Travel Adventure Writing

From the incomparable Peter Gethers comes true-life adventure featuring the author and his Scottish Fold feline, Norton - seasoned world-traveler and renowned ice-cream critic. Whether it is the trademark flattened ears of his breed or the personality quirks individual to Norton, this cat has an uncanny knack for attracting celebrity attention. Norton’s feline adventures in France are a must for the consummate cat-lover, but also great fun for those not enamored of anything feline.

The United States is full of natural wonders, but few remain unspoiled by man as much as Yosemite National Park: a 750,000 square acre park near the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Despite being inhabited by people for nearly 3,000 years, the relatively remote spot helped ensure that even as America expanded west, the Yosemite area avoided being settled or exploited like so many other areas on the frontier.

Throughout his almost four decades of life on the road, Charles Kuralt has introduced us to people and places that have warmed our hearts. Now in Charles Kuralt's Christmas, he retraces his most memorable Christmas sojourns to remind us of the many marvelous ways that we celebrate this special holiday.

In 1976, after graduating from Harvard College, Mike Jacker embarked on a year-long voyage aboard Rhiannon with two friends named Louis and Clark. The three Midwestern boys had never experienced ocean sailing. Mike's captivating narrative takes you along on his remarkable adventures at sea and on land.

Two Years Before the Mast, written by Richard Henry Dana, provides a vivid account of "the life of a common sailor at sea". Dana sails from Boston, around Cape Horn, stopping in several ports along the California coast including San Diego, San Pedro, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco. On the return trip around Cape Horn in the middle of the Antarctic winter Dana describes terrifying storms and incredible beauty, giving vivid descriptions of icebergs and the scurvy that afflicts members of the crew.

UPCOTE, a self-styled gentleman of leisure who subsidises his state hand-outs with a little wheeling and dealing on the side meets the struggling SMYTHE and sets out to help his young protégé of fifty-three fulfil his true and hitherto well-concealed potential. With the help of Upcote’s indomitable Aunt Mabel and under the sceptical scrutiny of coin-obsessed café owner Bob, the two men set out to put their sartorial and cultural superiority on a sound financial footing. Dodging the slings and arrows of outraged punters our two heroes push, swerve and stumble onwards towards their dream...

The Drive follows Teresa Bruce on her 2003 road trip through Mexico and onto the Pan-American Highway, in a rickety camper with her old dog and new husband in tow. Bruce first set off on the exact same route in 1973, her parents at the helm and their two young daughters in tow, as a reaction to the accidental death of their youngest child, Bruce's brother John John. Bruce is immensely talented in bringing scenery of Central and South America to life with her innate attention to detail and sense of storytelling.

A historical adventure book set in the Libyan Desert during the early 20th century. Gritty and richly detailed, Oasis Mirage offers an unprecedented look into one of the world's most mysterious and inhospitable regions, brought to life through the eyes of an intrepid explorer. Among the endless series of travelogues about Egypt, Oasis Mirage stands apart by delving into the enigmatic Libyan Desert. Spanning nearly a million square miles, this largely uncharted territory presents a formidable challenge for our protagonist, who is determined to unlock its secrets. Journeying through this ...

This beautiful literary collection explores the spectacular natural features of Yosemite through the eyes of some of the most extraordinarily talented writers. In 1851, Lafayette Bunnell chronicled his travels with the Mariposa Battalion, the first non-natives to visit Yosemite Valley. Following in his footsteps, Theodore Roosevelt, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain, Clarence King, Frederick Law Olmsted, Joaquin Miller, and Horace Greeley made their pilgrimages and were moved to recount their observations. Included here as well is the work of John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club.

For most of us, traveling means visiting the most beautiful places on Earth - Paris, the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canyon. It’s rare to book a plane ticket to visit the lifeless moonscape of Canada’s oil sand strip mines, or to seek out the Chinese city of Linfen, legendary as the most polluted in the world. But in Visit Sunny Chernobyl, Andrew Blackwell embraces a different kind of travel, taking a jaunt through the most gruesomely polluted places on Earth.

Mike and his family sail the Western Mediterranean in a 72-foot yacht - a converted 100 ton Baltic Trader. The yachting anecdotes bring out the Irish in him.

Brian has a million vague life plans but zero sense of direction. So when he meets Rachel, a self-possessed woman who daydreams of bicycling across the States, he decides to follow her wherever she’ll take him. Brian and Rachel soon embark on a ride from northern Wisconsin to Somewhere West, infatuated with the promise of adventure and each other. But as the pair progress from the Northwoods into the bleak western plains, they begin to discover the messy realities of life on the road.

From London to New York, Ewan and Charley chased their shadows through Europe, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Russia, across the Pacific to Alaska, then down through Canada and America. But as the miles slipped beneath the tyres of their big BMWs, their troubles started. Exhaustion, injury and accidents tested their strength. Treacherous roads, unpredictable weather and turbulent politics challenged their stamina.

Helen and Frank Schreider's dream was to drive the length of the Americas; from the town of Circle, Alaska (just outside the Arctic Circle), to the world's southernmost town, Ushuaia, in Tierra del Fuego. With their German shepherd Dinah along for the ride, they were the first people in history to have made this trip.

From the Lambic breweries of Belgium, where beer is fermented with wild yeasts drawn down from the air around the brewery, to the aquifers below Burton-on-Trent, where the brewing water is rumored to contain life-giving qualities, Miracle Brew tells the full story behind the amazing role each of these fantastic four - a grass, a weed, a fungus, and water - has to play.

Join cruising legends Lin and Larry Pardey as from England they proceed into the Baltic, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Germany. During their voyage they dealt with armed guards on the Polish waterfront who watched while the people greeted them with flowers and fruit. They weathered a fierce mast-under broach in a Baltic gale. And experienced great friendships found in harbors large and small.

This is the story where the destinations are only part of the adventure! In Travel Tales: European Adventures from The River’s Edge, John-William DeClaris has created an anthology of historical fiction based on real events. As he recreates the river cruise, he weaves in unforgettable stories during a journey through Ypres, Vienna, Prague, and more. These tales cover a wide range of life events experienced by his fellow cruise mates.

Ever since he can remember, Dom Joly has been fascinated by travel to odd places. In part this stems from a childhood spent in war-torn Lebanon, where instead of swapping marbles in the schoolyard, he had a shrapnel collection - the schoolboy currency of Beirut. Dom's upbringing was interspersed with terrifying days and nights spent hunkered in the family basement under Syrian rocket attack or coming across a pile of severed heads from a sectarian execution in the pine forests near his home.

In the summer of 2004, Tony James Slater went to Ecuador looking to become a man. Not all of him returned. But the bit that did was fueled by a burning desire to do...something. Something that mattered. And, ideally, to get the hell out of England in the process.

The Only Road North is the true-life adventure of a 9,000-mile journey across Africa taken by author Erik Mirandette, his brother, and two friends. When the travelers fall victim to a terrorist attack, Erik must struggle through grief and darkness to find his way back to a life lived for God.