From Maine to Phu Quoc, David Lamb found some of this planet’s best places

Reporting from  — Longtime Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent David Lamb died June 5 in Virginia at 76, but his insights and advice will endure for years -- and not only in Lamb’s several books about Africa, Asia and the Arab world.

Through the years, Lamb also contributed frequently to the pages of Travel. In the last 11 years, retired from the paper and writing as a freelancer, he took Times readers along bike routes in New Zealand and Catalonia, Spain; aboard a four-masted cruise ship in the Aegean Sea; into a lakeside cabin in Maine; onto the Vietnamese Island of Phu Quoc; and around the world on a 23-day private jet tour priced at $64,950 a head (but Lamb, serving as a lecturer, flew free).

On this trip, he learned about 28-foot-long pythons and 2-foot-long rats.

Here, he roamed a 1,000-acre former prison site that once held 40,000 POWs.

Here, he was able to arrange seven nights of lodging, meals and bike rentals (with guide and transport van) for $1,600 per person.

Here, he glimpsed Gallipoli.

Here, he waded through knee-deep flooding to reach lunch in a 14th-century castle.

Lamb joined the Times as a reporter in 1970. Over the next 34 years as a staffer, he reported stories from more than 100 countries. Besides his stateside posts, he served as a correspondent based in Africa, the Middle East and Vietnam (during the war and then 20 years later).

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