5 Questions with Travel Memoirist Joseph Davida

After a near death experience at age fifteen, Joseph Davida left his parents’ home and moved into Manhattan. Too young to get a “real” job, he started up what became one of the biggest weed delivery services in New York to support himself while he pursued his career as a musician and songwriter. For years he worked with some of the best musicians in the world, until a nervous breakdown brought his time in the music industry to an end. During this time he traveled the world before finally settling in Nashville, where he had two beautiful daughters and started a successful chain of retail stores. He now concentrates on being a good father, and actively plans for the coming revolution…while also working to get his many stories onto the page.

Q: What’s inside the mind of a travel memoir author?

A: Oh man… A lot of things! The kinds of things that would probably make my mother very worried. Lately I’ve been trying to figure out a way to save the world. I see the future that my daughters will be inheriting, and it’s starting to look pretty bleak. But I do have hope. I feel like the current political landscape has woken a lot of people up to the fact that if we don’t get our act together pretty soon, it may become too late.



Q: Tell us why readers should buy “Traveling High and Tripping Hard”.

A: Well, it won’t be for everyone…but for anyone who appreciates all of the things that can be learned from making bad decisions, I think they can enjoy it. It’s a chance to travel to exotic places, and experience some things that most people would probably never want to personally subject themselves to. Also, it will hopefully make some people laugh.

Q: What makes a good travel memoir?

A: Something where the reader really feels like they are there with you. Whether they become inspired to visit the same places, or make a conscious decision to never wind up there, you want the reader to feel like they’ve experienced it. You want something that can take you on a journey that captures all of the joy and suffering that life has to offer, without creating any of the actual scars that come with it.

Q: Where can readers find out more about you and your work?

A: I’ve just started putting together a new website. Not sure of everything that will be on it yet, but the address is www.josephdavida.com .

Q: What has writing taught you?

A: That the process is hard. But if one person can read what I have written, and have a moment to escape from their own life—it will have all been worth it. After all of the years of debauchery and self-destruction, at least that’s what I’m trying to tell myself!