Travel Writing & Commentary

Discover the iconic landmarks, hidden gems, and cultural treasures that make Amsterdam unique. From the picturesque canals and historic architecture to world-class museums and bustling markets, this guide provides detailed descriptions and insider tips to help you navigate the city with ease.

Peter Marshall was born in Orkney, his ancestors were farmers and farm labourers on the northern island of Sanday – where, in 1624, one of them was murdered by a witch. Merging his local experience with wider historical expertise, Marshall looks afresh at a small group of islands that has been treated as a mere footnote, remote and peripheral, and in doing so invites us to think differently about key events of British history.

Dead horses, armed border guards and furious Slavs stand in the way. Join Andy on his battered old Suzuki GS1000G as we cross Europe, and ride together through the Iron Curtain to reach the very edge of Asia. Filled with adventure and humor, poignant and accidentally informative, this true-life story tells of travel in an era long gone, when we read paper maps like pirates on the high seas, and friends were made and lost along roads less traveled.

With "One-Way Ticket," Author Suzanne Wentley, a digital nomad and professional journalist, invites the listener on five sensational years of non-stop international travel. It all begins ten years ago, when this thirty-something leaves behind her plush office job, fully furnished home, and stable community of friends. With her orange cat Penelope, she embarks on a thirty-two-foot sailboat and eventually earns her US Coast Guard captain's license. Then, she divests down to a single backpack for more travels.

In this inspiring memoir—the antidote to the “just quit your job and ditch all your belongings to backpack the world” mentality—a young woman explores how she took calculated risks to follow her dreams: traveling and living abroad without sacrificing stability and comfort. Helene Sula always knew she wanted to pursue something a little different from a “normal life”—not an outright rejection of the conventional path many of her peers embraced but one that empowered her to experience other cultures and corners of the globe.

Since his time on Hildasay, Chris’s adventure has only gotten wilder. No one was more surprised than Chris when, in November 2020, he had an unlikely (seemingly destined) encounter with fellow adventurer Kate. The two turned out to be kindred spirits and – even more astonishingly – Kate made the bold decision to join Chris on the walk of a lifetime. Day in, day out, as they trekked the coastline down from Scotland together, their relationship grew, and soon the couple were thrown in at the deep end when their first child – baby Magnus – arrived.

At the age of 32, on an assignment to walk the most famous pilgrimage in the world – the Camino de Santiago, in northern Spain – Phoebe Smith somehow lost her way. Having spent a lifetime exploring unfamiliar places, she quit her dream job, ended her long-term relationship and headed home to North Wales to discover the point to…everything. In her search for answers she found herself – quite by accident – walking some of Britain’s oldest pilgrim paths. And in following these old ways, she ended up confronting past traumas that she thought she had laid to rest.

When Susan quit her job in London and set sail off the south coast of England on her beloved sailboat, Isean, she was unaware this spontaneous departure would lead to a three-year journey spanning several countries across the continent. With only the very basics on board, resourcefulness becomes an unexpected source of joy and contentment. But for all the physical and navigational challenges of her journey, the other side of her story reveals a more important change - an inner journey - that took place along the way.

The color of one's skin and passport have long dictated the conditions of travel. For Shahnaz Habib, travel and travel writing have always been complicated pleasures. Habib threads the history of travel with her personal story as a child on family vacations in India, an adult curious about the world, and an immigrant for whom roundtrips are an annual fact of life. Tracing the power dynamics that underlie tourism, this insightful debut parses who gets to travel, and who gets to write about the experience.

Do you want to know where the actual locals eat instead of ending up in tourist-trap restaurants? Do you like going to the coolest bars without spending your entire life savings on a beer? Do you believe there's more to traveling than just checking off the first three positions from TripAdvisor? If you answered 'yes!' to any of these questions, you are in the right place.

Travel isn’t just about how many passport stamps you have—it’s about your mindset. In Wander Woman, Santos busts myths about who can travel, empowering women to uncover the confidence they need to see the world for themselves, by themselves. and giving them the lifelong tools to challenge your preconceptions, try something new, and get out of your comfort zone—whether that’s halfway around the world or just down the street.

Former Stone Temple Pilots manager, Steve Stewart, reveals little known travel tactics picked up over more than 20 years of world travels. Many of these travel tips have never been made public, and can save you and your family thousands of dollars over just a few trips.

Why do people love trains so much? Tom Chesshyre is on a mission to find the answer by experiencing the world through train travel - on both epic and everyday rail routes, aboard every type of ride, from steam locomotives to bullet trains, meeting a cast of memorable characters who share a passion for train travel. Join him on the rails and off the beaten track as he embarks on an exhilarating whistle-stop tour around the globe, on journeys on celebrated trains and railways.

In this, the 2nd Audio book of the Rambling On trilogy, the load gets lighter and the speed slower, but Graham Field’s objective remains the same: he is fully focused on making the route to his demise as pleasurable as possible. And so the quest to his Chinese destiny begins. Now relieved of the whiskey, the road nevertheless continues to be an uphill struggle, not helped by the sub-zero winter temperatures. But being towed behind trucks and loaded on to buses evens out the ratio of endurance and pleasure.

When 80-year-old Julia Albu calls in to her favourite radio show with a zany, half-baked idea, she has no idea that it will lead her to the adventure of a lifetime. From helping push a 30-year-old Toyota bakkie up a precipitous mountain pass in Malawi to being ‘adopted’ by the riotous ex-pat South African community in Dar es Salaam and being fed mildly hallucinogenic ‘herbs’ by her Ethiopian driver-guide, nothing deterred 80-year-old Julia Albu from her quest to drive through Africa from the Cape to Cairo.