Travel Adventure Writing

From Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson to Alive! and Adrift, tales of survival have captivated readers. Here are the most remarkable stories imaginable of maroons, castaways, and other survivors from the 1500s to the present: their moral dilemmas, their personalities, and their influence on society, literature, and art.

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...

Search for the Golden Moon Bear recounts Montgomery's quest--fraught with danger and mayhem--to reconstruct an evolutionary record and piece together a living portrait of her little known subject. This beautiful animal is not just a scientific eureka! It is also a powerful symbol of conservation. Search for the Golden Moon Bear is a field report from the frontiers of science and the ends of the earth, seamlessly weaving together folklore, natural history, and contemporary research into a fantastic travelogue.

Tony James Slater knew nothing about Australia. Except for the fact that he'd just arrived there. The stage is set for an outrageous adventure: three people, one van, on an epic, 20,000-mile road trip around Australia. They're crisscrossing the continent through some of the most inhospitable land on the planet - the infamous Aussie Outback. Unprepared, underqualified, and hopelessly inept, Tony battles gigantic pumpkins, mechanical mishaps, and suicidal kangaroos, armed only with a thong and a sense of humor.

Mike McIntyre and his longtime girlfriend, Andrea, are in their early 40s and itching for a break. So they rent out their San Diego home - dog, cat, and furniture included - and embark on a yearlong journey around the world. "We're not out to find ourselves, or even to lose ourselves," McIntyre writes. "We're merely seeking a pause in our routines." But the couple is soon swept up in the adventure of a lifetime.

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.

As a child Geoff Dyer spent long hours making and blotchily painting model fighter planes. So the adult Dyer jumped at the chance of a residency aboard an aircraft carrier. Another Great Day at Sea chronicles Dyer’s experiences on the USS George H.W. Bush as he navigates the routines and protocols of “carrier-world,” from the elaborate choreography of the flight deck through miles of walkways and hatches to kitchens serving meals for a crew of five thousand to the deafening complexity of catapult and arresting gear.

Desmesurada, cosmopolita y muy americana. Esta sería una buena descripción para Los Ángeles...si sólo hubiera una. Y es que las siglas "LA" defi nen un conglomerado de lugares tan variado y excéntrico como las diferentes tierras que integran la vecina Disneylandia. Bajo el manto de la eterna juventud se esconde la auténtica esencia de California.

Dos ciudades en una, o al menos lo fueron durante siglos: la boscosa Buda, que desde su castillo sobre las colinas atesora las mejores vistas de, al otro lado del Danubio, el aún más monumental barrio de Pest. Algo de dual tiene también su espíritu. En Navidad, a su porte imperial se suman los mercadillos pero también las fiestas de luces láser en alguno de sus balnearios centenarios.

When Stephen Bodio was a young boy in the early '50s, he saw an image in National Geographic that became forever etched in his mind: It was a photograph of a Kazakh nomad, dressed in a long coat and wearing a fur hat, holding a huge tame eagle on his fist. And a lifelong fascination with Central Asia was born.

Whether they are looking for love, their purpose, or the perfect beach, every backpacker finds a unique community—and themselves—along the way. In this one-of-a-kind book, author Paul Neville tells the story of his year spent going around the world on a budget and celebrating a life lived for the journey—not the destination.

A captivating travelogue that chronicles the journey of a woman who sets out to hike a moderate trail in every state within 24 months. In this inspiring story of wonder, love, and discovery, Chris uncovers more than just a few snakes and favorite trees on the country’s trails as she navigates the USA for her 50 Hikes 50 States Project. From relearning history to stumbling upon kind people with incredible stories, she revisits the USA as she gets ready to retire to travel the world full-time. One last lap through the US, she figures, will let her leave the country with love in her heart. ...

Interwoven with legends and lore, this story chronicles one man's adventure on Lake Superior, one of the world's most dangerous bodies of water.

Within six months Barbara Schoichet lost everything: her job, her girlfriend of six years, and her mother to pancreatic cancer. Her life stripped bare, and armed with nothing but a death wish and a ton of attitude, Barbara pursues an unlikely method of coping. At the age of 50, she earns her motorcycle license, buys a Harley on eBay from two guys named Dave, and drives it alone from New York to Los Angeles on a circuitous trek loosely guided by her H.O.G. tour book and a whole lot of road whimsy.

A powerfully built man more than six feet tall, Amundsen’s career of adventure began at the age of fifteen (he was born in Norway in 1872 to a family of merchant sea captains and rich ship owners); twenty-five years later he was the first man to reach both the North and South Poles. Lynne Cox, adventurer and swimmer, author of Swimming to Antarctica (“gripping”—Sports Illustrated) and Grayson (“wondrous, and unforgettable”—Carl Hiaasen), gives us in South with the Sun a full-scale account of the explorer’s life and expeditions.

Spanning 15 years of travel, beginning when she is a sophomore in college, Wanderlust documents Elisabeth Eaves’ insatiable hunger for the rush of the unfamiliar and the experience of encountering new people and cultures. Young and independent, she crisscrosses five continents and chases the exotic, both in culture and in romance.

Bound for Distant Seas begins sailing author James Baldwin's epic tale of his second circumnavigation. His story is seasoned by his adventures during his first circumnavigation in 1984-86 as told in Across Islands and Oceans. Alone with little money aboard Atom, his now-engineless 28-foot sailboat, James embarks on his odyssey without the comforts and equipment most sailors consider essential.

From dim sum in Hong Kong to giant platters of Peking duck in Beijing, fresh-baked croissants in Paris and pierogi on the snowy streets of Moscow, Platt takes us around the world, re-tracing the steps of a unique, and lifelong, culinary education. Providing a glimpse into a life that has intertwined food and travel in exciting and unexpected ways, The Book of Eating is a delightful and sumptuous trip that is also the culinary coming-of-age of a voracious eater and his eventual ascension to become, as he puts it, “a professional glutton.”

It started as a joke, a night out with three friends in costume. A debauched international pub crawl followed, but the partying and exotic women weren't enough, and what started off as a bit of fun slowly descended into madness. With sombreros atop their thick skulls and swords hoisted high, they would storm the most dangerous places on earth...and face the consequences.

In Pole to Pole we join Michael Palin on the second of his epic challenges. Travelling from the North Pole to the South Pole, he experiences every extreme the globe has to offer. As he crosses 16 countries by train, truck, raft, Ski-Doo, barge, balloon and bicycle, he meets a diverse range of fascinating characters and landscapes while his own endurance is tested to the limit. With his customary aplomb, he plunges himself into the local cultures, starring in a crayfish documentary in Novgorod, attending a baby-rolling ceremony at a Cypriot wedding, and consulting an Mpulugu witch-doctor.