Travel Adventure Writing

Whether he's chasing sailfish in Panama or hunting dove and quail deep in Mexico, Gordon England pursues outdoor sports with a passion for the biggest and best. In this collection he catches huge dolphin in the Exumas, races motocross through woods both on and off the trails, hunts ducks in brutal Texas snow and ice, hooks hopelessly large blue marlin in Nassau, and gets lost at sea in a monstrous Gulf of Mexico storm.

In the long hot summer of '88, the author packed up his motorcycle and pulled out of the garage with no destination or return date in mind. The year 1988 would prove to be the worst drought since the dustbowl of the 1930s. Yellowstone would burn, Ronald Reagan would shake his fist at the Evil Empire, and the author, oblivious to it all, hit the road and never looked back. That trip would consume the entire summer, logging over 12,000 miles from sea to sea and back.

This is Switzerland's second largest city (behind Zürich), with 178,900 residents, and is heavily influenced by its French neighbors to the west and south. Here you'll find the quintessence or haute école of everything Switzerland stands for in the new century: beauty, wealth, education, international relations, and culture, not to mention romantic scenery at its finest. One aspect of Geneva that is hard to miss is the Genevois' love of food....

We never know what will happen next in Florida. We know only that, any minute now, something will. Every few months, Dave Barry gets a call from some media person wanting to know, "What the hell is wrong with Florida?" Somehow, the state's acquired an image as a subtropical festival of stupid, and as a loyal Floridian, Dave begs to differ. Sure, there was the 2000 election. And people seem to take their pants off for no good reason. And it has flying insects the size of LeBron James. But it is a great state, and Dave is going to tell you why.

The Languedoc is a hidden jewel of Europe; the most discriminating tourists are delighted to discover it. The area has many of the same traits that endear people to neighboring Provence: a warm coastline, outdoor markets, picturesque hillside villages, gourmet dining, and vineyards dotting the landscape. Yet Provence is the one with the reputation that causes tourists to flock there.The Languedoc has a certain immeasurable quality to it. Fond memories cling to you well after you return home.

On a visit to Jerusalem, Bruce Feiler has a revelation: the stories of the Bible occurred in real places, places he could visit today. So he sets out on a perilous 10,000 mile journey retracing the greatest stories ever told.

Delhi exists in a kind of quantum state: In Delhi, all things are true at once. When the Big Apple no longer felt big enough, Dave and Jenny moved to a city of 16 million people and, seemingly, twice that many horns honking at once. Delirious Delhi depicts India's capital as the two experienced it, from office life in the rising tech hubs to the traffic jam philosophy that keeps people sane in the gridlock leading to them. With only their sense of humour as their guide, Dave and Jenny set out to explore a city in which ancient stone monuments compete with glass-clad shopping malls to define the landscape.

In their book Drive Nacho Drive, Brad and Sheena Van Orden traded the American Dream for the open road, and set off in their temperamental 1984 VW van named "Nacho." After 13 months of humorous and sometimes demoralizing misadventures along the Pan-American Highway, our intrepid subjects eventually arrived at the southernmost town in the world in Tierra del Fuego.

With his Pulitzer Prize-winning Annals of the Former World, John McPhee explores not only the richly varied surface of the United States, but the geological wonders hidden deep beneath our feet. In this final book of the series, he embarks on a fascinating journey across the basement of the continent - the land masses forming Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and thereabouts - with a professor and geochronologist acting as a guide.

A tale of adventures, as Lin and Larry Pardey continue their voyaging on board their self-built 24'4" cutter. They cross the exotic sea that spawned Homer's tales of Ulysses' Odyssey, then sail through the strife torn Red Sea and across the typhoon tossed waters of the Bay of Bengal.

A deeply personal travel memoir that combines alpine adventure, family connections, and spiritual encounters in two very different worlds: a Himalayan village and Vancouver, Canada. In 2012, Michael Schauch and his wife, Chantal, undertook an expedition deep in the Himalaya of northern Nepal, into a remote valley that had been closed off to outsiders for decades. They led a team of artists (a photographer, a musician, and a painter), with the objective of capturing a moment in time through their unique lenses.

At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt's harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth.

Adventure on a Dare is the first in a series of true-life accounts describing Fritz T. Sprandel's journey into himself in which he discovers his capricious nature and raises questions about the nature of faith. During the course of his adventure, Fritz visits a variety of natural wonders, small towns, and fascinating people on a budget of 10 cents and his own amazing resourcefulness.

Spanning 15 years of travel, beginning when she is a sophomore in college, Wanderlust documents Elisabeth Eaves’ insatiable hunger for the rush of the unfamiliar and the experience of encountering new people and cultures. Young and independent, she crisscrosses five continents and chases the exotic, both in culture and in romance.

Sue Williams has delivered us Women of the Outback and Outback Spirit, stories she gathered from the people of the bush. Ever curious, this time Sue puts herself in the firing line, seeking to find the essence of the outback experience - perfect for all us armchair travellers. She travelled the width and length of Australia by bus, train, car, campervan, Troopy, horse, goat, foot, and plane. She helped pregnancy-test cattle at a remote property in the far north of South Australia, swallowed countless flies, and ran through muddy dams carrying a pretend-sheep on her shoulders.

What secrets do the Las Vegas storm drains keep? What discoveries wait in the dark? What's beneath the neon? Armed with a flashlight, tape recorder, and expandable baton, Las Vegas CityLife writer-editor Matthew O'Brien explored the Las Vegas flood-control system for more than four years. Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas chronicles O'Brien's adventures in subterranean Vegas. He follows the footsteps of a psycho killer. He braces against a flood. He parties with naked crack-heads.

Driving terrified me; I hadn't done it in a decade. But if I could drive in India, I could drive anywhere. If I drive a tuk-tuk, I could drive anything. And if I said yes, I'd get to spend 10 days with her. Would that be enough time to find out who she was, what she wanted, and then convince her to abandon that and want me instead? There was only one way to find out.

Raised in the extreme religious cult called the Children of God, Juliana Buhring was frequently punished for being a rebel and finally broke away. Her soul mate was an explorer seeking the source of unmapped rivers in Africa. When he was killed by a crocodile, her world went dark. To escape paralyzing grief, Buhring set herself a goal. Never having seriously ridden a bike, she set out to ride one around the world.

Many an incredible story may have been told about young courageous men and women cycling the globe in search of adventure, covering vast distances at speed each day with not a care in the world. Well, this story is a little different. It is a story about a 350-pound middle-aged, disabled, working-class husband and father. I was never a regular cyclist, and I knew nothing about bicycle maintenance and repair. Solo, self-financed, with no support network and without any fixed route plan other than, “I’m going that way.” What could go wrong? I wondered.

The draw of St. Barts is the island's French character in a tropical setting. There are plenty of coves and beaches, and wherever you go the villages are neat and roads are good. Then there are the hotels and villas. The hotels have been carefully planned to be small and precious, with emphases on exquisite service and guaranteed privacy. At restaurants the island's fusion of French and Creole cuisines is offered in gorgeous settings. Shops in Gustavia and St. Jean even offer Parisian shopping in paradise.