Grump journeys to find world's happiest places

0 Comments | USA TODAY, January, 2008 | by Carol Memmott

As a child, Eric Weiner preferred mopey Eeyore to his more optimistic sidekick Winnie-the-Pooh. As an adult, friends tell him he lives up to his last name (sounds like whiner). Weiner concedes he's just not a happy guy.

Armed with the adage "write about what you know," the National Public Radio correspondent packed his American right to the pursuit of happiness and took it on the road. His goal: Find the world's happiest places. The result: The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World (Twelve, $25.99).

"Where we are affects who we are," says Weiner, 44, who traveled the world for NPR for 10 years and is based in Washington, D.C. "Where we are in terms of topography and weather and, most of all, our culture affects how happy...