Dave Freeman, the ad executive and co-author of 100 Things to Do Before You Die: Travel Events You Just Can't Miss, an approach that led to a slew of similarly titled books, died August 17 after falling and hitting his head in his home in Venice, Calif., the Los Angeles Times reported. He was 47.

Published in 1999 by Taylor Trade, 100 Things to Do Before You Die grew out of the defunct travel website that co-author Neil Teplica and Freeman had created. Teplica told the Times that the book's title meant "you should live every day like it would be your last, and there's not that many people who do. It's a credit to Dave--he didn't have enough days, but he lived them like he should have."

The authors visited most of the sites mentioned in the book. According to an NPR interview in 2001, Freeman's favorites were "land-diving"--something like bungee jumping--on Vanuatu and the Las Fallas festival in Valencia, Spain, which features huge papier-mache and plaster statues that explode at midnight.