Travel Writing & Commentary

Brought to you by Penguin. No sex. No kids. No future? When Tom Feiling moved to Tokyo as a student in the early nineties, Japan was a beacon of the future: a rising superpower, a technology giant, and a global symbol of prosperity, civility and success. When he returned twenty-four years later...

Ghost Empire is a rare treasure - an utterly captivating blend of the historical and the contemporary, realised by a master storyteller....

Challenged by an expert who said it couldn’t be done, Joshua Slocum, a fearless New England sea captain, set out in April 1895 to prove that a man could sail alone around the world....

Paul Rosolie’s extraordinary adventure in the uncharted tributaries of the Western Amazon - a tale of discovery that vividly captures the awe, beauty, and isolation of this endangered land....

Brought to you by Penguin. When Englishman Chris Broad landed in a rural village in northern Japan he wondered if he'd made a huge mistake. With no knowledge of the language and zero teaching experience, was he was about to be the most quickly fired English teacher in Japan's history? Abroad in...

Vagabonding is about taking time off from your normal life - from six weeks to four months to two years - to discover and experience the world on your own terms....

For a period of seven years, Wilfred Thesiger canoed through the marshes at the confluence of Iraq's Tigris and Euphrates rivers, living among the native Madan tribes and their islands made of reeds....

On the West Coast of the South Island, past deep fjords, glassy lakes, forested valleys and snow-capped mountains, lies the Long family cabin. It was here that Chris Long spent the first 17 years of his life, two days' hike from the nearest road....

This audiobook will change the way we understand ourselves and the great outdoors....

Joe Simpson, with just his partner Simon Yates, tackled the unclimbed West Face of the remote 21,000 foot Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in June 1995. But before they reached the summit, disaster struck. A few days later, Simon staggered into Base Camp, exhausted and frostbitten, to tell...

With all the narrative power and intellectual authority that have distinguished his earlier books, V.S. Naipaul explores the life, the culture, the ferment inside the nations of Islam.

More than just a companion to the hugely popular Travel Channel show, No Reservations is Bourdain's journal of his far-flung travels.

“Thought-provoking, encouraging, and inspiring” (Gretchen Rubin) reflections on the power of travel to transform our daily lives—from the iconoclastic travel writer, scholar, and author of Vagabonding For readers who dream of travel, yearn to get back out on the road, or want to enrich a...

Canoeing the Congo narrates the journey of Phil Harwood, who undertook an epic five-month solo attempt to canoe the Congo....

Gail Muller was told she’d be in a wheelchair by the age of 40. At 41, she set out to hike one of the world’s toughest treks: the Appalachian Trail - a 2,200-mile journey that would help her reclaim her life and heal her mind and body....

In his most challenging journey to date, Palin tackles the Himalayas, the greatest mountain range on earth....

Michael Palin reads his own account of a journey into a new Europe....

Turmoil in the Mideast convinces Glen and Julie to linger in the South Pacific, visiting primitive villages on remote islands....

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....

This work is a collection of fictional observations by the narrator as he travels around the countryside of southern New South Wales and Victoria in the 1880s.

Join the adventure as 33-year-old Rene Cormier politely removes himself from the working world that surrounds him and cashes in what few possessions he has to finance a three-year-long motorcycle journey around the world....

Steven Callahan's Adrift chronicles one of the most astounding voyages of the century and one of the great sea adventures of all time....

Alone in the wilderness Award-winning journalist Naomi Arnold spends nearly nine months walking the length of New Zealand on Te Araroa, fulfilling a 20-year dream. On her own, she traverses mountains, rivers, cities and plains from summer to spring, walking on through days of thick mud, blazing...

In Made in America, Bryson de-mythologizes his native land....

Brought to you by Penguin This celebration of the English countryside does not only focus on the rolling green landscapes and magnificent monuments that set England apart from the rest of the world. Many of the contributors bring their own special touch, presenting a refreshingly eclectic...

Brought to you by Penguin. No sex. No kids. No future? When Tom Feiling moved to Tokyo as a student in the early nineties, Japan was a beacon of the future: a rising superpower, a technology giant, and a global symbol of prosperity, civility and success. When he returned twenty-four years later...

En este libro te llevo conmigo por todos esos rincones que me han robado el corazón: desde Tenerife hasta Santorini, de paseo por las calles de Edimburgo, donde nació una historia de amor imposible, hasta el sol de Los Ángeles, pasando de las playas de Ibiza a la ajetreada Nueva York, visitando juntos el lluvioso Londres… No es una guía: es un recorrido por mis paisajes favoritos, por los pueblos que me acogieron, por los hoteles que se convirtieron en refugios, y por los bares y escenarios donde se forjaron los personajes que tanto queremos.

Life on the road isn’t always smooth—but it sure makes for great stories. In Rolling Smooth: From Breakdowns to Belly Laughs, author and full-time RVer Stan Cromlish shares the real, unfiltered, and often hilarious side of RV life. From black tank disasters and thunderstorm slide malfunctions to awning duels with gate posts and near misses on postage-stamp campsites, these stories prove that the best lessons often come from the biggest mistakes.

Cheese Trekking recounts the author’s experiences visiting pastoral communities and cheesemakers in various countries and explains how cheeses can be local manifestations while also representing global archetypes, strategies that have been adopted in many places. It describes the constellations (a range of complementary milk foods that utilize all byproducts of cheesemaking) of various regions through a wide-angle lens. The central premise is that milk has a terroir, born from the plants and ecology of a landscape, that is concentrated via ruminant digestion and lactation.

Around the World in 1,000 Days follows seven strangers who meet online and launch a radical experiment: travel slowly across the planet, listen more than speak, and let ordinary people tell their own stories. Backed by unexpected sponsors and a support team in Delhi translating content into ten major languages, they move through kitchens, buses, rituals, landscapes, and quiet conversations often ignored by headlines. Their unpolished videos reveal a truth audiences recognize but rarely see: everyday humanity is extraordinary.

For listeners who wish Eat, Pray, Love had a cynical streak comes this propulsive, wildly original memoir about a journalist’s quest to conquer depression and addiction, set against the backdrop of international adventures and modern communal living. Through the eyes of others, Carly Schwartz seems to have everything going for her: top editor at the world’s biggest news site, fancy college degree, a seemingly endless parade of friends and parties.

Human history is woven with plant fibers. From the papyrus to the canvas, plants sustain and inspire us. Botanists study them, artists paint them, and poets praise them—plants are living archetypes around which we build our lives. This book is a collection of short stories from my life in the garden, featuring trees and shrubs as milestones to my memories of people and places from Seattle to Berlin. Because there is no life without plant life.

In the aftermath of tragedy, Barry Hoffner wanted to feel the pulse of the world again. The whole world. When Barry Hoffner lost his wife and travel partner, Jackie, in a sudden tragedy, his grief was a black hole that consumed everything. But amid the quiet wreckage of loss, something unexpected stirred: the call to move, to reconnect, and to live fully again.

In this joy-filled, globe-trotting spirited memoir, one high-vibe, itchy-footed traveler invites you on a journey through the most amusing, inspiring, and unexpectedly enlightening moments of a life lived in motion. From overseas mishaps to island awakenings, every chapter brims with soulful insight, lighthearted laughter, and a healthy dose of the unexpected.

In 2013 I set out on an open-ended musical pilgrimage to discover and drink from the source of the regional cultures of Latin America. My journey unraveled in an incredibly open manner with no exact planguided by intuition, gut instinct, and curiosity. Wherever I went, I asked about the regional music and followed the answers, arriving with nothing but an open mind and my belongings on my back. This left me open to all the opportunities that presented themselvesand it worked out most of the time.