Michael Brein's Travel Guides to Sightseeing by Public Transportation: Michael Brein's Guide to Washington DC by the Metro (PDF)

Michael’s most memorable experience in this past life was teaching for the University of Maryland's overseas European Division for two years, where he largely began collecting people's travel stories in earnest for his above-mentioned book.

Michael suffers from an addiction to travel, having visited, so far, more than 100 countries. He is a member of two travel and adventure clubs. Michael's dubious crowning achievement is his winning (among 77 other winners!), United Airline's ‘50 State Marathon' promotional challenge to fly to all 50 states within 50 days, earning a 'Gold Card', good for unlimited, free first-class air travel for one year throughout the United States (back in 1985).

Today, Michael works on his travel books and guides and his latest passion, his web site! As another avocation, Michael is Ambassador-at-Large for MUFON, the free-world's largest UFO research organization.

Michael will soon reside in Hawaii once again, but will continue his life of travel and adventure using Honolulu as his jumping-off point.

Co-researcher on Michael Brein’s London and Paris guides and co-author and co-researcher on the New York and Washington, DC guides, Penelope (Penne) Franklin was born in Manhattan but grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she read voraciously and began writing at an early age. During her college years she escaped back to New York City, where she has lived ever since. She graduated from Columbia University with majors in psychology and art, then attended New York University's Publishing Institute. After serving as promotion director and then editor for several publishers, she became a freelance writer/editor/researcher in 1980. In addition to her contributions to Michael Brein's Guides, Penne has worked as a journalist; edited a newsletter for UNICEF; written industrial films, advertising copy, and short fiction; researched international art and artists; taught journal writing; and produced a monthly radio program. She is the author of Private Pages: Diaries of American Women 1830s-1970s, published by Ballantine Books. Penne is a member of the independent editors' group, Words into Print (www.wordsintoprint.org), and writes a weekly syndicated column, The Allergic Gourmet. Currently, she's putting together a collection of letters by the writer Laurie Colwin, and working on a novel.