Continuing from Part 1 & Part 2, Wired writer Jenny Williams recently sat down for lunch with Alan Dean Foster and had a chance to ask him a few questions.  This is part 3 in a three part series.

Travel is an integral part of Alan Dean Foster’s life. He doesn’t just talk about it, he lives it. He has been all around the world and continues to travel regularly. He gets the most that he possibly can out of all of his trips. He tries to get to know the real country, meet the real people, and not just skim the surface. Part III of my interview with him discusses travel and includes several trip anecdotes. We also discuss why he settled in Prescott, Arizona. As wonderful as our town is, most people don’t tend to end up here accidently.

JW: What brought you to Prescott?

ADF: Well, we’ve been here 30 years. My wife JoAnn is from a town of 300 people in west Texas, and I’m from Los Angeles.

JW: Halfway in between.

ADF: Pretty much, yes. And not just physically. She couldn’t take L.A., and I couldn’t live in west Texas. And we were looking for a compromise. We wanted someplace where there were no fires, no floods, no earthquakes, no hurricanes, no tornadoes, mild summers, and mild winters. That eliminates pretty much everywhere in the continental United States except parts of Arizona and New Mexico. JoAnn originally wanted a Victorian house, and we saw an issue of Arizona Highways that featured Prescott, and there was a picture of a Victorian house on it. That’s even harder to find in Arizona and New Mexico. So we came here, immediately saw that all the Victorians were downtown, because when people back then made a little money and could buy a nice house, they didn’t want to live in the boonies, they wanted to live in civilization. As a result, anywhere you find Victorian houses generally, in cities, they are right smack in the center of the city, because the city grew up around them. The problem is, that while the Victorians in Prescott are beautiful, they are all right downtown. And we didn’t want that after moving from L.A. We found this house that wasn’t a Victorian, but was fairly close to town yet isolated, and was at the end of a dead end road, had a little property with it. Again this was 30 years ago. And fell in love with it and made an offer on it even though it wasn’t for sale. And after a couple of short negotiations, ended up buying it. And we’ve been in it ever since. Meanwhile the town’s grown up completely around us, but we’re still at the end of a dead end road.

ADF: We never regretted the move. I can live anyplace because of what I do. No place is perfect. Everybody would like to live in Tahiti and be five minutes from Manhattan. There is no such place. Or as my mother in law used to say, you can’t get all your squirrels up one tree. I miss the ocean, but that’s the only thing I miss living in Prescott. It’s changed a lot in 30 years, but when we moved here you couldn’t get anything to eat after 9:00 at night. It was pre-internet. If you wanted to do any real shopping you had to go to Phoenix, other than grocery shopping. I dislike the increase in traffic, but the roads department, which I think doesn’t get enough credit, has really managed to keep up pretty well, when you consider the explosive growth in the last 15 years. We’re still happy in the same house, and we’re still happy in Prescott.

JW: What are your favorite things to do in town?

ADF: I work out at the Y twice a week. As of a year and a half ago, I’m a competitive power lifter, the NASA [Natural Athlete Strength Association] Western Regional Champion in the unequipped bench press in my age and weight group, which I call Revenge of the Nerds, because I never did anything athletic in school. It’s very strange to be starting in on it at my age. I read, obviously a lot. The internet is wonderful. I have friends all over the world and we can keep in touch now easily, not just readers of my work, but friends. And my main thing is travel, which is all I’ve ever wanted to do, since the time I was a little kid. If I could be anyone in history I would have been Sir Richard Francis Burton. [...] I’m trying to see as much of this planet as I can before I die because I’m stuck on it. It’s the only one I’ll get to see. I’ve done pretty good. If I never could travel again I would be content. There’s still a lot of places I’d like to go. There’s places I’d like to go back to. My wife, unfortunately, is unable to travel and has been for about 16 years. She understands it’s a major component of who I am and what I do, as well, since my travels figure in my work. I still manage to get overseas once or twice a year.

JW: I wish I could travel more, but time, money, and small kids are all factors.

ADF: Everyone makes choices in their life. What’s funny, what’s ironic, is I know a lot of writers and artists who are not tied down by family or job responsibilities who could travel and who come up and say, “Gee, I wish I could this,” or “I wish I could go there.” And I’ll say, “Well, come on, I’ll make all the arrangements. All you’ve got to do is pay for yourself.” And people would say, “Great! Terrific. I’m going.” And months would go by and I’d call and say, “Are you still going?” “Yeah, I’m still going. I’ve just got to take care of one or two things first.” More months would go by, I’d call again. “Oh, I can’t go. I can’t go. Gotta do this show,” or “I gotta finish this book,” or “Gotta do this,” or “Gotta do that.” I had two guys go with me, both artists, one, a wonderful man named Ron Walotsky, who has since passed on, and last year James Gurney, the artist of Dinotopia and the dinosaur stamps from the U.S. Post Office. Terrific guy. I’m sure some of your readers will know the Dinotopia books, certainly if they have kids. And we went to North Africa for a month. We went to Malta, Tunisia, and Morocco. It was a terrific trip. A terrific trip. (source Wired)

Read the full article here.