True Travel

On July 16, 1965, a massive alien spacecraft from the Zeta Reticuli star system landed at the Nevada test site north of Las Vegas. Following a plan set in motion by President Kennedy in 1962, the alien visitors known as the Ebens welcomed 12 astronaut-trained military personnel aboard their craft for the 10-month journey to their home planet, Serpo, 39 light-years away. Working with the DIA originators of the Serpo project and the diary kept by the expedition’s commanding officer, Len Kasten chronicles the complete journey of these cosmic pioneers.

There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world's oceans: too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to rampant criminality and exploitation.

We are anchored in a windswept bay in the Dominican Republic on our way to Puerto Rico. There is no turning back now. The gear is stowed, hatches battened and the sails reefed. We are about to venture into the dreaded Mona Passage between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Once we are in PR, we will have a leisurely sail along the beautiful south coast. But we have to survive the Mona Passage first. Will she be kind to us? It is my pleasure to have you come along for the third book in the Quest series. Included in our itinerary is Vieques, St. Croix, St. John and a little fling with Virgin Gorda. ...

Whatever You Do, Don't Run is a hilarious collection of true tales from top ­safari guide Peter Allison. In a place where the wrong behavior could get you eaten, Allison has survived face-to-face encounters with big cats, angry ­elephants, and the world's most unpredictable animals: herds of untamed tourists and foolhardy guides whose outrageous antics sometimes make them even more dangerous than a pride of hungry lions!

‘Quest in the Caribbean’ is the final book in the Quest Series. Wendy and I have learned to become sailors. We thank our lucky stars every day that the sea has been merciful to us. The sea is our home, but it can also be a strict master and unforgiving teacher. We learn our lessons one day and one problem at a time. But more importantly, Wendy and I learn a great deal about each other and what it takes to be good companions on a tiny boat. Compatibility on a cruising boat is the irreplaceable ingredient that keeps the cruise alive. The first chapter of ‘Quest in the Caribbean’ ...

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 ...

Whenever someone asks me what the most memorable tour was during my 15 years as a tour operator and tour guide, I never hesitate to say – this one – THE FLINDERS AND BIRDSVILLE TOUR. When I look back on it, I often wonder how we got away with it. This is a true story of a group of Kiwi Seniors on a bus trip through Outback Australia in 2008. The travelers survived, sadly the bus did not.

Everywhere hailed as a masterpiece of historical adventure, this enthralling narrative recounts the experiences of 12 American sailors who were shipwrecked off the coast of Africa in 1815, captured by desert nomads, sold into slavery, and subjected to a hellish two-month journey through the bone-dry heart of the Sahara. The ordeal of these men - who found themselves tested by barbarism, murder, starvation, death, dehydration, and hostile tribes that roamed the desert on camelback - is made indelibly vivid in this gripping account of courage, brotherhood, and survival.

Ruppel Shell follows the elusive eel from Maine to the Sargasso Sea, stalking riversides, fishing holes, laboratories, restaurants, courtrooms, and America's first commercial eel "family farm." This is an enthralling, globe-spanning look at an animal that you may never come to love, but which will never fail to astonish you.

Many people dream of escaping modern life, but most will never act on it. This is the remarkable true story of a man who lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, making this dream a reality—not out of anger at the world, but simply because he preferred to live on his own.

Gil Ra looked around trying to put on a good face and a bright smile. This was supposed to be a second chance in life. But she couldn’t stop thinking about the past and what she had left behind. Being abducted by aliens sounded so much like the title of a cheap sci-fi movie, and yet it had happened to her. That night, when she had decided she couldn’t take it any longer, the mocking, the loneliness and the feeling she had failed the only person that depended on her completely had become overwhelming, and that night she had decided to end it all. She had left everything ready, no ...

Investigating a mysterious, nineteenth-century secret society called the Order of Meonia, researchers Graham Phillips and Jodi Russell are drawn into a remarkable true story of the unexplained. On visiting an ancient burial site on remote moorlands in central England, an inexplicable storm rages directly around them while the surrounding countryside remains peaceful and calm. Before long, their lives are dramatically changed. Astonishingly, they find themselves in a reality that seems impossibly transformed. Dates have moved, history has altered, and things are no longer the same. Are they ...

What would a sailing challenge be without green water over the bow and a hard beat to windward? ‘Quest on the Thorny Path’ is the second book of the Quest series. You are now on the feared and fabled Thorny Path. Leave the laid back cruiser hangout of Georgetown, Bahamas behind and hit the big ocean waves for the first time. From Georgetown we take the path less traveled through the deserted and desolate out islands of the southern Bahamas. After a short stay in the Turks and Caicos, our course takes us to the north coast of Hispaniola. Christopher Columbus appropriately named this ...

Everywhere you look, people in all walks of life are “going minimalist” and getting rid of their possessions. Yet as exciting as it can be to throw out half of your belongings, does it really bring happiness? Light is famous for taking minimalism to the extreme—and now lives his whole life out of a single backpack. In Travel Light, he shares his surprising revelation that being a “spiritual minimalist” means you don’t focus on material objects. What matters more than clearing out your closets is how much trust you have in your inner guidance.

On the morning of July 3, 1994, a misreported forest fire on Storm King Mountain in Colorado became one of the greatest tragedies in the annals of firefighting. In this dramatic reconstruction of the disaster and its aftermath, John N. MacLean tells the heroic and cautionary story of nature at its most unforgiving.

In early May 2006, a young British climber named David Sharp lay dying near the top of Mount Everest while forty other climbers walked past him on their way to the summit. A week later, Lincoln Hall, a seasoned Australian climber, was left for dead near the same spot. Hall's death was reported around the world, but the next day he was found alive after spending the night on the upper mountain with no food and no shelter.

Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other, a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage.

Skye Carter’s life changed abruptly when the Drayids attacked Earth and cut a one-mile section out of a dozen cities all over the world. The hole they cut in Washington, D.C. took out the bookstore/internet café business that she had worked five years to build. It was all gone, leaving her a mountain of debt. She decided to sell her house and look for a job to pay for her losses. Then she found an ad for the Narovian Interstellar Matchmaking Service. It promised a ninety-nine percent guaranteed her match would be her soulmate. Rader Knight was a cyborg warrior in the Alliance Defense ...

In the summer of 1978, 21-year-old Paul Wilson jumps at the chance to join two local icons on a dream surf trip to mainland Mexico, unaware their ultimate destination lies in the heart of the drug cartel country. Having no earthly idea of where he’ll get the money to pay his share and determined to prove his mettle, he does the only thing he can think of: He robs a supermarket.

On May 3, 2010, an Irish national named Jeffrey Lendrum was apprehended at Britain’s Birmingham International Airport with a suspicious parcel strapped to his stomach. Inside were 14 rare peregrine falcon eggs snatched from a remote cliffside in Wales. So begins a tale almost too bizarre to believe, following the parallel lives of a globe-trotting smuggler who spent two decades capturing endangered raptors worth millions of dollars as race champions - and Detective Andy McWilliam, who’s hell bent on protecting the world’s birds of prey.