Travel Biography

Early in 1815, Louisa Catherine Adams and her young son left St. Petersburg in a heavy Russian carriage and set out on a difficult journey to meet her husband, John Quincy Adams, in Paris. She traveled through the snows of eastern Europe, down the Baltic coast to Prussia, across the battlefields of Germany, and into a France that was then experiencing the tumultuous events of Napoleon's return from Elba.

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.

David Alan Arnold is an Emmy Award-winning TV cameraman who flies in a helicopter - but he started his Hollywood career with a broom in his hand. Somehow, sweeping the floor got him into some of the world’s biggest TV shows. David’s first book tells the unlikely story of mistakes and miracles that took him to some of the most dangerous places on Earth - soaring through the clouds, straight into a deadly phenomenon known as The Deadman’s Curve.

“Bowles is at his best when writing about places. He can evoke a place with a few sure strokes.” —New York Times “His work is art. At his best, Bowles has no peer.” —Time Travels is a thrilling anthology of the travel writings of Paul Bowles, author of the era-defining post-war novel...

A powerfully built man more than six feet tall, Amundsen’s career of adventure began at the age of fifteen (he was born in Norway in 1872 to a family of merchant sea captains and rich ship owners); twenty-five years later he was the first man to reach both the North and South Poles. Lynne Cox, adventurer and swimmer, author of Swimming to Antarctica (“gripping”—Sports Illustrated) and Grayson (“wondrous, and unforgettable”—Carl Hiaasen), gives us in South with the Sun a full-scale account of the explorer’s life and expeditions.

During a culture-shocked exchange year in Japan, 15-year-old Lisa Dempster's imagination is ignited by the story of the henro michi, an arduous 1,200-kilometre Buddhist pilgrimage through the mountains of Japan. Perfectly suiting the romantic view of herself as a dusty, travel-worn explorer (well, one day), she promises to return to Japan and walk the henro michi, one way or another, as soon as humanely possible. Fast-forward 13 years, and Lisa's life is vastly different to what she pictured it would be.

On 30 January, 1981 Joe Tasker and Ade Burgess stood at 24,000 feet on the west ridge of Mount Everest. Below them were their companions, some exhausted, some crippled by illness, all virtually incapacitated. Further progress seemed impossible. Everest the Cruel Way is Joe Tasker's story of an attempt to climb the highest mountain on earth - an attempt which pushed a group of Britain's finest mountaineers to their limits. The goal had been to climb Mount Everest at its hardest: via the infamous west ridge, without supplementary oxygen and in winter.

By captivating millions during his six-year, 50-country tenure as The New York Times' "Frugal Traveler", Seth Kugel has become one of our most internationally beloved travel writers. While his famously unassuming journeys around the globe have forged a signature philosophy of whimsy and practicality, they have also revealed the seemingly infinite booby traps of on-the-grid tourism. In a book with widespread cultural reverberations, Kugel takes the modern travel industry to task, determined to reignite humanity's age-old sense of adventure.

Two Brits, George and Mark, set off from New York City to explore the back roads of America. In this calamity-ridden travel tale, George sets out in true clichéd fashion to discover the real America. Throw in plenty of run-ins with the police, rapidly dwindling finances, and Josephine - the worst car in the world - and you have all the ingredients for a classic American road trip. Will George and Mark make it all the way to California? And then there is Rachel, George's girlfriend, left back in England.

In Isabel Losada's extraordinary For Tibet with Love, she explores whether it's possible for an ordinary person to change the world, just a little, and if something so serious can be achieved with joy in one's heart. From visits to Nepal and Tibet, to meetings with the Chinese ambassador and Tibetan awareness-raising groups, Isabel single-handedly hatches a stunning PR coup involving Nelson's Column, a 15-meter banner and a base-jumping parachutist that captured headlines worldwide.

An exhilarating collection of letters and stories from the world-renowned Explorers Club, featuring firsthand accounts of crossing boundaries and making history over the past century For centuries, explorers from all over the globe have traveled the far reaches of what the world has to offer...

At the age of 22, Geordie Stewart became the youngest Briton to climb the Seven Summits - the highest mountain on every continent. Aged 17, he read a book about Everest and, despite no climbing experience, became obsessed with achieving this ambition. Four years later, despite turning around 150 meters from the summit on his first attempt, he stood on top of the world. This audiobook offers a raw, emotive, and passionate insight into the complexity of teenage vulnerabilities.

In June 1944, the Nazis locked 18-year-old Dave Hersch into a railroad boxcar and shipped him from his hometown of Dej, Hungary, to Mauthausen Concentration Camp, the harshest, cruellest camp in the Reich. After 10 months in the granite mines of Mauthausen's nearby sub-camp, Gusen, he weighed less than 80 lbs., nothing but skin and bones. As Allied forces drew near Dave was forced to join a death march to Gunskirchen Concentration Camp, over 30 miles away. Soon after the start of the march, and more dead than alive, Dave summoned a burst of energy he did not know he had and escaped.

Roughing It is a book of semi-autobiographical travel literature written by American humorist Mark Twain. He published in 1872 as a prequel to his first book, The Innocents Abroad. Roughing It is the hilarious record of those early years traveling from Nevada to California to Hawaii, as Twain tried his luck at anything and everything--and usually failed. Twain's encounters with tarantulas and donkeys, vigilantes and volcanoes, even Brigham Young, the Mormon leader, come to life with his inimitable mixture of reporting, social satire, and rollicking tall tales

"....a very sweet dog story" -- Outside The story of a dog, his human, and the friendship that saved both of their lives. When Ben Moon moved from the Midwest to Oregon, he hadn’t planned on getting a dog. But when he first met the soulful gaze of a rescue pup in a shelter, Ben instantly felt...

The New York Times bestselling author of Krakatoa and The Professor and the Madman takes readers on a quirky and charming tour of the last outpost of the British empire Outposts is Simon Winchester’s journey to find the vanishing empire, “on which the sun never sets.” In the course of a...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A lyrical and evocative collection of personal stories from the author of Under the Tuscan Sun, in which the queen of wanderlust reflects on the comforts of home. “Personal, warm, and lovely . . . a charming read. The book feels like a warm conversation with your...

New York Times best-selling author and New York native Colson Whitehead composes a breathtaking tribute to his hometown. Whitehead captures the very essence of New York, infusing his reflections with the energy that permeates the city.

Deadly cold, famine, grizzly bears, and one unruly sled dog with a grudge kept Stan on the knife's edge between survival and death. Humbled by the power of nature, the Boston greaser who was destined for prison found a new life in the wild, where one mistake can prove fatal. This is the true story of Stan Zuray's incredible journey, the reformation of a man's heart and mind in the forbidding darkness of Alaska's endless winter.

The American revolution has begun—and Rush Revere, Liberty the horse, and the time-traveling crew are ready to ride into the action! Join us on this incredible time-travel adventure! Liberty, my wisecracking horse, our old friends Cam, Tommy, Freedom, and I are off to meet some super-brave...