While writing his celebrated “Frugal Traveler” column for the New York Times, Matt Gross began to feel hemmed in by the focus on what he thought of as “traveling on the cheap at all costs.” When his editor offered him the opportunity to do something less structured, the “Getting Lost” series was born—a more immersive form of travel that allowed Gross to “lose his way all over the globe,” from developing-world megalopolises to venerable European capitals, from American sprawl to Asian archipelagos.