Arthur Harris, 87; wrote of travels around world

Arthur S. Harris of Arlington, Vt., a frequent contributor to the travel pages of The Boston Globe, died of a tear in his aorta on Jan. 6. He was 87.

Mr. Harris made 93 international trips to such places as Iceland, South America, Asia, and Cuba. He was one of the first six American journalists to be allowed into communist China, his wife said. He wrote about his travels until he was 80, and his work was published in newspapers and magazines across the United States and Canada.

Among his favorite places, his family said, was Mexico. Beginning in the early 1970s, Mr. Harris spent three months of each year there, and his writing revealed his love for the country's beauty and culture.

"Puerto Angel has barely been touched by civilization: women, barefooted, wash clothes in the stream, carry loads on their heads; pigs roam the dusty streets," he wrote about an Oaxaca village in the Globe in 1970. "A few miles out, the Pacific, rolling in all the way from Antarctica, crashes onto long strips of lonely beaches, but here the protected harbor cuts the surf and makes swimming possible,"

Born in Winchester, Mr. Harris was drafted in World War II during his senior year at Harvard. He served with the American Friends Service Committee, doing forestry work at Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Mr. Harris worked for WRGB-TV in Albany until 1974, when he moved to Vermont and began pursuing travel writing full time.

He was also an avid hiker and backpacker throughout his life.

"He was so well rounded," said his wife of 47 years, Phyllis Gavitt. "He was a swimmer, a skier, a runner, and a tennis player. He actually skied until he was 80."

In addition to his wife, Mr. Harris leaves two sons, George of Conway Center, N.H, and Kevin Gavitt of Schenectady, N.Y. Services have been held. His ashes will be spread this summer from the top of Red Mountain in Vermont.

"He loved that mountain," his wife said. "It was his Shangri-La."