Travel Survival

Like most Americans at the time, Plennie Wingo was hit hard by the effects of the Great Depression. When the bank foreclosed on his small restaurant in Abilene, he found himself suddenly penniless with nowhere left to turn. After months of struggling to feed his family on wages he earned digging ditches in the Texas sun, Plennie decided it was time to do something extraordinary - something to resurrect the spirit of adventure and optimism he felt he'd lost. He decided to walk around the world - backward.

In April 2018, seasoned adventurer Ben Fogle and Olympic cycling gold medallist Victoria Pendleton, along with mountaineer Kenton Cool, took on their most exhausting challenge yet – climbing Everest for the British Red Cross to highlight the environmental challenges mountains face. It would be harrowing and exhilarating in equal measure as they walked the fine line between life and death 8,000 metres above sea level.

The American West was a notion, not a nation. It was a process, not a place. The native animal and human life of the West was displaced, replaced, and exterminated - 60 million bison to make way for European bog animals, billions of passenger pigeons for nothing, and 90 percent of aboriginal native Americans, out of an original population of possibly a hundred million, by accident and design. Late in the summer of 2013, I set out to find the Old West, what it had been, and what had replaced it.

This is the true story of a young, native Irish woman who embarked on a path of "most resistance" and danced/survived her way around seven different countries. Her very descriptive, dramatic, and often humorous Celtic Road Home takes you on a journey of constant life adventures. Despite her many up and down struggles along the way, she never gives up hope on the very next outcome becoming more successful than the one before.

Part documentary, part reality-television, the story of the Deadliest Catch’s Alaskan crab fishermen risking their lives in the Bering Sea to make a buck and feed their families has captivated the world. Giving the Finger follows the life of the spirited young captain who has emerged as one of the most talked-about figures on the show: Scott Campbell, Jr., who leads the crew of the Seabrooke. As this book - a prequel to Junior’s ascent to fame - shows, the trials of crabbing are not limited to living at sea and working the most dangerous job on the planet, but carry over to family and friends.

A series of chance incidents diverted Bruce Comstock from a career in teaching economics into a life of ballooning adventures. Not content with just enjoying flying with friends, for the following 35 years he won championships, guided the early development of the sport, resurrected Ballooning Magazine, set world records, built a major balloon manufacturing company, created the autopilot that made possible the first solo nonstop balloon flight around the world, and made many remarkable balloon flights.

The incredible true story of four ordinary working mums from Yorkshire who took on an extraordinary challenge and broke a world record along the way, proving it's never too late to go on a life-changing adventure, experience the beauty and power of the elements, push the very limits of your abilities and rediscover who you are.

In 2008, Lynn Barber's passion for birding led her to drive, fly, sail, walk, stalk, and sit in search of birds in 25 states and three provinces. Traveling more than 175,000 miles, she set a 21st century record at the time, second to only one other person in history. Over 272 days, Barber observed 723 species of birds in North America north of Mexico.

Before Georgetown physics professor Francis Slakey decided to climb the highest mountain on every continent and surf every ocean, he had shut himself off from other people. His lectures were mechanical; his relationships were little more than ways to fill the evenings. But as his journey veered dangerously off course, everything began to change. A gripping adventure of the body and mind, To the Last Breath depicts the quest that leads Slakey around the globe, almost takes his life, and opens his heart.

Heartfelt and awe inspiring, Leigh Ann Henion's Phenomenal is a moving tale of physical grandeur and emotional transformation, a journey around the world that ultimately explores the depths of the human heart. A journalist and young mother, Henion combines her own conflicted but joyful experiences as a parent with a panoramic tour of the world's most extraordinary natural wonders.

Would you leave your job, sell your house, abandon your family and friends, and move to France to live on a boat? With no income, and no idea what the next day would bring? Probably not. But that's what Mike and Liz did, choosing to cast off from corporate life to live on and travel the waterways of France.

Somewhere beyond the Salish Sea lived the Stout Men who did the Megin River, and Tibet, and the Amazon. There was Tictac and Poldy, Cliffy and Madame, Captain and Gung, and Papa Smurf, who would die someday, but not yet. These are the stories of where they rushed headlong, towards adventure and suffering, and how it all took place.

Sullivan's classic account of his 65 day, 1,361-mile solo backpacking trek across Oregon has been chosen by the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission as one of Oregon's "100 Books", the most significant literary works in state history. Sullivan recounts adventures with blizzards, bears, and poisonous mushrooms, but he also spices his journal with notes on history, geology, and the people he meets along the way.

Travel across the US with David Reynolds as he explores Route 50, one of the few remaining two-lane highways running from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Driving as slowly as safety permits, stopping frequently and often going backwards to have a second look at something glimpsed in passing, Reynolds talks to people on the streets, in bars and cafes, motels and gas stations. They talk about everything from slavery and the traditional Indian sundance, to cannabis in Colorado and tornadoes in Kansas, and about everyone from George Washington and Aaron Burr to Marilyn Monroe and the Eagles.

From her childhood in Norway to the seasons she spent working as a guide on Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, Arnesen courted the cold, and her memoir reflects the knowledge and passion for Arctic and Antarctic exploration that grew with her adventures in the wintry reaches of Norway and beyond. Tracing her path from the heroic stories of explorers like Fridtjof Nansen and Ernest Shackleton to her own crossing of the Greenland Ice Cap in 1992, Arnesen credits the inspiring feats of those who preceded her.

Tony Howard rose to fame in 1965 as a member of a group of young climbers from northern England who made the first British ascent of Norway's Troll Wall. Tony went on to design the modern sit harness, now used universally by every climber in the world. Tony has dedicated his life to travelling the world in search of never before climbed rock faces and remote trekking adventures. The scale of his travels is vast. Quest into the Unknown, the last word in adventure travel, is the jaw-dropping account of a life of adventure that is the very definition of true exploration.

A firsthand account of hiking the entire Appalachian Trail in 2009. Starting in Georgia and continuing on foot nearly 2,200 miles to Maine, this is a collection of stories, adventures, and experiences from the Appalachian Trail. Anyone who has hiked or wishes to hike the AT will benefit from this easy and enjoyable listen.

In Polish: This is a story about the journey of two brothers who travelled through the largest river in the world on...bikes. But not ordinary bikes - they were "Amazonian” bikes. The story is as bodacious as the trip itself, which seemed like an unachievable madness, but turned out to be a great adventure and a valuable life lesson. For one of its heroes it was a dream come true, for another the last chance for salvation. The book is written by Piotr Chmieliński - the first person on Earth who sailed through the Amazon River in a kayak.

By the 1930s, no one had yet crossed Antarctica, and its vast interior remained a mystery frozen in time. Hoping to write his name in the history books, wealthy American Lincoln Ellsworth announced he would fly across the unexplored continent, and to honor his hero, Wyatt Earp, he would carry his gun belt on the flight. The obstacles to Ellsworth’s ambition were numerous: He didn’t like the cold, he avoided physical work, and he couldn’t navigate. Consequently, he hired the experienced Australian explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins to organize the expedition on his behalf.

The raucous and surprisingly poignant story of a young, Russia-obsessed American writer and comedian who embarked on a solo tour of the former Soviet Republics, never imagining that it would involve kidnappers, garbage bags of money, and encounters with the weird and wonderful from Mongolia to Tajikistan.