Travel Writing & Commentary

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

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

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....

For decades, Dick Conant paddled the rivers of America, covering the Mississippi, Yellowstone, Ohio, Hudson, as well as innumerable smaller tributaries. These solo excursions were epic feats of planning, perseverance, and physical courage....

Experience the true “great outdoors” through the stories of the men who lived it.....

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....

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....

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

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

Hailed as a masterpiece of American travel writing, Blue Highways is an unforgettable journey along our nation's backroads....

An enthralling account of a modern voyage of discovery as we meet the clever, social birds of prey called caracaras, which puzzled Darwin, fascinate modern-day falconers, and carry secrets of our planet's deep past in their family history....

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

A landmark in travel writing, this is the incredible true story of Heinrich Harrer’s escape across the Himalayas to Tibet....

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

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....

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

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....

More than 20 years ago, Frances Mayes introduced readers to a wondrous new world when she bought and restored an abandoned Tuscan villa called Bramasole. Under the Tuscan Sun inspired generations to embark on their own journeys....

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....

Funny, touching, endearing - Peter Mayle's Provence proves the adage that while you may not be able to escape from it all, you sure can have fun trying....

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....

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....

The ultimate guide to what the land, sun, moon, stars, trees, plants, animals, sky and clouds can reveal - when you know what to look for.... 

To live in a pristine land unchanged by man... to roam a wilderness through which few other humans have passed....

Steven Spurrier is one of the wine trade’s most important figures. Over the years, he took the role of wine merchant, buyer, wine educator, and lecturer; he wrote books, wine courses, and over 300 columns for Decanter magazine. He set up the breakthrough "Judgement of Paris" in 1976—a tasting in which outsider wines from California were pitched blind against Bordeaux’ finest, and won—which still sends reverberations through the wine trade today. 

This book is targeted not only at Europeans and other Africans who may be visiting Nigeria for the first time but also to expatriate Nigerians, who may or may not have touched our soil in decades, and who definitely need a refresher course, judging by my own experiences having returned to Lagos to live in 2010. Even though Nigeria is an English-speaking country, previously a British colony, the unofficial accepted language is Pidgin English and as such, the use and translation of simple English words in Pidgin English differ widely and have meanings that would baffle you!

Uncle Jack's Outer Banks: The Ultimate Collection, by award-winning OBX humorist Jack Sandberg, features more than 50 of the long-time humor columnist’s laugh-filled essays and letters. Author Ray McAllister has added an introduction on the importance of Sandberg’s more than three decades of writing.

Growing up near the Sabine, journalist Wes Ferguson, like most East Texans, steered clear of its murky, debris-filled waters, where alligators lived in the backwater sloughs and an occasional body was pulled from some out-of-the-way crossing. The Sabine held a reputation as a haunt for a handful of hunters and loggers, more than a few water moccasins, swarms of mosquitoes, and the occasional black bear lumbering through swamp oak and cypress knees.

Whether your taste runs to crocodiles, ancient relics, or flying saucers, you’re sure to find entertainment and illumination in this collection of 21 true travel stories.Join in the author’s adventures as she makes a pilgrimage to see a 2,500-year-old tooth, considers the fate of a three-legged elephant, learns the chilling secrets of the Jamaica Inn pirates, participates in a shamanic ayahuasca ritual, talks alien spaceship propulsion with a SETI scientist, and more.

The delightfully comic account of a British couple and their imported cats starting over in a new country continues in Bucket to Greece Volume 4. The atmosphere is tense in the Bucket household, with Barry and Cynthia, or specifically Cynthia and her vile mutant cat, having outstayed their welcome. The race is on for them to find somewhere to live before their imminent wedding. Harold's house has potential, but Barry needs Victor's help to take advantage of the obnoxious Brit.

 Can you combine wanderlust and motherhood? Margo Weinstein did. For decades, Margo Weinstein escaped her demanding legal practice by kayaking, whitewater rafting, trekking, and climbing in remote regions. Then she had a son and found herself in the kiddie pool on a Disney cruise.

As a commercial airline pilot, Mark has spent nearly two decades crossing the skies of our planet, touching down in the cities he imagined as a child. He experiences our metropolises in short layover visits that repeat over weeks, months or even years, giving him a unique perspective on the urbanisation of the world. In this intimate yet expansive work that weaves travelogue with memoir, Mark celebrates the cities he has come to know and love, through the lens of the hometown his heart has never left.

To National Book Award-winning author Barry Lopez, the desert and the river are landscapes alive with poetry, mystery, seduction, and enchantment. In these two works of fiction, the narrator responds viscerally and emotionally to their moods and changes, their secrets and silences, and their unique power. Desert Notes portrays the mystical power of an American desert, and the reflections it sparks in the characters who travel there. River Notes, a companion piece, celebrates the wild life forces of a river.

We follow in the footsteps of the intrepid British traveller as they explore the far-flung shores of the world in the company of some of the world’s finest chroniclers, including Charles Darwin, Kenneth Williams, James Boswell, Freya Stark, Sir Ernest Shackleton, Fanny Trollope, Mungo Park, Nancy Mitford, Wilfred Thesiger, Horace Walpole, Evelyn Waugh and many others, in this entertaining collection of travellers’ tales. 

 I look back at my nine-to-five existence now with a sympathetic smile. I remember sitting behind a desk of uninspiring paperwork, always lifting the telephone receiver with trepidation—both at the office and at home. The commute to and from work happily swallowed at least an hour of my day. 

This is the hilarious follow-up to Going Around the Bend on the QE2 where Nick now runs away to America to escape his proctologist. He is welcomed by the American people and delighted to find that they love his accent. As always, the outspoken Nick runs into many situations, some of which would seem to be unbelievable, but they are true: He meets a number of Hollywood stars and has a flaming row with one of them, is interrogated by the FBI, lives with a top model, has a fight with a mobster, and sadly witnesses the Americans' reaction to 9/11!

David Congalton is a popular radio host and former newspaper columnist in the small college town of San Luis Obispo, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Congalton shares his favorite "Man About Town" newspaper columns, a mixture of humor and pathos to capture "the SLO Life", an experience he's enjoyed since 1987. 

Travel journalist Kate Wills wasn’t expecting to be divorced after less than a year of marriage, or to be forced to restart a life that had seemed so stable for so long. Luckily, her job as a writer offered her the perfect opportunity to escape from it all. But this time, with no deadlines to hit or all-expenses-paid trips to absorb in a few days before churning out copy for a travel magazine, her jet-setting felt different. There were no photographers working alongside her or assistants booking her flights. For the first time ever, Kate was traveling alone.

A compelling travel memoir of a British man in the autumn of his life who sets about discovering a multitude of exceptional places across Europe. Miles’ primary form of transport is a campervan, but he also goes by train, air, yacht, ferry, scooter, bicycle, and on foot. While touring Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, Miles finds himself in locations that do not star in the mainstream travel guides. The stories illustrate the beauty of being alive and are told by an author with a humorous disposition who inspires the listener.