I finished this book last year in the summer and liked it a lot.  The author described it as a “philosophical self-help humorous travel memoir.”

Weiner was a veteran foreign correspondent for National Public Radio and traveled the world in search of the happiest places.

This is how the book was described on his web site:

As Weiner makes his way from Iceland (one of the world’s happiest countries) to Bhutan (where the king has made Gross National Happiness a national priority) to Moldova (not a happy place), he calls upon the collective wisdom of “the self-help industrial complex” to help him navigate the path to contentment.

He travels to Switzerland, where he discovers the hidden virtues of boredom; to the tiny-and extremely wealthy-Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, where the relationship between money and happiness is laid bare; to India, where Westerners seek their bliss at the feet of gurus; to Thailand, where not thinking is a way of life; to a small town outside London where happiness experts attempt to “change the psychological climate.” He also travels within the U.S.-and discovers that paradise is always a step away.

And here I am discovering the hidden virtues of boredom … zZZ.   His other writings are here: Eric Weiner’s Other Writing.