Travel Adventure Writing

Roads bind our world—metaphorically and literally—transforming landscapes and the lives of the people who inhabit them. Roads have unparalleled power to impact communities, unite worlds and sunder them, and reveal the hopes and fears of those who travel them.

This charming account of the voyage of two men in a small boat half way round the world from Plymouth to New Zealand in 1953 is a rare insight into a time, not long ago, when sailors had no GPS, electronics, radio or any of the mod cons that we take for granted today. Without lifejacket or a life raft, they 'just took what came along', hand steering all the way, navigating by sextant, hand-cranking their engine and using oil lamps for light at night and for navigation. Sailors will be staggered how primitive conditions were only a few decades ago, even though it was the norm at the time.

The stories in this book are all true. Its author has been held up at gunpoint at night on a road in Guatemala and shot with a machine gun in the chest and shoulder in Vietnam. He's come close to dying of thirst in the Sahara and freezing to death in the Himalayas. He's contracted malaria and typhoid fever in Ethiopia and hepatitis in India. There have been accidents involving motorcycles and automobiles. He's had close calls involving lions (twice), elephants (three times) and a rhino (once).

The North Pole, originally published in 1910, makes available Robert E. Peary's own account of his expedition in the Arctic. It provides hotly contested evidence that remains an indispensable key in deciding who deserved the coveted title "Discoverer of the North Pole". It is also a gripping adventure story that is impossible to put down.

Geordie Stewart left his home and his job in the army to cycle across Europe and Asia. Alone on a bike, he experienced freedom and isolation travelling across open deserts and through a vicious Siberian winter. His journey took him 13,000 miles, but this isn’t a story of the number of miles ridden. It's about choosing an unfamiliar path which led him to discover and confront previously unknown truths.

In Dance Life: Movin' & Groovin' Around the Globe, Lisa Alpine combines her three all-encompassing passions - writing, travel, and dance - into a bouquet of 27 stories that span her lifetime and the globe. From twerking with a nun in an Albanian orphanage to salsa dancing with a hottie under the burning sun in Cuba, to braving an attempt at flamenco on a Parisian tabletop, these toe-tapping tales will inspire you to follow the call of a wild life, leaving home with your passport in hand and your dance shoes stuffed into the suitcase.

Der Teenager-Drecksack-Antiheld (TDA) will nach Asien, weil dort das Grass vermeintlich grüner sein soll...

With a bottomless taste for the absurd, nothing is too outrageous for Doug Lansky. In the plucky, hilarious, and irreverent spirit of Lansky's popular syndicated travel column, "Vagabond," comes Last Trout in Venice, a book of adventurous and wacky travel essays that will have you laughing out loud.

Following the hugely popular and successful Around the World in 80 Days and Pole to Pole, Michael Palin set off to meet another challenge: an anti-clockwise circumnavigation of the world's largest ocean, the Pacific.

Am 23. November 2011 sticht die damals 34-jährige Janice Jakait in Portugal in See. Als erste Deutsche wird sie allein den Atlantik überqueren - allein und nur mit Muskelkraft. "Row for silence" nennt sie ihre Aktion, mit der sie auf den Unterwasserlärm aufmerksam machen will, der für Meeressäuger und Fische tödliche Folgen hat. Aber sie will auch ihre innere Unruhe besiegen, sich selbst in der Stille begegnen. 90 Tage, 6500 Kilometer und eine Million Ruderschläge lang behauptet sie sich gegen die Gewalten, gegen Hunger und Müdigkeit - und ist schließlich nicht nur in Barbados, sondern auch bei sich selbst angekommen.

Mount Kilimanjaro is sometimes called "Everyman's Everest" because it is possible for a novice climber to reach the summit. And every year, more than 30,000 adventure tourists try. But for each person who goes to the mountain, there are thousands more who chat about it at parties, making plans to go...someday. That's how Daniel Dorr got started: flirting with a beautiful brunette and spouting impressive plans. Six months later, he was lying on the gravel trail at 18,000 feet, panting and hacking in the darkness.

Sin pasajes de avión, tren, barco o autobús, Enrique Córdoba nos lleva a recorrer gran parte del planeta, comenzando por los dos extremos de la tierra, el polo norte, donde se inició la fiebre del oro; y en el otro fin del mundo, el polo sur, la tierra del fuego. De una manera maravillosa lleva al oyente a recorrer Oceanía, Asia, Europa y América; internándolo en la cultura de diferentes países, su gastronomía; modo de vida y hasta secretos para tomar en cuenta al momento de idear una guía de viaje.

More than 200 years later, the “voyage of discovery” — with its outsized characters, geographic marvels, and wondrous moments of adventure and mystery — continues to draw us along the Lewis and Clark Trail. Revisit the Lewis and Clark Trail and its famous people, landmarks, and events, exploring questions the expedition continues to raise, such as, What really motivated Thomas Jefferson to send out his agents of discovery? What “mutinous expressions” were uttered? What happened to the dog? Why did Meriwether Lewis end his own life?

What would it be like to cast aside the industrial bustle of the early 20th century to hop a freighter bound for the verdant jungles and untamed wildlife of the fabled Amazon? H.M. Tomlinson did just that, trading the streets of Swansea, Wales, for the open sea of the Atlantic. Thanks to Tomlinson's sharp eye for detail, his spellbinding account of this 1909 journey is much more than a standard travel narrative.

The Rio Grande is simultaneously one of the most watched and least understood rivers in the world. Some stretches of the Rio pass for endless miles through remote wilderness, boxed in by canyons hundreds of feet high and inhabited by only the hardiest animals and humans. That's why journalist Keith Bowden decided to become the first person to travel the entire length of the Rio as it forms the border between America and Mexico.

When she first read of Victorian explorer Mary Kingsley’s travels in the French colony of Gabon, Alexander knew she had to experience the present-day nation for herself. Soon she is retracing Kingsley’s route - struggling through tangled vines in humid rain forests, chugging up the churning Ogooué River in a packed steamer, and fending off gigantic cockroaches. The country she discovers is a challenging mixture of Africa’s exotic past and its practical present

John Marshall had read about the growth of voluntourism, and frankly, it was the only kind of extended trip he could afford. He'd heard that some peoples' lives were changed by a week of overseas service - what might half a year accomplish for his family? His wife, Traca, was all in favor of it; his kids, especially his 14-year-old daughter, were strongly opposed. Wide-Open World is the totally engaging, bluntly honest story of the Marshall family's life-changing adventure.

For 20,000 miles, Peter Matthiessen crisscrossed the South American wilderness, traveling from the Amazonian rain forests to Machu Picchu high in the Andes, down to the edge of the world at Tierra del Fuego and back. In the course of his journey he followed the trails of old explorers, encountered river bandits, wild tribesmen, and the evidence of ancient ruins, and discovered a fossilized snout of a giant unknown crocodilian hidden in the depths of the jungle on the wild mountain rivers of Peru.

Couchsurfer, hitchhiker, and rogue wanderer Jamie Ma"lin embarks on a couchsurfing adventure to the homeland of "firebrand", "populist", "anti-American” president Hugo Chavez: the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Alone in the crime capital of the world (with a murder rate higher than Iraq's), Maslin immediately finds himself in trouble - arrested by knife-wielding police officers and inoculated with an unwanted vaccination.

Many childhood summers, Mark Woods piled into a station wagon with his parents and two sisters and headed to America's national parks. Mark's most vivid childhood memories are set against a backdrop of mountains, woods, and fireflies in places like Redwood, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon national parks. On the eve of turning 50, and a little burned out, Mark decided to reconnect with the great outdoors. He'd spend a year visiting the national parks.