Travel Biography

The unforgettable true story of larger-than-life whitewater raft guides Clancy Reece and Jon Barker, two men who share a love of wild rivers and an unbending will to live life on their terms, no matter the cost. Clancy's motto, "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing," leads them into a decade of beautiful - and beautifully strange - river adventures.

At the age of 32, on an assignment to walk the most famous pilgrimage in the world – the Camino de Santiago, in northern Spain – Phoebe Smith somehow lost her way. Having spent a lifetime exploring unfamiliar places, she quit her dream job, ended her long-term relationship and headed home to North Wales to discover the point to…everything. In her search for answers she found herself – quite by accident – walking some of Britain’s oldest pilgrim paths. And in following these old ways, she ended up confronting past traumas that she thought she had laid to rest.

Erik Weihenmayer is the first and only blind person to summit Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. Descending carefully, he and his team picked their way across deep crevasses and through the deadly Khumbu Icefall; when the mountain was finally behind him, Erik knew he was going to live. His expedition leader slapped him on the back and said something that would affect the course of Erik’s life: “Don’t make Everest the greatest thing you ever do.” No Barriers is Erik’s response to that challenge.

Priyanka Mattoo was born into a wooden house in the Himalayas, as were most of her ancestors. In 1989, however, mounting violence in the region forced Mattoo’s community to flee. The home into which her family poured their dreams was reduced to a pile of rubble. Mattoo never moved back to Kashmir—because it no longer existed. She and her family just kept packing and unpacking and moving on. In forty years, Mattoo accumulated thirty-two different addresses, and she chronicles her nomadic existence with wit, wisdom, and an inimitable eye for light within the darkest moments.

Returning to the UK in September 2010 after serving in Iraq as the political adviser to the top American general, Emma Sky felt no sense of homecoming. She soon found herself back in the Middle East traveling through a region in revolt. In a Time of Monsters bears witness to the demands of young people for dignity and justice during the Arab Spring; the inability of sclerotic regimes to reform; the descent of Syria into civil war; the rise of the Islamic State; and the flight of refugees to Europe.

From the author of the enduring classic The Solace of Open Spaces, here is a wondrous meditation on how water, light, wind, mountain, bird, and horse have shaped her life and her understanding of a world besieged by a climate crisis. Amid species extinctions and disintegrating ice sheets, this stunning collection of memories, observations, and narratives is acute and lyrical, Whitmanesque in breadth, and as elegant as a Japanese teahouse.

Atop a hill in the rainforest of Belize, next to the ruins of a fallen civilization, a butterfly farm raises the brilliant blue morpho. What starts out as the worst vacation ever turns into a quest to learn more about the first-of-its-kind farm when journalist Diana Marcum inadvertently discovers this wildlife sanctuary, which is supported by an international live-butterfly trade.

Shane K. Bernard's Teche examines this legendary waterway of the American deep south. Bernard delves into the bayou's geologic formation as a vestige of the Mississippi and Red Rivers, its prehistoric Native American occupation, and its colonial settlement by French, Spanish, and eventually, Anglo-American pioneers. He surveys the coming of indigo, cotton, and sugar; steam-powered sugar mills, and riverboats; and the brutal institution of slavery. He also examines the impact of the Civil War on the Teche.

At the age of 17, in a last-minute twist of fate, Laura Bradbury is sent to Burgundy, France, for a year’s exchange. She arrives knowing only a smattering of French and with no idea what to expect in her first foray out of North America. With a head full of dreams and a powerful desire to please, Laura quickly adapts to Burgundian life, learning crucial skills such as the fine art of wine tasting and how to savor snails.

Feeling stuck in his work and home life, writer Jeff Gordinier happened into a fateful meeting with Danish chef René Redzepi, whose restaurant, Noma, has been called the best in the world. A restless perfectionist, Redzepi was at the top of his game but was looking to tear it all down, to shutter his restaurant and set out for new places, flavors, and recipes. This is the story of the subsequent four years of globe-trotting culinary adventure, with Gordinier joining Redzepi as his Sancho Panza.

On June 21, 1992, two best friends summited Mount Rainier. Within hours, their exquisite accomplishment would be overshadowed by tragedy. On their descent, Jim Davidson fell through an ice bridge on Rainier's northeast flank, plunging eighty feet into a narrow crevasse inside the Emmons Glacier and dragging Mike Price in after him. Mike fell to his death; Jim, badly injured and armed with minimal gear, faced an almost impossible climb back out of the crevasse, up a nearly vertical ice wall.

Sue Tidwell lived in awe of Africa’s extraordinary wildlife. After years spent appreciating the animals in her imagination, the tenderhearted American hated the idea of joining her husband on a big game hunting safari. And getting attacked by blood-sucking tsetse flies the moment she stepped off the plane gave no hint of the mind-blowing change of perspective in her future. With her initial animosity turning into curiosity as they breathlessly tracked dangerous beasts, Sue formed a surprising bond with their young female government-assigned game scout.

A former American president nearly dies during an ill-planned exploration through the Brazilian Wilderness and down the River of Doubt. Theodore Roosevelt was a naturalist, explorer, author, hunter, governor, soldier and 26th President of the United States.

In 1923 four friends jumped in a 1917 Model T and began an adventure traveling from Ohio to California. Combined with original pictures and postcards, the journals of this trip look at everything from crossing the Mississippi River, the lakes of Minnesota, the plains of Montana, and the majesty of Yellowstone, to the streets of San Francisco, complete with a cast of fellow travelers they had occasion to meet along the way. Montana Cowboys, school teachers, field hands, and fellow vagabonds make up an eclectic cast detailing life in America in 1923. This true story takes an authentic look at...

Before he grew up and became one of Washington's most respected reporters and editors, Andrew Ferguson was, of all things, a Lincoln buff, with the photos hung on his bedroom wall to prove it. Decades later, Ferguson's latent buffdom is reignited. In Land of Lincoln, he embarks on a curiosity-fueled coast-to-coast journey through contemporary Lincoln Nation, encountering everything from hatred to adoration to opportunism and all manner of reaction in between.

To anyone interested in small-boat cruising and voyaging, the names Lin and Larry Pardey need no introduction. As world-girdling sailors who roamed the planet on a pair of small, engineless boats that they built themselves, the Pardeys established their hard-earned reputations by eloquently (and sometimes controversially) telling their stories through a series of best-selling books and manuals, and countless seminars and boat shows.

As Hillaire Belloc explains it, one fine day while walking about the town in northern France where he was born, he suddenly decided to take a pilgrimage to Rome. Not just any pilgrimage, mind you. He not only decided to walk the whole way, but he decided to make a beeline for the Holy City, doing everything possible to avoid leaving the straight path.

An intimate and inspiring true story of love, loss, addiction, and redemption. Lisa’s life is high-glamour and high-octane, publishing bestselling books and walking the red-carpet at London movie premieres. But the reality behind the gloss is very different: she is stuck in an unhappy marriage, stressed out in a toxic job, and grieving for her parents. She begins to rely on alcohol to get her through it all and embarks on an illicit affair. Lisa leaves her husband, hoping to find absolution and happiness in a new relationship, but the world of dating for a 43-year-old is not what she ...

On June 19, 1953, Harry Truman got up early, packed the trunk of his Chrysler New Yorker, and did something no other former president has done before or since: he hit the road. No Secret Service protection. No traveling press. Just Harry and his childhood sweetheart Bess off to visit old friends, take in a Broadway play, celebrate their wedding anniversary in the Big Apple, and blow a bit of the money he’d just received to write his memoirs. Hopefully incognito. In this lively history, author Matthew Algeo meticulously details how Truman’s plan to blend in went wonderfully awry.

Best-selling and beloved author Frances Mayes discovers the hidden pleasures of Italy in a sumptuous travel narrative that crisscrosses the country, with inventive new recipes celebrating Italian cuisine.