Czech travel writer Miroslav Zikmund dies at 102

PRAGUE (AP) — Czech travel writer Miroslav Zikmund has died at age 102. The museum in the eastern city of Zlin said Zikmund “left for his final journey” on Wednesday. Zikmund teamed up with his university schoolmate and friend Jiri Hanzelka to make two big adventurous and often dangerous trips throughout Asia, Africa Latin America and elsewhere that took years. During their first trip, which began in 1947, they drove a Czech-made limousine through Africa from north to south, then moved on to Latin America. Zikmund and Hanzelka wrote dozens of books about their travels that sold millions of copies worldwide and were translated into a dozen languages. They eventually suffered political persecution from Czechoslovakia’s communist regime.