come out of it without strangling each other, you’re meant to be together.”

 

Once they started, it was hard to stop. As Leffel explains in The World’s Cheapest Destinations, “After buying our plane tickets for that first trips, the two of us traveled for seven months on $4,500. That paid for lodging, two or three restaurant meals every day, trains, buses, ferries, sightseeing, motorcycle rentals, outdoor adventures—you name it.” Once they realized they could see the world for less than their monthly rent, they were hooked.

 

Tim Leffel now splits his time between two homes: one in a historic area of Nashville, TN and a modest beach house in a Mexican fishing village on the coast of the Yucatan. He has one daughter, a lucky girl who received her first passport at age three. In his travel writing, he continues to spread the word that there are many options beyond an expensive trip to the standard, well-worn travel spots. As Leffel explains, “Hopefully I can help others discover that they don’t have to be a trust fund kid or a rich retiree to travel overseas. If you journey to destinations that are a good value, and avoid doing what everyone else is doing, you can travel well on any budget.”

 

Leffel is frequently quoted in the media as a value travel expert and has appeared repeatedly in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, MSN Money, Men's Health, Newsweek, and others.

For an update on what Leffel is working on, as well as a rundown on what's happening in the world of international travel, see his award-winning blog at travel.booklocker.com. For his full portfolio, see www.timleffel.com/.