[4] Born and raised in Deerfield, Illinois, Herzog obtained a degree in psychology from Cornell University in 1990.
Herzog has published a trilogy of travel memoirs about his exploration of life lessons in small-town America.
[13] In 2004, Herzog published his second travel memoir, Small World (Pocket Books), a post 9/11 examination of the state of the union and the ties that bind.
Once again, he examined the country's tiniest hamlets – from Rome (Oregon) and Athens (New York) to Jerusalem (Arkansas) and Calcutta (West Virginia).
Turn Left at the Trojan Horse: A Would-be Hero's American Odyssey (Citadel Press, 2010), a cross-country version of the ancient Greek epics, completed Herzog's travel trilogy.
It chronicles a trek to his college reunion in Ithaca, as he re-imagines the ancient journey of Odysseus, visiting tiny hamlets with names like Troy (Oregon), Sparta (Wisconsin), Iliad (Montana), Calypso (Montana) and Apollo (Pennsylvania).