He spent 13 years living in Asia, where he served as Tokyo bureau chief for Newsweek and The Washington Post, respectively, and over his career has covered events in Japan, China, Korea, and Southeast Asia. In 1987, he became managing editor of Newsweek International in New York, where he directed and coordinated worldwide news coverage. As a regular contributor to National Geographic magazine between 1993 and 2002, Dahlby specialized in writing about Asia.