Travel Year

Richard Henry Dana, a law student turned sailor for health reasons, sailed in 1834 aboard the brig Pilgrim on a voyage from Boston around Cape Horn to California. Drawing from his journals, Two Years Before the Mast gives a vivid and detailed account, shrewdly observed and beautifully described, of a common sailor's wretched treatment at sea, and of a way of life virtually unknown at that time.

When Peter Mayle and his wife traded England's long, gray winters and damp summers for life in southern France, they entered an enchanting, wonderful, sometimes bewildering world. Now, share their adventures, pleasures, and frustrations: the joys and occasional hazards of wining and dining in France, taking part in goat races, attending a Pavorotti concert under the stars - and much more.

Join the adventure as 33-year-old Rene Cormier politely removes himself from the working world that surrounds him and cashes in what few possessions he has to finance a three-year-long motorcycle journey around the world. Never one to let excessive planning get in the way of a good ride, Rene runs out of money half way through the tour and ultimately takes five years to cover the 41-country, 154,000 kilometer (95,000 mile) route.

In One Year Off, you can join the family on a trek up a Costa Rican volcano, cruise the canals of Burgundy by houseboat, and ride ferries through the Greek Islands. Later, as the Cohens wander further off the tourist trail, you can drive through the villages of Rajasthan, traverse the vast Australian Nullarbor, and discover the charms of Cambodia's Angkor Wat and the hidden shangri-las of northern Laos.

James Marsh's Four Years in the Rockies gives brilliant insight into the life of Isaac P. Rose, a man who forged his own path in the wilderness of the far west. This thrilling account of one mountain man's life at the height of the 19th-century fur industry follows Rose as he overcomes adversity, learns from those around him, and becomes one of the most successful trappers of the Rockies. Four Years in the Rockies is essential listening for anyone interested in the 19th-century fur trade and the adventurers who risked their lives to be part of it.

Time Travel Adventure When 12-year-old Ben pricks his finger on an antique sewing machine in his grandfather’s curiosity shop, he sets off an incredible chain of events that sends him hurtling back through time. Suddenly stranded over 100 years in the past, Ben is taken in by the kindly Carver family who run a notions store. But when the business comes under threat, Ben realizes his appearance in the past may be more meaningful than he realized. As he works to rescue the Carver’s legacy, Ben discovers his accidental time travel has a deeper purpose tied to secrets surrounding the ...

Two Years Before the Mast is a book by the American author Richard Henry Dana, Jr., written after a two-year sea voyage starting in 1834 and published in 1840. While at Harvard College, Dana had an attack of the measles that affected his vision. Thinking it might help his sight, Dana, rather than going on a Grand Tour as most of his fellow classmates traditionally did (and unable to afford it anyway), and being something of a nonconformist, left Harvard to enlist as a common sailor.

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. The award-winning zoologists and pioneering conservationists describe their work in the remote and ruggedly beautiful Luangwa Valley, in northeastern Zambia. There they studied the mysteries of the elephant population’s recovery after poaching, discovering remarkable similarities between humans and elephants.

In the years since the Event, the Republic of Nantucket has done its best to re-create the better ideas of the modern age. But the evils of its time resurface in the person of William Walker, renegade Coast Guard officer, who is busy building an empire for himself based on conquest by technology.

When Walker reaches Greece and recruits several of their greater kinglets to his cause, the people of Nantucket have no choice.

A Year in the Merde is the almost-true account of the author's adventures as an expat in Paris. Based loosely on his own experiences and with names changed to "avoid embarrassment, possible legal action, and to prevent the author's legs being broken by someone in a Yves Saint Laurent suit (or quite possibly, a Christian Dior skirt)", A Year in the Merde is the story of Paul West, a 27-year-old Brit who is brought to Paris by a French company to open a chain of British "tea rooms".

Dolly Faulkner has many heart-stopping moments of terror and anxiety, living much of the time truly alone in the Alaskan wilderness. But she is not lonely, as the awesome space and beauty of the mountains fill her with appreciation of all things of nature. Dolly Faulkner came to Alaska as a young woman with the dream of living in the wilderness. Forty Years in the Wilderness is a true reality of carving out a homestead in the Kilbuck Mountains near a minor hotsprings that the regional Native corporation is now trying to claim.

In a bid to inject excitement into her fairly humdrum existence, Del Hughes takes readers on a series of wild, whimsical, and wonderfully entertaining adventures, set within the vibrant and enchanting landscapes of Wales. Filled with laughter, mishaps, and a myriad of colourful characters, Del’s DIY Dangerous Living Regime sees her explore the esoteric, meddle with the mysterious, and attempt to overcome some of her more formidable phobias, with remarkable (and often ridiculous), results. From witchcraft to whittling, folklore to firewalking, and earthenware to exorcists, prepare to be ...

Lured by Venice’s colorful history and its labyrinth of walkways, canals, and bridges, Barry wanted to be more than just a tourist. He convinced his wife Debbie to join him in his Venice experiment, a one-year cultural immersion. Through their initiation into Venetian society, Debbie and Barry discovered the close-knit family of its inhabitants and the oddities of living in Venice, the improbable city built upon millions of tree trunks driven into the mud sixteen centuries ago. From the exasperating bureaucracy to high tides endangering their ground-floor apartment, these expatriates get ...

Ten Years a Nomad is for travel junkies, the travel-curious, and anyone interested in what you can learn about the world when you don’t have a cable bill for a decade or spend a month not wearing shoes living on the beach in Thailand.

Leslie White knew she wanted more out of life - She found it in an unlikely place. Devastated from the loss of both parents to cancer nine months apart, Leslie vowed to change her life. She bought the neighbor’s old motorhome, found a job as a traveling histologist, and hit the road. But she found she could not trust the one person she was still holding onto.

In 1834, Osborne Russell joined an expedition from Boston, which proceeded to the Rocky Mountains to capitalize on the lucrative salmon and fur trade. Beginning at the age of 20, he detailed the life of a trapper in his journal and recorded his adventures through treacherous terrain, encounters with dangerous wildlife, and confrontations with the Rockies natives of the Rockies. Osbourne would remain there for the next nine years. Journal of a Trapper is his remarkable account as he developed into an experienced trapper and a seasoned mountain man of the Rockies.

In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident.

Have you ever parachuted in the moonlight and juggled work with play? In 1995, Steve set himself the goal to sail across the North Atlantic. Saint Lucia and the Caribbean island chain were the prize. He had to master sailing in spring Scottish waters, keep up with his military training and undergraduate life. It was hard keeping a romance alive with so many distractions, like landing a gig as a swordsman in a Hollywood movie. There were other commitments—a jaunt to Pamplona in Spain, and a camp in the United States before he could join his crew. How will he get to the tropics and have ...

A Year in the World is vintage Frances Mayes, a celebration of the allure of travel, of serendipitous pleasures found in unlikely locales, of memory woven into the present, and of a joyous sense of quest. An ideal travel companion, Frances Mayes brings to the page the curiosity of an intrepid explorer, remarkable insights into the wonder of the everyday, and a compelling narrative style that entertains as it informs.

In the near future of Robert Charles Wilson's Last Year, the technology exists to open doorways into the past - but not our past, not exactly. Each "past" is effectively an alternate world, identical to ours but only up to the date on which we access it. And a given "past" can be reached only once. After a passageway is open, it's the only road to that particular past; once closed, it can't be reopened.