How Green Was My Father (1947)
How Lost Was My Weekend (1948)
The Crazy Glasspecker (1949)
20,000 Leagues Behind the 8-Ball (1951)
The Poor Man’s Guide to Europe (1953)
Time Out for Turkey (1955)
The Rich Man’s Guide to the Riviera (1962)
The Poor Man’s Guide to the Orient (1965)
Fly Down, Drive Mexico (1968)
In addition to writing successful mystery and suspense novels, David Dodge enjoyed a profitable second career as the author of humorous travel books. After publishing four mysteries, Dodge and his wife Elva and 5-year old daughter Kendal packed up their belongings and set out to see the world via the Pan American Highway.
In 1949, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine offered the following anecdote about how Dodge’s travel-writing career began:
[David] Dodge started writing a letter to his friends in the States, telling all about the first leg of their trip, through Mexico and Guatemala. The letter got so voluminous that Dodge concluded it would be more economical to publish it as a book, and send out copies, than to mail carbons to all and sundry by air. Thus, his best-selling travel story, How Green Was My Father.
David Dodge was fond of explaining that while many writers traveled in order to gather material to write about, his goal was to write in order to gather money to travel. As evidenced by his numerous and far-ranging travel diaries, as well as an astounding number of magazine articles, he was certainly successful in reaching this goal.
A David Dodge Companion 