Travel Writing & Commentary

Into Thin Air is the definitive, personal account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest...

The Appalachian Trail trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America - majestic mountains, silent forests, sparking lakes....

The River of Doubt brings alive extraordinary events in a powerful nonfiction narrative thriller that happens to feature one of the most famous Americans who ever lived....

She got rid of her belongings, quit her job, and undertook a yearlong journey around the world, all alone....

A guide to some of the world’s most fascinating places, as seen and experienced by writer, television host, and relentlessly curious traveler Anthony Bourdain....

The eagerly awaited return of master American storyteller Rinker Buck, Life on the Mississippi is an epic, enchanting blend of history and adventure in which Buck builds a wooden flatboat from the grand “flatboat era” of the 1800s and sails it down the Mississippi River....

From the unique perspective of David Sedaris comes a new collection of essays taking his listeners on a bizarre and stimulating world tour....

Every time Bill Bryson walks out the door memorable travel literature threatens to break out. His previous excursion up, down, and over the Appalachian Trail...

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

In the first of three essays included in this audiobook, Bill Bryson decides to move back to the United States, after nearly two decades in Britain. But not before taking one last trip....

In January 2003, Nick Sparks and his brother Micah set off on a three-week trip around the world....

This is the story of the Owens' travel and life in the Kalahari Desert. Here they met and studied unique animals and were confronted with danger from drought, fire, storms, and the animals they loved....

In the best-selling tradition of Bill Bryson and Tony Horwitz, Rinker Buck's The Oregon Trail is a major work of participatory history....

In August 2008, Amanda Lindhout traveled to Mogadishu, Somalia - "the most dangerous place on Earth." On her fourth day in the country, she and her photojournalist companion were abducted....

With a brand-new, original introduction from Rick reflecting on his decades of travel, For the Love of Europe features 100 of the best stories published throughout his career. Covering his adventures through Europe, these are stories only Rick Steves could tell....

At the beginning of his memoir Life Lived Wild: Adventures at the Edge of the Map, Rick Ridgeway tells us that if you add up all his many expeditions, he’s spent over five years of his life sleeping in tents....

Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than $200....

In this inspiring travelogue, celebrated traveler and photographer Jessica Nabongo—the first Black woman on record to visit all 195 countries in the world—shares her journey around the globe with fascinating stories of adventure, culture, travel musts, and human connections....

Writer for the New York Times and GQ, Mark Adams is also the acclaimed author of Mr. America.....

At 23, Andrew Forsthoefel headed out the door of his home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, with a backpack, an audio recorder, two books, and a sign that read "Walking to Listen". He had just graduated from Middlebury College and was ready to begin his adult life, but he didn't know how....

In less than a year, Neil Peart lost both his 19-year-old daughter, Selena, and his wife, Jackie.....

Before climbers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates were able to reach the unclimbed West Face of the remote Siula Grande, disaster struck....

This is a stirring, vivid book about one of the most compelling and dangerous of all human pursuits....

In this riveting real-life adventure, Mark and Delia Owens tell the dramatic story of their last years in Africa, fighting to save elephants, villagers, and - in the end - themselves....

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 1955, a young TV producer named David Attenborough was approached by six recent graduates from Oxford and Cambridge universities determined to drive the entire length of Eurasia, as it was then known, from London to Singapore. Many tried this before, but none succeeded. Sensing this time might be different, Attenborough gave The Oxford and Cambridge Far Eastern Expedition enough film reels to cover their attempt. The 19,000-mile journey completed by Tim Slessor and the team was told in Attenborough's Travellers' Tales and captivated a nation emerging from postwar austerity. 

In 1955, a young TV producer named David Attenborough was approached by six graduates determined to drive the entire length of Eurasia from London to Singapore. It was the "unclimbed Everest of motoring"—many had tried, none had succeeded. The 19,000-mile journey captivated a nation. Fifty years later, Attenborough said he didn't think the journey could be made again today. Inspired and desperate to prove Attenborough wrong, Alex Bescoby contacted Tim Slessor and together they planned to recreate the trip, this time from Singapore to London.

A young man heads off on a journey to find out if magic still exists in the world, to know its wonder, and to see if it might save him when his own life is unexpectedly at stake. Instead of retreating after being deported from Mexico, or beaten up in Guatemala, he travels to the Caribbean where he meets a Rastafarian Don Juan who teaches him about the "natural mystic", a magical tradition that had travelled to the Caribbean centuries earlier with the slavery trade. 

What would happen if you were cycling to the office and just kept on pedalling? Needing a change, Mike Carter did just that. Following the Thames to the sea he embarked on an epic 5,000-mile ride around the entire British coastline—the equivalent of London to Calcutta. He encountered drunken priests, drag queens and gnome sanctuaries. He met fellow travellers and people building for a different type of future. He also found a spirit of unbelievable kindness and generosity that convinced him that Britain is anything but broken. 

The past, present, and future of human culture can be found inside glass, on walls, or tucked away in a climate-controlled environment. But what attracts society to collect fine art, pottery, and other ancient artifacts? In Beyond the Halls: An Insider’s Guide to Loving Museums, you’ll find a brief history of museums while exploring the present nature of these institutions and the thought-provoking ways to interact with them. Beyond the Halls is a book that speaks to museum lovers (and haters) who are looking to discover, for the first time, the history of museums.

Most visitors to Israel face an important task: crossing the highlights off their list. After guiding countless tours through the highlights, Shakked realized that they can never replace the excitement of discovering a hidden gem. In her book Secret Israel, Shakked reveals the Israel that she knows and loves, the one most people never get to see. Hidden sites off the beaten path are presented to the listener from a personal angle of a 10th-generation native Israeli Jewess with a spicy personality, guaranteeing a fun listen.

In March 2022, Michael Palin travelled the length of the River Tigris through Iraq to get a sense of what life is like in a region of the world that once formed the cradle of civilisation, but that in recent times has witnessed turmoil and appalling bloodshed. It was a journey of sharp, often brutal contrasts. At one moment he would be exploring the old streets of Baghdad or the ancient ruins of Babylon. At the next he would be visiting the war-torn city of Mosul, or learning about the horrific Speicher massacre in Tikrit.

Ever since he was given a copy of Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World for his ninth birthday, Dom has been obsessed with the world of cryptozoology—monster hunting—and in Scary Monsters and Super Creeps, he heads to six completely different destinations to investigate local monster sightings. Are the monsters all the product of fevered minds, or is there a sliver of truth somewhere in the madness? Either way, the search gives Dom an excuse to dive into six fascinating destinations on a gloriously nutty adventure.

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.

Travels is a thrilling anthology of the travel writings of Paul Bowles, author of the era-defining post-war novel The Sheltering Sky. The acclaimed essays in Travel—never before collected in a single volume—span more than sixty years and range from Bowles’s early days in Paris to his time spent in Ceylon, Thailand, Kenya, and his expatriate life in Morocco.

In Days, a master observer of the foreign and obscure turns his attentions toward his own daily existence, giving us a startlingly candid portrait of his life in late 20th-century Tangier.  

This engaging collection of eight travel essays by the author of such noted fiction as The Sheltering Sky and The Delicate Prey deals largely with places in the world that few Westerners have ever heard of, much less seen—places as yet unencumbered by the trappings, luxuries, and corruptions of modern civilization. Except for one essay on Central America, all of these pieces are concerned with remote spots in the Hindu, Buddhist, or Mohammedan worlds.  

A further collection of entertaining short stories to complete the author’s trilogy of world-wide adventures. His intriguing tales are spiced with lively encounters and astute observations, full of humor and wit. His fascinating historical facts are particularly enlightening, and will have you saying, "Really? I didn’t know that." Each story will leave you wanting more: Teachers' ghostly prank with a bizarre twist. Sampling local whiskey at a village distillery on the fabled Mekong river in Laos. Two cultures collide when Russian rugby league players invade Wigan.

Katt Annie never planned to be a nomad. She knew nothing at all about owning or towing a trailer. But she’s now been on the road traveling and camping full-time with her tiny trailer for more than five years. The nomadic lifestyle turned out to be satisfying beyond anything she could have expected. She had no idea she could enjoy life so much and be so calm and content, yet vibrant and alive at the same time. As she often says: “I’m always traveling, but I’m always at home.” This is the first book in a three-part series.

"You'll never make it!" With encouragement like that, author Mickey Thomas, in a fit of youthful testosterone, and with meticulous inattention to detail, decided to embark on a once-in-a lifetime 3,400-mile bicycle trek from Montana to Alaska. While riding through knee problems, illness, homesickness, infatuation, bad weather, and meeting a host of quirky and hilarious characters, Mickey, and his group rides over some of the roughest roads and most desolate scenery in North America. Along the way, he discovers an inner strength as well as a new physical stamina he never had.