Travel Biography

In 1948, a young Australian mining engineer named Ben Carlin set out to do the impossible: circumnavigate the globe, by land and sea, in a single vehicle. The vehicle in question was an amphibious jeep developed by the U.S. Army, which Carlin christened Half-Safe, after a deodorant slogan. It was a mechanical mongrel that was supposed to move with equal ease across land and water but in practice wasn't much good for either one. Undaunted, Carlin and his wife Elinore set off across the Atlantic Ocean with dreams of fame and fortune, and of carving a small notch in history.

This extraordinary travel book tells the true story of how in 1997 writer Michael Paterniti agreed to take a road trip from New Jersey to California, reuniting the preserved brain of the great scientist Albert Einstein (1879-1955) with his granddaughter Evelyn. Paterniti's improbable travelling companion is 84-year-old Thomas Harvey, the pathologist who not only removed Einstein's brain from his head during the autopsy but purloined it from Princeton Hospital also!

At 35, Leslie Buck made an impulsive decision to put her personal life on hold to pursue her passion. Leaving behind a full life of friends, love, and professional security, she became the first American woman to learn pruning from one of the most storied landscaping companies in Kyoto. Cutting Back recounts Buck's bold journey and the revelations she has along the way.

Beginning the day the Supreme Court ruled her marriage legal, Angela Yarber's queer little family traversed the American landscape for two years in a camper named Freya, following in the footsteps of revolutionary women from history and myth. Amid her wanderings, this queer clergywoman grapples with the loss of faith, addiction, death, parenting, and what it means to reimagine the so-called dream promised to so many. With unapologetic grief, humor, and radical imagination, she creates a new dream, not just for herself, but for all marginalized people living in America.

Steve Hely, writer for The Office and American Dad!, and recipient of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, presents a travel book about his journey through Central and South America. Part travel book, part pop history, part comic memoir, Hely's writing will make readers want to reach for...

Leslie White knew she wanted more out of life - She found it in an unlikely place. Devastated from the loss of both parents to cancer nine months apart, Leslie vowed to change her life. She bought the neighbor’s old motorhome, found a job as a traveling histologist, and hit the road. But she found she could not trust the one person she was still holding onto.

For years, British journalist Cash Peters trekked around Europe and America visiting some of the tackiest attractions in the world for his hugely popular public-radio series, The Bad Taste Tours. But a guy can only take so much. Now, as Peters prepares to leave his travel-reporting days behind forever, he takes us along on some of the more ridiculous journeys and adventures of his career.

The author who unforgettably captured the experience of starting a new life in Tuscany in bestselling travel memoirs expands her horizons to immerse herself—and her readers—in the sights, aromas, and treasures of twelve new special places. A Year in the World is vintage Frances Mayes—a...

As Frank Kusy turns 27, he is unexpectedly put in charge of an old people's home in Clapham, South London. Driven to distraction by a crazy cast of characters, he seeks solace in Buddhism, only to find himself up to his ears in plasticine pigs and marathon chanting sessions. Will he make his mum happy by holding down a 'proper' job? Will he make her unhappy by becoming a writer? Will he get to share cheese sandwiches with Kevin in Kathmandu? And will he be forced to exchange his underpants in Japan?

Whether you’re planning a dark tourism pilgrimage or just indulging your morbid curiosity from the safety of your couch, The Serial Killer Travel Guide Across America will take you closer to the truth—and the horror—than you ever thought possible.

Three years ago, award-winning actress Angelina Jolie took on a radically different role as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Here are her memoirs from her journeys to Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Pakistan, Cambodia, and Ecuador, where she lived and worked and gave her heart to those who suffer the world's most shattering violence and victimization. Here are her revelations of joy and warmth amid utter destitution...compelling snapshots of courageous and inspiring people for whom survival is their daily work.

John Smith is one of the most common names in the English language, but every Briton and American is familiar with the explorer and mercenary Captain John Smith, who helped found the first permanent British colony in the New World, at Jamestown, in 1607. He wrote several accounts of his exploration and his time spent in the New World, but in America, Smith is better known for his association with Pocahontas, a Native American princess. Smith credited her with saving him from being killed by the Native Americans. Retellings of the story fictitiously cast the two as lovers.

No verão de 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton parte a bordo do Endurance em direção ao Atlântico Sul. O objetivo de sua expedição era cruzar o continente antártico, passando pelo Pólo Sul. Mas, a apenas um dia do ponto de desembarque planejado, o Endurance fica aprisionado num banco de gelo no mar de Weddell e acaba sendo destruído. Através dos diários e entrevistas com alguns membros da expedição, Alfred Lansing reconstrói as dificuldades que a tripulação do Endurance enfrentou.

Ever heard of a 'travel psychologist?' Michael Brein is the world's first and perhaps only travel psychologist who has created a unique travel book series on the psychology of travel as revealed through the fantastic travel stories of more than 1,600 world travelers and adventurers he has interviewed over the last three decades. Travel Tales of Michael Brein: My Best 100 contains more than 100 of Michael's own, best personal travel stories, resulting from his lifetime of travel.

Tiziano Terzani, sapendo di essere arrivato alla fine del suo percorso, parla al figlio Folco di cos'è stata la sua vita e di cos'è la vita: "Se hai capito qualcosa, la vuoi lasciare lì in un pacchetto", dice. Così, all'Orsigna, sotto un albero a due passi dalla gompa, la sua casetta in stile tibetano, in uno stato d'animo meraviglioso, racconta di tutta una vita trascorsa a viaggiare per il mondo alla ricerca della verità.

In early 2003, a young Wall Street investment banker named Bo Parfet set out to accomplish something very few had done before - climbing the highest mountain on every continent. He was not a professional climber, but what began as a casual interest would soon become a lifelong passion and in just over four years, Bo would overcome the odds and conquer all of the mountains - Kilimanjaro, Aconcagua, Denali, Vinson Massif, Elbrus, Carstenz Pyramid, Kosciusko, and Everest - with courage, unbridled passion, and determination.

Fanny Bullock Workman was a complicated and restless woman who defied the rigid Victorian morals she found as restrictive as a corset. With her frizzy, brown hair tucked under a topee, Workman was a force on the mountain and off. Instrumental in breaking the British stranglehold on Himalayan mountain climbing, this American woman climbed more peaks than any of her peers, became the first woman to map the far reaches of the Himalayas, the first woman to lecture at the Sorbonne, and the second to address the Royal Geographic Society of London.

Wilderness guide and lifelong Alaskan Bjorn Dihle weaves personal experience with historical and contemporary accounts to explore the world of brown bears - from encounters with the Lewis and Clark Expedition to frightening attacks including the famed death of Timothy Treadwell, the controversies related to bear hunting, the animal's place in native cultures, and the impacts on the species from habitat degradation and climate change.

On an autumn morning in 1849, Henry David Thoreau stepped out his front door to walk the beaches of Cape Cod. Over a century and a half later, Ben Shattuck does the same. With little more than a loaf of bread, brick of cheese, and a notebook, Shattuck sets out to retrace Thoreau’s path through the Cape’s outer beaches, from the elbow to Provincetown’s fingertip.

A noted entrepreneur, food writer, and recipe developer serves up an evocative adventure story abouther quest to find healing, meaning, and a place at the table. Hunger comes to us in many forms, writes Lia Huber—we long to be satisfied not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually...