Not So Funny When It Happened seems like a real winner. Edited by Tim Cahill, who has written a number of good adventure travel books, published by Travelers' Tales, who have the travel anthology down to a fine art, and full of travel humor, which we all know is wonderful. How can this book not be great?
It might have something to do with the limited material available. There isn't, relatively speaking, a lot of travel humor published, and much of it is written by just a few very talented authors. Not So Funny does contain all the big names, but at one story apiece, they don't come close to filling up the book. For the rest of the content, Cahill has to go to less known and unknown authors, or to those who don't usually write misadventure travel essays. Unfortunately, Travelers' Tales has been down this road very recently, with There's No Toilet Paper on the Road Less Traveled; in other words, the best unknown stuff has already been used. That leaves Not So Funny with a lot of marginal articles, plus a few good ones.
An additional caveat: if you like humor, you've probably read the big names - Bill Bryson, Tim Cahill, David Sedaris, Douglas Adams, Anne Lamott, Dave Barry - in this collection already. And the essays included in Not So Funny aren't among their least-known works by any means.
In short, while I liked the concept behind this book, the reality of it leaves much to be desired. It is, however, worth reading once or twice, especially for the devoted travel writing fan.