Moon Spotlight Martha's Vineyard

Author and photographer Jeff Perk has swum with giant mantas in Micronesia, sweated through a Bolivian silver mine, gone dog-sledding in Finland, sipped slivovitz in Hvar, enjoyed the Takarazuka in Tokyo, and, as a result, has never needed to own a TV. He grew up in southern Illinois, catching fireflies, eating fresh catfish, and smelling sweet magnolia blossoms in spring. He traded it all for fried clams and fall foliage when he left the humid prairie to attend high school and college in New England. After sampling life on the West Coast, briefly laboring in San Francisco's film industry, Jeff rebounded east in time to be swept up in Boston's high-tech boom of the late 1980s. Despite racking up oodles of frequent flyer miles on business, Jeff's true travel addiction didn't strike until he crossed paths with an international cadre of globetrotters traipsing through New Zealand and Australia. A three-month sabbatical between jobs in 1989 grew into nearly four years of backpacking around South America, hitching rides aboard yachts in the South Pacific, and squeezing through slot canyons in the American Southwest. As the mileage awards began to run out, it seemed only natural to become a travel writer--a job that allowed Jeff to embrace everything from scuba diving in Fiji to touring the backwater sloughs of the Mississippi Delta. During the latter half of the 1990s, Jeff finally sat still long enough to write the Moon Handbooks to his adopted city (Boston) and state (Massachusetts). He has also contributed to other guidebooks, including Road Trip USA and Road Trip USA: New England, and is editor of the 10th edition of Car-Free in Boston, the nation's oldest transit-users' guide. A periodic contributing editor for Yankee magazine, Jeff has also been published in newspapers and online. When not writing about his latest adventures or selling his services to local software firms, Jeff can be found bouncing to the salsa beat of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.