Essays & Travelogues

Ghost Empire

• UNABRIDGED (14 hrs and 57 mins)
• By Richard Fidler
• Narrated By Richard Fidler
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Ghost Empire is a rare treasure - an utterly captivating blend of the historical and the contemporary, realised by a master storyteller. In 2014, Richard Fidler and his son Joe made a journey to Istanbul. Fired by Richard's passion for the rich history of the dazzling Byzantine Empire - centred around the legendary Constantinople - we are swept into some of the most extraordinary tales in history. The clash of civilisations, the fall of empires, the rise of Christianity, revenge, lust, murder.

Down Under

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 13 mins)
• By Bill Bryson
• Narrated By William Roberts
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Australia has more things that can kill you than anywhere else. Nevertheless, Bill Bryson journeyed to the country and promptly fell in love with it. The people are cheerful, their cities are clean, the beer is cold, and the sun nearly always shines.

The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes From a Small Island

• UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 56 mins)
• By Bill Bryson
• Narrated By Nathan Osgood
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Twenty years ago Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to celebrate the green and kindly island that had become his adopted country. The hilarious book that resulted, Notes from a Small Island, was taken to the nation’s heart and became the best-selling travel book ever and was voted in a BBC poll the book that best represents Britain. Now, to mark the 20th anniversary of that modern classic, Bryson makes a brand-new journey around Britain to see what has changed.

Jupiter's Travels

• UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 51 mins)
• By Ted Simon
• Narrated By Ted Simon, Rupert Degas

On October 6, 1973, Ted Simon knew there was no going back. He loaded up his 500cc Triumph Tiger in the pouring rain and said good-bye to London. Over four years he rode 64,000 miles round the world. Breakdowns, revolutions, war, a spell in prison, and a Californian commune were all part of his experience, which was colored variously by utter despair and unimaginable joy. He was treated as a spy, a god, a welcome stranger and a curiosity

Holy Cow!: An Indian Adventure

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 26 mins)
• By Sarah Macdonald
• Narrated By Kate Hosking

After backpacking her way around India, Sarah Macdonald decides she hates the country with a passion. When a beggar at the airport reads her palm and insists she will one day return, and for love, she screams "Never!" and gives the country, and him, the finger.

A Vineyard in My Glass

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 34 mins)
• By Gerald Asher
• Narrated By P. J. Ochlan

Gerald Asher, who served as Gourmet's wine editor for 30 years, has drawn together this selection of his essays, published in Gourmet and elsewhere, for the collective insight they give into why a wine should always be an expression of a place and a time. Guiding the reader through 27 diverse wine regions in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and California, he shows how every wine worth drinking is a reflection of its terroir - in the broadest sense of that untranslatable word.

Long Way Round: Chasing Shadows Across the World

• ABRIDGED (5 hrs and 56 mins)
• By Ewan McGregor, Charley Boorman
• Narrated By Mark Bonnar, Rupert Degas

Film star Ewan McGregor travels around the world by motorcycle with his best friend, actor Charley Boorman. A unique and fascinating travel/adventure book.

Breaking Seas: An Overweight, Middle-Aged Computer Nerd Buys His First Boat, Quits His Job, and Sails Off to Adventure

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 27 mins)
• By Glenn Damato
• Narrated By René Ruiz
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Do you have a dream you must pursue, but everyone says it's unrealistic? Or that you're not qualified? Too old, too out of shape? Or you don't have the "right experience?" Glenn Damato was a 41-year-old software instructor who sought to exceed the bounds of his comfortable but humdrum existence. He embarked on an adventure for which he was miserably unprepared. Why did he do this? How did he answer the ancient human question: how do we jump-start growth in our lives? We become something we were not.

Holidays

• UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 12 mins)
• By William McInnes
• Narrated By William McInnes
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Written and read by best-selling Australian author and much-loved actor William McInnes, this is a story about our love affair with holidays. It's about going away and staying at home. It's about the relaxing times you had as a kid, escapes you have with your children and the stories you hear from your friends. It can be about a romantic sunset, the spare seat at breakfast being taken by an attractive stranger, a miraculous airline upgrade....

Travels with Charley

• UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 27 mins)
• By John Steinbeck
• Narrated By Peter Marinker
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Believing that a good, interesting life is marked by quality, not quantity, John Steinbeck took note of his itchy feet and prepared to travel. He was accompanied by his French poodle, Charley, diplomat and watchdog, across the states of America from Maine to California. Moving through woods and forests, dirt tracks and highways to large cities and wildernesses, Steinbeck observed America and the Americans with a humorous and sometimes sceptical eye.

Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory

• UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 34 mins)
• By Peter Hessler
• Narrated By Peter Berkrot

In the summer of 2001, Peter Hessler, the longtime Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, acquired his Chinese driver's license. For the next seven years, he traveled the country, tracking how the automobile and improved roads were transforming China.

The Art of Travel

• UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 22 mins)
• By Alain de Botton
• Narrated By Nicholas Bell
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Aside from love, few actvities seem to promise us as much happiness as going traveling: taking off for somewhere else, somewhere far from home, a place with more interesting weather, customs, and landscapes. But although we are inundated with advice on where to travel, few people seem to talk about why we should go and how we can become more fulfilled by doing so.

Seven Years in Tibet

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 38 mins)
• By Heinrich Harrer, Richard Graves
• Narrated By Mark Meadows
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A landmark in travel writing, this is the incredible true story of Heinrich Harrer’s escape across the Himalayas to Tibet, set against the backdrop of the Second World War. Heinrich Harrer, already one of the greatest mountaineers of his time, was climbing in the Himalayas when war broke out in Europe. He was imprisoned by the British in India but succeeded in escaping and fled to Tibet.

Under Asian Skies: Australia to Europe by Motorcycle - an Enthralling Journey Through One of the World's Most Colourful and Diverse Regions

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 40 mins)
• By Sam Manicom
• Narrated By Sam Manicom
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In Sam’s second book, Under Asian Skies, you'll find yourself immersed in an enchanting mix of drama, majesty, laughter, mystery, love, and his usual disasters. Sometimes a traveller's plans simply don't work out as intended, but for Sam every mishap is the beginning of a unique adventure; silver linings do exist. You'll travel on a journey across the vastness of Australia, through the twists and turns of New Zealand, and on up into the exotic lands of Southeast Asia.

Long Way Down

• ABRIDGED (3 hrs and 1 min)
• By Ewan McGregor, Charley Boorman
• Narrated By Mark Bonnar, Rupert Degas

After their fantastic trip round the world in 2004, fellow actors and bike fanatics Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman couldn't shake the travel bug. Inspired by their UNICEF visits to Africa, they knew they had to go back and experience this extraordinary continent in more depth.

Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe

• ABRIDGED (5 hrs and 38 mins)
• By Bill Bryson
• Narrated By Bill Bryson

You'll stop at Europe's most diverting and historic locales and view the Old World through Bryson's tourist eye view in this affectionate, blisteringly insightful, and riotously funny pilgrimage from the frozen wastes of Scandinavia to the chaotic tumult of Istanbul.

Wild Life: Travel Adventures of a Worldly Woman

• UNABRIDGED (4 hrs and 42 mins)
• By Lisa Alpine
• Narrated By Kristi Burns
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From licking a Monet in Paris, to pushing an abusive macho honeymooner off his sailboat in the shark-infested Galapagos, to saving her toddler son from a charging bull elephant in Africa, these 14 delightful, award-winning true tales will inspire listeners to follow the call of a wild life and leave home with their doors unlocked.

Not Quite Paradise: An American Sojourn in Sri Lanka

• UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 3 mins)
• By Adele Barker
• Narrated By Adele Barker
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A chronicle of life on the resplendent island. Adele Barker and her son, Noah, settled into the central highlands of Sri Lanka for an 18-month sojourn, immersing themselves in the customs, cultures, and landscapes of the island: its elephants, birds, and monkeys; its hot curries and sweet mangoes; the cacophony of its markets; the resonant evening chants from its temples. When, having returned home to Tucson, Barker awakes on December 26, 2004, to see televised images of the island's southern shore disappearing into the ocean, she decides she must go back.

The Voyage of the Beagle

• UNABRIDGED (20 hrs and 12 mins)
• By Charles Darwin
• Narrated By David McCallion
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In 1831, the HMS Beagle took sail. Onboard was a young Charles Darwin. He would set out on an adventure that would lead him to question everything about man's place in the world. The Voyage of the Beagle is the journal Darwin kept of his observations of the extraordinary and natural wonders he encountered, from volcanoes to the coral reefs of Australia. It would be these natural wonders that would lead to him questioning how the different species of the world came to be and eventually to his radical theories.

The Travels of Marco Polo

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 34 mins)
• By Marco Polo
• Narrated By Walter Covell

Marco Polo (1254-1324), is probably the most famous Westerner who traveled on the "Silk Road." His journey through Asia lasted 24 years. He traveled the whole of China and returned to tell the tale, which became one of the world's greatest travelogues.

Interstate: Hitchhiking Through the State of a Nation

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 19 mins)
• By Julian Sayarer
• Narrated By Joe Jameson
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Recruited to work on a documentary, Julian goes to New York convinced he has hit big time at last. Finding the project cancelled, he wanders the city streets and, with nowhere else to go, decides to set out hitchhiking for San Francisco. Revisiting this timeless American journey finds an unseen nation in rough shape. Along the road are homeless people and anarchists who have dropped out of society altogether, and blue-collar Americans who seem to have lost all meaning in forgotten towns and food deserts.

Home Is Forward: Hiking and Travel Adventures from Around the World

• UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 2 mins)
• By Gary Sizer
• Narrated By Gary Sizer

Have you ever wanted to visit Machu Picchu, or witness the Northern Lights? To explore remote landscapes where no boot has tread, no shutter ever snapped? You can.... Before he became Green Giant on the Appalachian Trail, Gary Sizer was a Marine, a computer nerd, and a guy with a problem. No matter how much time he spends outside, it's never enough. Whether being thrashed by drill instructors at Parris Island or drenched by a squall in a high tundra, the same calming thought always prevailed: It's good to be outside.

Netting the Sun: A Personal Geography of the Oregon Desert (Northwest Voices Essays)

• UNABRIDGED (4 hrs and 54 mins)
• By Melvin R. Adams
• Narrated By Nate Daniels

Netting the Sun offers a carefully crafted diversity of natural and human stories from a landscape seemingly empty and forlorn to passing casual travelers. This surprising interpretation of south central Oregon's botany, geology, wildlife, ethnography, and history reveals what a truly special place the high desert is.

The United States of Laughter: One Comedian's Journey Through All 50 States

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 16 mins)
• By Andrew Tarvin
• Narrated By Andrew Tarvin

At 31, Andrew Tarvin made the very practical decision to rid himself of most of his belongings, leave his apartment in NYC, and travel the country out of two carry-on bags. In 12 months, he traveled 92,358 miles, did 215 events, and performed in all 50 states (yes, even Wyoming). Along the way, he collected 50 stories from 50 states. Stories of adventure, like fending off a bear in Alaska, stories of deliciousness, like eating a Chicken Fettuccini Alfredo Burrito in Montana, and stories of people, like meeting his newest fan in Pringle, South Dakota, population: 112.

Stranger in Every Land: Reflections of a Transcultural Adult in a Shrinking World, Volume 1

• UNABRIDGED (4 hrs and 13 mins)
• By TImothy Garner Conkling
• Narrated By TImothy Garner Conkling

Stranger in Every Land chronicles my journey out of the good ol' USA and into exotic Asian countries and inviting Pacific islands where I stayed long enough to no longer completely identify with my country of origin - but never long enough to fully be regarded as a native.

Beginning Your Adventure Abroad with the Right Teaching Position: The Perfect Guide for Ideal Teacher Job

• UNABRIDGED (12 mins)
• By Steven Kozak
• Narrated By Roger Anderson

Start your successful adventure teaching English in a foreign country. This helpful guide gives you all the information you need to help you pick the right place for you, and it tells you all the right questions to ask when job searching. Do you want a placement that provides housing? Do you want a coteacher? This guide discusses the pros and cons of each, and equips you to make the right decision that will maximize your time living and traveling abroad.

Across Islands and Oceans: A Journey Alone Around the World By Sail and By Foot

• UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 2 mins)
• By James Baldwin
• Narrated By Spencer King
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Across Islands and Oceans is the memoir of 25 year-old James Baldwin and his epic two-year, solo circumnavigation in Atom, his trusty but aging 28-foot sailboat.

The Voyage of the Beagle

• UNABRIDGED (20 hrs and 12 mins)
• By Charles Darwin
• Narrated By David McCallion
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

In 1831, the HMS Beagle took sail. Onboard was a young Charles Darwin. He would set out on an adventure that would lead him to question everything about man's place in the world. The Voyage of the Beagle is the journal Darwin kept of his observations of the extraordinary and natural wonders he encountered, from volcanoes to the coral reefs of Australia. It would be these natural wonders that would lead to him questioning how the different species of the world came to be and eventually to his radical theories.

Chesapeake Gold: Man and Oyster on the Bay

• UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 30 mins)
• By Susan Brait
• Narrated By MacKenzie Nikol Greenwood

The figure of an old man poling a skiff toward shore against the evening light engaged Susan Brait to learn about Chesapeake Bay, and it is that image which opens this her book on the oystermen of the Bay and the sapping of their traditional life, and even the bounty of the Bay itself, by the demands of American society. With directness and poetic economy Brait takes the listener into the life of the Bay and into the complex relationships that affect oysters and those who make their living from them.

Travels with Herodotus

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 4 mins)
• By Ryszard Kapuscinki
• Narrated By Nicolas Coster
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From renowned journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski comes this intimate account of his years in the field, traveling for the first time beyond the Iron Curtain to India, China, Ethiopia, and other exotic locales.

My Father's Daughter: From Rome to Sicily

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 22 mins)
• By Gilda Morina Syverson
• Narrated By Gilda Morina Syverson
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In the multigenerational memoir, My Father's Daughter: From Rome to Sicily, Gilda Morina Syverson travels with her Italian-born father, Italian American mother, and very American husband to the villages of her ancestors. This trilogy tale leads the listener through ancient sites of Rome, landscapes of a picturesque countryside, seaside villages of Sicily, olive trees in the valley of Mount Etna, while contrasting an emotional journey between a father and a daughter.

Bicycle Gourmet's Treasures of France - Book Two

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 15 mins)
• By Christopher Strong
• Narrated By Christopher Strong

France has many treasures - food, wine, fashion, history, art. But for me, one of the France's greatest treasures are its people. After a zillion and a half years cycling the French country backroads, I've had awesome adventures with incredible people, of all nationalities, and I'm going to share them with you now, in this audiobook!

Les Berbères et Moi: Part Two [The Berbers and Me: Part Two]

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 17 mins)
• By Magdalena Wasiura
• Narrated By Deanna Delaney
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The second part of Magdalena's journal recording her life with the Berber community in Khenifra in the Middle Atlas mountains: their homes, social gatherings and her work with their children in the Association Hannan. Get a good wash in hammam, eat boucheyar, drink shiba, meet my friends Mahamed and Ali and go with us to Arougou, wakha?

Barbarian Lost: Travels in the New China

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs)
• By Alexandre Trudeau
• Narrated By Alexandre Trudeau
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To this day, China remains an enigma. Ancient, complex and fast moving, it defies easy understanding. Ever since he was a boy, Alexandre Trudeau has been fascinated by this great country. Recounting his experiences in the China of recent years, Trudeau visits artists and migrant workers, townspeople and rural farmers.

Les Berberes et Moi: A Story of Poverty and Suffering, Elation and Hope

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 27 mins)
• By Magdelena Wasiura
• Narrated By Deanna Delaney
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Magdalena Wasiura returns to Morocco after a holiday to live and work with the Berber community, sharing their experiences, customs, and way of living. Part One describes the author's first step into the life of her Moroccan family hosts, takes you to the souk and hammam, explains the importance of Fridays for Muslim society, sulks itself in whisky and the problems caused by it. In this part we are introduced to countless opportunists and amiable characters, and we visit a rather lavish circumcision party.

Montreal Travel Guide

• UNABRIDGED (38 mins)
• By William Wallace
• Narrated By Andrew S. Baldwin

Montreal is the largest city in the Quebec province. While Quebec City is the capital, Montreal is the cultural and economic center, and the main entry point to the province. With 1.7 million citizens in the city proper and four million in the urban area, Montreal is Canada's second largest city, and the second-largest French-speaking (as a mother language) city in the world, behind Paris. Still, a quarter of the population speak English as a mother language, and most Francophones are conversant in English.

Australia: Australia Travel Guide: The 30 Best Tips for Your Trip to Australia - The Places You Have to See

• UNABRIDGED (58 mins)
• By Traveling the World
• Narrated By Gracia Gillund
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

The sunburnt country is a land of contrast. A place which has both tropical rainforests and unforgiving desert. There are roads where you can drive for days without seeing a soul that end in peak hour traffic and bustling cities. If this is your first time in Australia, you should plan your trip in detail. If not, you most certainly will miss out on some of the best places to be at and things to see. This audiobook will help you to make the most out of your time in Spain.

Seriously...What Am I Doing Here?: The Adventures of a Wondering and Wandering Gay Jew

• UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 39 mins)
• By Ken Schneck
• Narrated By Ken Schneck
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Does the geographic cure actually work? Through a fast-paced journey of saying yes to the unfamiliar, pack your bags and set out into the world with a gay Jew determined to answer that universal question of Seriously...What Am I Doing Here?

Minimalist Living: How to Travel and Live Anywhere in the World

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 45 mins)
• By Alex A. Michaels
• Narrated By Marlin May

Do you ever find yourself overwhelmed by the amount of stuff in your possession? Do you want to live a life free of restrictions? Perhaps you want to embrace minimalist living, but are unsure of how to start that new lifestyle. You can turn your entire life into one of freedom and purpose. The time to turn your cluttered life around is now. From how to find the cheapest flights to methods for making money on your own schedule, your entire way of life will be altered for the better once you implement the suggestions in this book!

Haunted Texas: Famous Phantoms, Sinister Sites, and Lingering Legends, Second Edition

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 20 mins)
• By Scott Williams, Donna Ingham
• Narrated By Cynthia Farrell

Texas history buffs and travelers have an eerie need for this book, which offers an unusual twist to seeing the "sights" in the Lone Star state. Organized by region - Gulf Coast, Rio Grande Valley, South Texas, Central Texas, North Texas, and West Texas - this book is the complete guide for both hardcore ghost hunters and more earthly tourists seeking to add some spirited fun to their travels.