For more than half a century, travel writer and columnist Robert W. Bone has been a successful writer, author, editor and photographer in the U.S. and abroad. He began newspaper work while still in high school and college. Later, as a young lieutenant, he edited Army training manuals and lesson plans.

Bob Bone has been employed by the Buffalo (New York) Courier-Express, the Middletown (New York) Daily Record, the San Juan (Puerto Rico) Star, the New York Post, the Honolulu Advertiser, and the London Bureau of United Press.

He was also editor-in-chief of Brazilian Business  magazine in Rio de Janeiro, news editor of Popular Photography magazine in New York, and a picture editor on the staff of Time-Life Books. His first free-lancing stint was at the 1958 World Fair in Brussels. He did radio spots for NBC News in South America and later was a stringer for Timemagazine in Hawaii.

In 1968 Bob began to concentrate on travel subjects when he joined the late Temple Fielding, then known as the dean of American guidebook writers. Headquartered with Fielding in Mallorca, he traveled extensively while working on the annual Fielding's Travel Guide to Europe  and other Fielding books. Bob was working for Fielding when his employer made the cover of Time magazine. He was also mentioned in the article.

Bob Bone lived in Hawaii from 1971 to 2008. During that time he became known in the publishing world for the Maverick Guide series of books he began in 1977. The Maverick Guide to Hawaii  was published annually until 2001. He also wrote The Maverick Guide to Australia  and the Maverick Guide to New Zealand which were also published in multiple editions.

Working with his wife, Sara, Bob also wrote Fielding's Alaska and the Yukon, published in 1990. Although now out of print, the Alaska/Yukon book received glowing reviews, and it remains a good basic guide to that U.S. state and Canadian territory.

His articles and photographs have also appeared in many national magazines, including Travel-Holiday, Travel & Leisure, National Geographic Traveler, and the New Yorker. He was also the Hawaii travel correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. In 1991, one of his articles made the "main sheet" -- page one of the first section of the Tribune. He only wished his grandfather, a long-time loyal Tribune fan, had lived to see it.

Besides the Chicago Tribune, many other respected newspapers have carried his travel stories on world destinations. These include the Boston Globe, the New Jersey Record, the Miami Herald, the Toronto Star, the Dallas Morning News, the Saint Petersburg Times, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and others. He also wrote travel columns for the Honolulu Advertiseras well as for America Online, the Anchorage Times, and Travel Weekly.

In 1990, he was the first alumnus to be inducted into the Journalism Hall of Fame by his alma mater, Bowling Green State University of Ohio. His official biography was carried annually for many years in Who's Who in America.

Bob Bone was also one of the first writers to fully embrace the computer age. As far back as 1982, before the advent of the internet and email, he was transmitting stories by direct modem over phone lines to newspapers and magazines. He recalls that he had to convince some editors that he could do it before they would let him try. Today he also transmits his color photographs to clients via e-mail, and maintains special web addresses where editors can download his stories and high-resolution  images. (Example.)

He also built and maintains a special consumer-oriented travel website, travelpieces.com, featuring some of his recent stories and photos. (In addition, he has designed and produced websites for several fellow writers.)

Bob says he has three home towns in the Midwest, having grown up in Gary, Indiana; Pekin, Illinois; and Bowling Green, Ohio. When not traveling, or visiting his long-time home in Honolulu, he resides today in Walnut Creek, California, near San Francisco.