Laurel Zuckerman talks with Gary Lee Kraut, writer, blogger, editer–and intrepid biker about Paris.
What kind of a name is Gary Lee Kraut?
Gary was a relatively common name to give boys in the late 1950s and early 1960s, at least in New Jersey. Lee is my middle name, given to me in honor of my great uncle. Kraut is something I inherited from my father, along with a desire to be my own boss.

What is your favorite thing about winter in Paris?
Seeing the monuments and buildings through bare trees, the way people wipe the cold off their hands when they enter cafés, the wonderful down comforter that some friends gave me for my birthday two years ago, and knowing that spring comes next.

How did you get into writing travel guides?
Between the ages of 23 and 26 I traveled a lot in the U.S. and in Europe. It was during that time that I also started writing fiction. I then went to graduate school to study creative writing and received an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. Afterwards I worked as a journalist in suburban New York for two years. I then came to Paris for a prolonged visit to my sister who had been sent here by her company on a two-year mission. After she left I decided to stay a little longer and later that year I heard that the New York publisher William Morrow & Co. was looking to create a guidebook to France. I sent a proposal and within a month I had a contract to write a 400-500 page guide to France. I’ve since written five guidebooks, numerous articles, short stories, essays and song lyrics. I write in lots of different forms but I’m primarily a travel writer or travel journalist. Becoming a travel writer was neither planned nor calculated but it’s no surprise that my interest in writing and travel and Paris would lead me there.

Are you ever tempted to go back?
I go back frequently. I’m a big fan of revisiting.

Apparently! You wrote a guidebook called “Paris Revisited: The Guide for the Return Traveler” and you now operate the website France Revisited. Why revisited?
I didn’t have the title “Paris Revisited” until well into writing that book. I wanted to convey the idea that it was a guidebook intended for readers and travelers who were prepared to go beyond the basics. Even though “Paris Revisited” was a fairly classic, if in-depth, guidebook, the more I thought about the idea of “revisiting” the more I was attracted to the various ways in which a place or culture or cuisine or people can be revisited or seen in a different light and how they or our points of view change over time.

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