Travel Adventure Writing

'I would be most unhappy to think that any part of this memoir should be cut on grounds of 'decency', for those bits are essential....' So begins the lively true story of aristocrat and travel writer Roderic Fenwick Owen. Born in 1921, Fenwick Owen had an extraordinary life, which careered between some of the biggest moments in history and took him to the ends of the earth, meeting (and even living with) some of the 20th century's most well-known people along the way, including Eisenhower, Jackson Pollock, Christopher Lee and Sean Connery.

After Paul Stutzman finished hiking the Appalachian Trail, he found himself longing for another challenge, another adventure. Trading his hiking boots for a bicycle, Paul set off to discover more of America. Starting at Neah Bay, Washington, and ending at Key West, Florida, Paul traversed the 5,000 mile distance between the two farthest points in the contiguous United States.

A simple “thank you” led to the trip of a lifetime, along with an unbreakable friendship of two opposites. See them come of age while rubbing elbows with the rich and famous like the Shah and Queen of Iran, The Who, Paul McCartney, Brigitte Bardot, and even Shirley Temple Black. An unbelievable story, yet it’s true because nobody could make this story up. Find out things the rich and famous do not want you to know.

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.

For most of us, traveling means visiting the most beautiful places on Earth - Paris, the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canyon. It’s rare to book a plane ticket to visit the lifeless moonscape of Canada’s oil sand strip mines, or to seek out the Chinese city of Linfen, legendary as the most polluted in the world. But in Visit Sunny Chernobyl, Andrew Blackwell embraces a different kind of travel, taking a jaunt through the most gruesomely polluted places on Earth.

Silver Lady weaves a captivating narrative that resonates with those who enjoy uncanny stories of the inexplicable, as well as connections formed on epic journeys. Will the river reveal its secrets, or will the puzzles confound the crew? Dive into Silver Lady and experience a magical mystery ride that transcends time and reality.

Whether they are looking for love, their purpose, or the perfect beach, every backpacker finds a unique community—and themselves—along the way. In this one-of-a-kind book, author Paul Neville tells the story of his year spent going around the world on a budget and celebrating a life lived for the journey—not the destination.

This thoughtful examination of a century of travel writing about the American West overturns a variety of popular and academic stereotypes. Looking at both European and American travelers' accounts of the West, from de Tocqueville's Democracy in America to William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways, David Wrobel offers a counternarrative to the nation's romantic entanglement with its Western past and suggests the importance of some long-overlooked authors, lively and perceptive witnesses to our history who deserve new attention.

This is the inspiring story of an ordinary guy who achieved two great goals that others had told him were impossible. First, he set a record for the longest automobile journey ever made around the world, during the course of which he blasted his way out of minefields, survived a breakdown atop the Peak of Death, came within seconds of being lynched in Pakistan, and lost three of the five men who started with him - two to disease, one to the Vietcong.

Lacking even the most basic mechanical knowhow, Tim Moore sets out to cross Trumpland USA in an original Model T Ford. Armed only with a fan belt made of cotton, wooden wheels and a trunkload of ‘wise-ass Limey liberal gumption’, his route takes him exclusively through Donald-voting counties, meeting the everyday folks who voted red along the way. He meets a people defined by extraordinary generosity, willing to shift heaven and earth to keep him on the road.

Al entrar en Abjasia, las autoridades georgianas, corruptas hasta la médula, recluyeron a Jorge durante tres días con sus tres noches, en una inmunda mazmorra de la ciudad de Batumi, sin comer, hasta que no satisfizo una “mordida” de 2,000 €, por medio de un negociador.

Join a retired couple from Maine as they break outside of their comfort zone in an effort to see Every Bird From Sea to Shining Sea. Follow Ethan and Ingrid Whitaker as they spend an entire year traveling around the Continental United States doing a Big Year . . . a contest to identify as many species of birds as possible in a calendar year.

Joe Simpson, with just his partner Simon Yates, tackled the unclimbed west face of the remote 21,000 foot Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in June of 1995. But before they reached the summit, disaster struck. A few days later, Simon staggered into base camp, exhausted and frostbitten, to tell their non-climbing companion that Joe was dead.

The Tsangpo Gorge in southeastern Tibet has lured explorers and adventurers since its discovery. Sacred to the Buddhists, the inspiration for Shangri La, the Gorge is as steeped in legend and mystery as any spot on earth. As a river-running challenge, the remote Tsangpo is relentlessly unforgiving, more difficult than any stretch of river ever attempted. Its mysteries have withstood a century's worth of determined efforts to explore its length. The finest expedition paddlers on earth have tried.

This is a collection of short stories that are shocking, exciting, surprising, and at times terrifying moments that I have experienced during my travels around the world. From Easter Island encounters with the Moais, being wounded in Israel, experiencing terror in Beijing at midnight to the challenge of leaving Ethiopia and Italy during the Covid outbreak. These stories and more will introduce you to my not so normal world of travel.

Here, There, Elsewhere draws together for the first time William Least Heat-Moon's greatest short-form travel writing. Taking us from Japan, England, Italy, and Mexico to Long Island, Oregon, Arizona, and more, , Here, There, Elsewhere is a sharply observed, funny, and touching series of uncommon adventures narrated by America's keenest writer of place, people, and sublime connection. For decades, William Least Heat-Moon's readers have been clamoring for him to gather his shorter pieces; now, that wait is over.

Taking the Risk is Hilary Bradt’s engaging, insightful, amusing and sometimes alarming memoir about serendipitous adventures in travel and publishing. A travel industry trailblazer who co-founded Bradt Guides, Hilary looks back on 50 years of escapades, surprises, mishaps, disasters… and success. From her first solo trip aged three (on a British beach), she revisits six decades of hitchhiking, feeding the travel habit by working abroad, and starting a successful travel publishing company where knowing nothing proved a surprising asset.

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.

The Tomb of the Mili Mongga tells the story of Samuel Turvey's expeditions to the island of Sumba in eastern Indonesia. While there, he discovers an entire recently extinct mammal fauna from the island’s fossil record, revealing how islands support some of the world’s most remarkable biodiversity, and why many of these unique endemic species are threatened with extinction or have already been lost. But as the story unfolds, an unexpected narrative emerges – Sumba’s Indigenous communities tell of a mysterious wildman called the 'mili mongga', a giant yeti-like beast.

As Kohnstamm comes to personal terms with each of his demanding job requirements, he unveils the underside of the travel industry and its often-harrowing effect on writers, travelers, and the destinations themselves. Moreover, he invites us into his world of compromising and scandalous situations in one of the most exciting countries as he races against an impossible deadline