Actor, director and travel writer Andrew McCarthy just released his new book, Who Needs Friends: An Unscientific Examination of Male Friendship. Even though it is a book exploring male friendships, there is plenty of travel involved, as McCarthy drove more than 10,000 miles to reconnect with friends.

McCarthy has a history of using travel as a backdrop in books. In The Longest Way Home McCarthy shared his journey to several places, while searching for answers within himself. Walking with Sam is his tale of walking with his son across 500 miles of Spain’s Camino de Santiago.

Who Needs Friends did not start as a cross-country journey. When McCarthy decided to reconnect with old friends, he started with one driving trip. While there, it seemed logical to go to the next friend. Friend after friend, mile after mile, the trip took on its own life.

In Who Needs Friends McCarthy explores several friendships he has but also immerses himself in the various locations. The trip was still focused on friendships, but McCarthy did not hesitate to make side trips to interesting places like Roy Orbison Museum in Wink, Texas. He also backtracked several miles when he realized he passed Winslow, Arizona, wanting to take a picture paying homage to the Eagles song “Take It Easy.”

© Andrew McCarthy

One of the pleasures of interviewing McCarthy about travel is his deep passion for it. Rising to fame as an actor in the 1980s, McCarthy had to prove himself in journalism to be taken seriously as a travel writer. Very quickly he established himself, though.

One of McCarthy’s central thoughts is differentiating between travel and vacation. Travel involves getting out of one’s comfort zone, while vacation is mostly about comfort. Having read McCarthy’s other books and attended a few of his lectures, I know he prefers the grit of travel. He eschews being pampered on vacation.

McCarthy discussed all of this and answered all of my other travel questions. Next week I will attend another of his lectures, where I will get a hard copy of Who Needs Friends to add to my bookshelf.

Talking Travel is an interview series on Global Traveler. Subscribe to the GT YouTube channel to be notified of all future interviews and other travel-related videos.

— John Wroblewski, podcaster