Christiane Bird was born in New York City, but after early childhood, did not live in the Big Apple again until after her graduation from college. In the interim, she got her first taste of exotic travel when her father, a medical doctor, moved the family to Tabriz, Iran, for three years before settling down in the small New England town of Storrs, Connecticut.
When Christiane told her New York City friends that she was writing a guidebook to New York — both city and state — most seemed surprised to hear that there was a state beyond the city. And that, Christiane has found, is a perception shared by many travelers, who don’t realize that New York City — as magnificent as it is — is but one small dot on the Empire State map.
Christiane’s favorite things about New York State are its many quirky, off-the-beaten-track towns that, despite their apparent isolation, hold important chapters of civil rights, cultural, and industrial history. Her favorite things about New York City are its endless diversity and the unusual quality of its light, most apparent in the late afternoons, when the buildings glow incandescent against a darkening sky.
A graduate of Yale University and former travel writer for the New York Daily News, Christiane is also the author of Moon Handbooks New York City, The Jazz and Blues Lover’s Guide to the U.S., Neither East Nor West: One Woman’s Journey Through the Islamic Republic of Iran, and A Thousand Sighs, A Thousand Revolts: Journeys in Kurdistan. She is currently working on a book about the Omani sultans and 19th-century Zanzibar.