Robert Reid is really going places. Frequently.
As a writer and editor of Lonely Planet travel guides since 1998, the 44-year-old Jackson Heights resident has seen it all — or at least flown over it.
He’s driven an old Soviet car around Bulgaria, traveled with the Canadian Mounties across Saskatchewan and retraced Anton Chekhov’s footsteps through former gulag sites beyond even Siberia.
These days, as US travel editor, he’s pulling shorter trips to Niagara Falls and Atlantic City, and making radio and TV appearances as a travel expert and representative of Lonely Planet.
@work caught up with the easygoing raconteur to find out how a guy who grew up in Tulsa, Okla., really couldn’t be kept down on the farm after he’d seen Paris.
Did growing up in the US heartland make you long to hit the road?
It started with family trips to Colorado and New Mexico. But I know exactly when I caught the travel bug, and it was when I was 6 and my parents took me to Mexico and I saw the Aztec pyramids. My dad bought me a little sun-god figurine, which is still on the wall of my room at my parents’ house. For years afterward, I would draw little Aztec figures.
Did you envision being a travel writer early on?
I worked on my high school newspaper, writing stories and comics, so I was always creative. In college, I majored in journalism and envisioned myself as a music writer, doing reviews and interviewing bands.
How did you wind up at Lonely Planet?
I moved to New York after college and stayed with a friend. I randomly found a job at a magazine called House Beautiful. That’s actually how I discovered Lonely Planet. I’d write little blurbs about sconces or imported sofas. We had all the Lonely Planet guides in the library for reference, and I’d sit and read them while I was supposed to be working. If I was writing about a piece of furniture from Botswana, I’d spend hours reading about Botswana and imagining being there.
How did you become a travel writer?
I went to Vietnam for a year and a half and taught English in the mid-’90s. I also worked at Vietnam News, an English-language newspaper, so I wrote travel articles in that paper to get clips. And I had a few pieces published in a California-based magazine called Destination Vietnam. When I came back to the US, I sent in my clips to Lonely Planet, and they offered me a job.
I worked for five years as an editor in their office in Oakland, editing and eventually planning guide books. Then I left to be a traveling author.
What was your first assignment?
I was offered a choice: I could contribute to the Caribbean Islands book or I could go to the Great Plains of the USA — the Dakotas, Iowa, Nebraska. So, I naturally picked the Great Plains. And to this day, it’s probably the best trip I’ve ever taken. It was fascinating. I drove about 10,000 miles.
Is travel writing like a permanent vacation?
I wouldn’t necessarily go on vacation for six weeks to the Great Plains, for example. But I got to see something I’d never seen before.
If I’m going on vacation, I’d probably go to Paris and live in an apartment for two weeks. But if I’m going for Lonely Planet, I like places that are overlooked or underdog destinations.
Part of my natural tendency — almost responsibility, really — is to give equal credence to overlooked places. People make fun of Cleveland, but what is the reality of Cleveland? There’s lots that’s fantastic about it. It’s my job to dispel false perceptions, whether a place is supposed to be boring, or dangerous, or the people there are supposed to be rude. Often it’s just not true.
What’s an underrated destination?
The flatlands of the US. They’re the floors of prehistoric oceans. Of course, if you’re only on the interstate, that area is designed to be flat and straight, so you’ll miss it.
For Europe, I’d say Bulgaria. I’ve been five times. It’s inexpensive. They’ve got great beaches and cheap skiing in winter, and they make good wine.
What’s a trick for getting to know locals?
One thing I did the last time I went to Bulgaria was, instead of renting a car, for the same price I bought an old Soviet car, a ’72 Moskvitch. So that was a great icebreaker — who’s this American with the old Soviet car? I met a lot of people that way.
Have you ever felt in danger or marooned?
I’ve never felt in danger. But as far as isolation . . . I’ve worked on the Trans-Siberian Railway guide, and once I traveled to Russia’s far east, beyond Siberia. I ended up on Sakhalin Island, just north of Japan. Anton Chekhov went there in 1890, as essentially the first gulag tourist, because the czar had a bunch of prisons built there as labor camps to work oil fields. So I retraced that and went to these really grim places. Chekov called it “hell,” and it still seems very Soviet-era and in decay. That was not vacation.
What’s the most challenging part of putting together a guide book?
Probably keeping up with a city’s nightlife. It’s always changing. Restaurants, bars, shopping. That’s the search that never ends.
And, of course, let’s not forget that when you come home after six weeks away, you’ve got to actually sit down for about six weeks and put the book together.
What’s your advice for a future travel writer?
Think about where you live and what you know. Just start writing about that area and develop a style. Find your voice. With blogs, you can get your writing out there easily. If you’re fascinated by the Poconos, write about that.
Why is this a dream job?
Because I can’t help but do it. It’s like when you’re a kid, and everything is new and exciting. That’s the same kind of sense you get traveling to new places. You’re wide-eyed and absorbing everything like a kid. It’s like a fountain of youth.
mkane@nypost.com