Meet Gary McKechnie

Gary McKechnie is a two-time winner of the Society of American Travel Writers’ Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award, often referred to as ‘The Pulitzer Prize of Travel Writing’. His first was received for Great American Motorcycle Tours, which Southwest Airlines’ Spirit magazine called the “seminal book on motorcycle touring.” His second, in 2008, was awarded in the category of Adventure Travel for ‘Prairie Hog’, an account of his 1,144-mile motorcycle tour of Kansas and Nebraska.

Dubbed the ‘Mark Twain of Motorcycling’ by Road Trip magazine, Gary McKechnie is also the author of the British Automobile Association’s Spiral Guide to Florida and, with his wife, Nancy, co-author of Million Dollar Frauds, a collection of case studies on capital market crimes.

A writer for Walt Disney World, Harley-Davidson, and Fodor’s travel guides, Gary’s other work has appeared in National Geographic Traveler, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, the Miami Herald, and many other publications. A community activist, he has produced fundraising concerts, founded a drive and raised $40,000 to rescue an historic theatre, created the Lois Mercier McKechnie Working Mothers Scholarship at the University of Central Florida, and lives in Mount Dora, Florida, where he operates the Coconut Cottage Inn with his wife, Nancy.

AMAZING FACTS

• Gary spent approximately two years on the road to research USA 101.
  
  
• When judged by its size, weight, and dimensions, some theologians have compared USA 101 with the Bible.
  
  
• In ‘Time Enough at Last’, the Twilight Zone episode in which the last man on earth felt he finally had enough time to read all the books he wanted, USA 101 would have been the first book Burgess Meredith would have read.

  © 2009 SeetheUSA101.com

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