Media
Village Herald
Janury 23, 2003
Malverne Newlywed writes about travels with his wife
By Cindy J. Roth
For most people, going on vacation is a way to get away from work, the trivialities of everyday life and sometimes even family and friends. For Dominick Miserandino, however, traveling is what pays the bills.
The Malverne resident recently published his first book, "How to Survive Your First Year of Marriage by Traveling: San Tropez, France to Helena, Arkansas." The book is a compilation of humorous travel stories written from the perspective of a newlywed adjusting to married life while detailing for readers the hot spots of various destinations.
The book evolved as a result of the popularity of the travel columns Miserandino writes for his online magazine, TheCelebrityCafe.com. Miserandino founded the magazine in 1996 and publishes celebrity Interviews, CD reviews and travel stories. The magazine has a monthly readership of more than 1.1 million and is widely known and respected in the entertainment world.
Miserandino has always been a writer at heart and started working on the Web site at night, while toiling as an assistant trader on Wall Street and then a computer programmer.
"I had a business sense, computer skills and a passion for writing," said Miserandino on why he started the online magazine. The 30-year-old said he has been able to stay afloat while many other dot-coms failed because, he said, "I didn't fall into the spend-a-lot-to-make-a-lot mentality It's a balance between being cautious and riding the wave."
Miserandino and his wife, Margherita, travel about every two or three weeks, and have gone all over the world, seeing everything from the low-down to the luxurious. Their stories focus on interesting places to visit at each destination, good places to eat and things to avoid, all presented in a writing style that sounds like a friend telling you about his vacation over a cup of coffee. The Miserandinos choose their destinations based on requests from the magazine's readers, places that call and invite them to tour, or simply places they want to see. Dominick calls traveling an "inadvertent success" of his online magazine, one that has become something of a staple in his marriage.
Because the book disperses Dominick's thoughts to the world at large, Margherita said, she is sometimes concerned about which of her actions or comments may show up in one of his stories. It becomes obvious in the first few stories of the 25 in the book that Margherita is an avid shopper whom Dominick is constantly trying to restrain. A few stories later, readers who've become familiar with the Miserandinos can probably accurately guess what the couple will order for dinner and dessert.
But Margherita said she gets the final word on what her husband writes about her, and hasn't had any problems with what has been published so far. Her favorite thing about Dominick's columns and the book, she says, is "the way he pulls out good things from everywhere, from little hick towns to the French and Italian rivieras."
Being a travel writer is no light task, requiring the carrying of computers, chargers, cameras and a dozen other technical gadgets that always challenge airport security. And forget long vacation nights drinking in quaint little bistros. Dominick often retreats to his hotel room early to capture the essence of a location before he leaves — a habit he'll keep as he works on his second book, which is set to come out next fall.