Travel Writing & Commentary

Among the most beautiful and deadly mountains in the world, Mount Washington has challenged adventurers for centuries with its severe weather. From the days when gentlefolk ascended the heights in hoop skirts and wool suits to today’s high-tech assaults on wintry summits, this audiobook offers extensive and intimate profiles of people who found trouble on New Hampshire’s Presidential Range, from the 19th century through the present day.

A ten-day challenge—just 240 hours allotted for riding their motorcycles through each of the 48 contiguous U.S. states: Through fascinating stories from a lifetime on the road, through a descriptive narrative that bridges across three generations of father and son riders, Wes Stephenson instills a sense of “being there”, crossing the continent in the saddle of a motorcycle or sitting around a campfire swapping tall tales with larger-than-life characters that add to the richness of life.

Seven years ago, readers and listeners around the country fell in love with a singular American voice: Rinker Buck, whose infectious curiosity about history launched him across the West in a covered wagon pulled by mules and propelled his book about the trip, The Oregon Trail, to ten weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, Buck returns to chronicle his latest incredible adventure: building a wooden flatboat from the bygone era of the early 1800s and journeying down the Mississippi River to New Orleans.

Sam savors every local culture he encounters much like Conan O’Brian and the late Anthony Bourdain—embracing the people, their food, and especially their curiosities. His humor and infatuation with humanity’s diversity fuel each story. Teaching in Korea and Vietnam since 2015, Sam uses his time out of the classroom to explore the rest of Asia. His five-book series, Itchy Feet Travel Tales in Asia, covers his adventures (and misadventures) in Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Russia, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Travel vicariously with Sam across the Orient. Sam savors every local culture—embracing the people, their food, and especially their curiosities. His humor and infatuation with humanity’s diversity fuel each story. Teaching in Korea and Vietnam since 2015, Sam uses his time out of the classroom to explore the rest of Asia. His five-book series, Itchy Feet Travel Tales in Asia, covers his adventures (and misadventures) in Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Russia, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Sam savors every local culture he encounters much like Conan O’Brian and the late Anthony Bourdain—embracing the people, their food, and especially their curiosities. His humor and infatuation with humanity’s diversity fuel each story. Teaching in Korea and Vietnam since 2015, Sam uses his time out of the classroom to explore the rest of Asia. His five-book series, Itchy Feet Travel Tales in Asia, covers his adventures (and misadventures) in Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Russia, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.

This audiobook offers an overview of different aspects of Hawaiian and contains a Hawaiian language course at three levels of complexity—basic, intermediate, and advanced together with review material. This is an ideal way to get more out of your trip to Hawaii with a better understanding of both the language and culture after listening to this audiobook.

Hidden in Scandinavia, Iceland charms like few countries do. Iceland's uniqueness can enchant for a lifetime. Learn about this delightful land and who knows? Maybe you too will find Iceland calling you.

Have you ever wondered where horse milk vodka comes from? Or how to fight off a mob of Malaysian monkeys? Is it bad luck to wash cow poop off of your shoe? Travel vicariously with Sam across the Orient to find the funny but true answers. Sam savors every local culture he encounters much like Conan O’Brian and the late Anthony Bourdain--embracing the people, their food, and especially their curiosities. His humor and infatuation with humanity’s diversity fuel each story.

Had Tolkien not spent nearly 18 months convalescing in the East Riding of Yorkshire, then he would probably not have survived the Great War. This modest publication, which contains a number of previously unpublished details about the author’s stay in the area, attempts to guide you around the corners of East Yorkshire that have a Tolkien connection. His stay recuperating at Brooklands Hospital in Hull gave him time to develop his writings, but it is the fragile and atmospheric coast of Holderness where he was billeted that helped to inspire him.

Hazel has never been to Ireland, and knows nobody there, but trusting her gut, buys a one-way ticket and sets off on the adventure of her lifetime— a journey full of chaos, magic, romance, and surprises. This book, Hazel's travel memoir, illustrates the importance of becoming your own best friend and owning who you are. Accompany Hazel on this wild ride through the Emerald Isle and the pieces of her life that brought her there. You will feel like you're sitting and having tea with your new best friend.

Outdoor writer Mike Arnold takes us on an impressionistic journey through Coutada 11, a once again magnificent natural area in Mozambique's Zambeze Delta. Mike leads us from its poached-out days as a source of bush meat for starving villagers and civil war military troops to the arrival in the early '90s of hunting outfitter Mark Haldane and his partners, on their often perilous, sometimes hilarious, travails to take the defiled and uninhabitable place and make it whole again.

In 2015, 36-year-old Chicago resident David King finds himself at a personal and professional crossroads. Feeling bored and restless, he longs to strike out on a crazy journey in a quest for beauty, kindness, and inspiration as to where his life should go from here. Having taken up biking as a hobby, he consults a map of the United States and, in a spur-of-the-moment decision, vows to ride across the country—from San Diego to Miami. Part travelogue, part memoir, part spiritual journey, America on Two Wheels is an ode to pursuing the open road with an open heart. 

Paddling a canoe into the sunrise. Watching a child take her first kayak ride with her father. Dodging campfire smoke while burning marshmallows and telling scary stories to wide-eyed kids. These are some of the moments and memories depicted in Summers at the Lake. The essays—often humorous, sometimes tinged with a sweet melancholy—celebrate the people and events marking the progress of the seasons, from the budding of the first leaves of May to their falling, gold and scarlet, in September. These prose poems capture the joy of simple, lakeside living and quiet reflection.

With the coming of the first decade of the 21st century, One Place de l'Eglise had become rather derelict. The roof leaked, the mortar in the ancient walls was crumbling; a fertilizer bag stuffed a broken window. There was no electricity to speak of; the plumbing was a lead pipe in one room; the cellar doors had rotted. And there it stood. Shutters and doors firmly locked, the villagers of Causses-et-Veyran passing by to the church next door. Then, an impoverished—in his mind at any rate—Londoner and his wife went a little crazy and bought it. It was love at first sight.