Showing titles in Travel Writing & Commentary

Few books have captured the haunting world of music and rivers and of the sport they provide as well as A River Never Sleeps. Roderick L. Haig-Brown writes of fishing not just as a sport, but also as an art. He knows moving water and the life within it - its subtlest mysteries and perpetual delights. He is a man who knows fish lore as few people ever will, and the legends and history of a great sport. Month by month, he takes you from river to river, down at last to the saltwater and the sea.

In Pole to Pole we join Michael Palin on the second of his epic challenges. Travelling from the North Pole to the South Pole, he experiences every extreme the globe has to offer. As he crosses 16 countries by train, truck, raft, Ski-Doo, barge, balloon and bicycle, he meets a diverse range of fascinating characters and landscapes while his own endurance is tested to the limit. With his customary aplomb, he plunges himself into the local cultures, starring in a crayfish documentary in Novgorod, attending a baby-rolling ceremony at a Cypriot wedding, and consulting an Mpulugu witch-doctor.

Hundreds of hardy people have tried to carve a living in the Alaskan bush, but few have succeeded as consistently as Heimo Korth. Originally from Wisconsin, Heimo traveled to the Arctic wilderness in his feverous 20s. Now, more than four decades later, Heimo lives with his wife approximately 200 miles from civilization - a sustainable, nomadic life bounded by the migrating caribou, the dangers of swollen rivers, and the very exigencies of daily existence.

Welcome to Sightseeing Japan! Join hosts Jason Nieling and Paul Bresin as they explore the land of the rising sun. New podcast episodes are released every other week covering a range of topics, from geisha to vending machines and everything in between.

The history of Iceland began 1,200 years ago, when a frustrated Viking captain and his useless navigator ran aground in the middle of the North Atlantic. Suddenly, the island was no longer just a layover for the Arctic tern. Instead, it became a nation whose diplomats and musicians, sailors and soldiers, volcanoes and flowers, quietly altered the globe forever. How Iceland Changed the World takes readers on a tour of history, showing them how Iceland played a pivotal role in events as diverse as the French Revolution, the Moon Landing, and the foundation of Israel.

Traveling in a canoe along the Yukon River with the migrating salmon, a three-month journey through untrammeled wilderness, Adam Weymouth traces the profound interconnectedness of the people and the Chinook through searing portraits of the individuals he encounters. He offers a powerful, nuanced glimpse into the erosion of indigenous culture and into our ever-complicated relationship with the natural world. Weaving in the history of the salmon run and their mysterious life cycle, Kings of the Yukon is extraordinary adventure and nature writing and social history at its most compelling.

When Conor Knighton set off to explore America's "best idea", he worried the whole thing could end up being his worst idea. A broken engagement and a broken heart had left him longing for a change of scenery, but the plan he'd cooked up in response had gone a bit overboard in that department: Over the course of a single year, Knighton would visit every national park in the country, from Acadia to Zion.

In the 1970s, the ultimate trip for any backpacker was the storied “Hippie Trail” from Istanbul to Kathmandu. A 23-year old Rick Steves made the trek, and like a travel writer in training, he documented everything along the way: jumping off a moving train, making friends in Tehran, getting lost in Lahore, getting high for the first time in Herat, battling leeches in Pokhara, and much more. The experience ignited his love of travel and forever broadened his perspective on the world.

Colour unlocks the history of the colours of the rainbow, and reveals how paints came to be invented, discovered, traded and used. This remarkable and beautifully written book, part travelogue part narrative history, remembers a time when red paint was really the colour of blood, when orange was the poison pigment, blue as expensive as gold and yellow made from the urine of cows force-fed with mangoes. It looks at how green was carried by yaks along the silk road, and how an entire nation was founded on the colour purple.

Whether navigating the backroads of Louisiana or Thuringia, exploring the snowy Quebec woods, or performing onstage at Rush concerts, Neil Peart has stories to tell. His first volume in this series, Far and Away, combined words and images to form an intimate, insightful narrative that won many fans. Now Far and Near brings together reflections from another three years of an artist's life.

Hot dogs. Poor people created them. Rich people found a way to charge fifteen dollars for them. They’re high culture, they’re low culture, they’re sports food, they’re kids' food, they’re hangover food, and they’re deeply American, despite having no basis whatsoever in America's Indigenous traditions. You can love them, you can hate them, but you can’t avoid the great American hot dog. Raw Dog is part investigation into the cultural and culinary significance of hot dogs and part travelogue documenting a cross-country road trip researching them as they’re served today.

When Peter Mayle and his wife traded England's long, gray winters and damp summers for life in southern France, they entered an enchanting, wonderful, sometimes bewildering world. Now, share their adventures, pleasures, and frustrations: the joys and occasional hazards of wining and dining in France, taking part in goat races, attending a Pavorotti concert under the stars - and much more.

A few years after quitting his job to follow an ill-advised dream of becoming a guide on the Colorado River, Kevin Fedarko was approached by his friend, the National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, with a vision as bold as it was harebrained. Together, they would embark on an end-to-end traverse of the Grand Canyon, a journey that, McBride promised, would be “a walk in the park.” Against his better judgment, Fedarko agreed to the scheme. The ensuing ordeal, which lasted more than a year, revealed a place that was richer, and far more complex, than anything the two men had imagined.

When you walk in the woods, do you use all five senses to explore your surroundings? For most of us, the answer is no—but when we do, a walk in the woods can go from pleasant to immersive and restorative. Forest Walking teaches you how to engage with the forest by decoding nature’s signs and awakening to the ancient past and thrilling present of the ecosystem around you.

New York Times bestselling author Jim Harrison (1937-2016) was a writer with a poet’s economy of style and trencherman’s appetites and ribald humor. In The Search for the Genuine, a collection of new and previously published essays, the giant of letters muses on everything from grouse hunting and fishing to Zen Buddhism and matters of the spirit, including reported pieces on Yellowstone and shark-tagging in the open ocean, commentary on writers from Bukowski to Neruda to Peter Matthiessen, and a heartbreaking essay on life on the US/Mexico border.

John Kretschmer is sailing’s practical philosopher - as much a doer as a thinker. And that is the overarching theme of this chronicle of a sailing life. Often amusing, sometimes poignant, occasionally terrifying but always inspiring, his deeply personal account is a welcome reminder of the good life waiting at sea. With hundreds of thousands of nautical miles under his keel, John’s adventures have taken him several times around the world.

Independent filmmaker Chris Broad brings you his multi-award winning YouTube channel Abroad In Japan in podcast form. Aided by broadcaster Pete Donaldson, they bring you a taste of life in the most unique country in the world, from great cuisine to capsule hotels, current events and tips on how to spend your time there. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In The Geography of Genius, acclaimed travel writer Weiner sets out to examine the connection between our surroundings and our most innovative ideas. He explores the history of places, like Vienna of 1900, Renaissance Florence, ancient Athens, Song Dynasty Hangzhou, and Silicon Valley, to show how certain urban settings are conducive to ingenuity.

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. On The Anthropocene Reviewed, #1 New York Times bestselling author John Green (The Fault in Our Stars, Turtles All the Way Down) reviews different facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale. WNYC Studios is a listener-supported producer of other leading podcasts including On the Media, Snap Judgment, Death, Sex & Money, Nancy and Here’s the Thing with Alec Baldwin. © WNYC Studios

What does it take to master French cooking? This is the question that drives Bill Buford to abandon his perfectly happy life in New York City and pack up and (with a wife and three-year-old twin sons in tow) move to Lyon, the so-called gastronomic capital of France.