Travel isn't always what we dream it will be, but...oh the stories that follow For the 25 women in this book who packed their sense of humor as they traveled from Alaska to Zanzibar, the journey brought tales of misadventure that their children and grandchildren, and readers of this book, will never forget. Smile, chuckle, and laugh out loud to the candid and comical accounts of these memorable trips.Brigid Kelso gets bitten and beaten by a healer possessed by a goddess in Kathmandu in "Llamo Dolkar""Fifteen Minutes Can Last Forever" when JoAnn Hornak is being chased by a herd of fifty Africa... View More...
The New York Times Bestseller The author of Turn Right at Machu Picchu travels the globe in search of the world's most famous lost city. "Adventurous, inquisitive and mirthful, Mark Adams gamely sifts through the eons of rumor, science, and lore to find a place that, in the end, seems startlingly real indeed."--Hampton SidesA few years ago, Mark Adams made a strange discovery: Far from alien conspiracy theories and other pop culture myths, everything we know about the legendary lost city of Atlantis comes from the work of one man, the Greek philosopher Plato. Stranger still: Adams learned th... View More...
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING TRAVEL MEMOIR What happens when an unadventurous adventure writer tries to re-create the original expedition to Machu Picchu? In 1911, Hiram Bingham III climbed into the Andes Mountains of Peru and "discovered" Machu Picchu. While history has recast Bingham as a villain who stole both priceless artifacts and credit for finding the great archeological site, Mark Adams set out to retrace the explorer's perilous path in search of the truth--except he'd written about adventure far more than he'd actually lived it. In fact, he'd never even slept in a tent. Turn Right ... View More...
The myth of Shangri-la originates in Tibetan Buddhist beliefs in beyul, or hidden lands, sacred sanctuaries that reveal themselves to devout pilgrims and in times of crisis. The more remote and inaccessible the beyul, the vaster its reputed qualities. Ancient Tibetan prophecies declare that the greatest of all hidden lands lies at the heart of the forbidding Tsangpo Gorge, deep in the Himalayas and veiled by a colossal waterfall. Nineteenth-century accounts of this fabled waterfall inspired a series of ill-fated European expeditions that ended prematurely in 1925 when the intrepid British plan... View More...
Intrepid business traveler Peter Biddlecombe is back and funnier than ever in this rollicking twenty-city travelogue, his fourth book of international misadventures. Wandering from Helsinki, Havana, and Ho Chi Minh City to Bratislava, Dakar, and Managua, he meets strange characters, eats interesting foods -- and treats us to page after page of wry observations and witty commentary. View More...
British businessman Peter Biddlecombe lives the seemingly enviable existence of a peripatetic business traveler with an ample expense account. But in Very Funny -- Now Change Me Back Again he shares twenty true-life vignettes that irrefutably prove traveling on business is the ultimate commute from hell.Biddlecombe is an entertainingly harried narrator who has spent years rationalizing to himself that being held captive on a three-and-a-half-hour cab drive through Istanbul or becoming reluctantly privy to an illegal arms deal in Montevideo is all part of a day's work. From Bucharest, Beijing, ... View More...
A fusion of eloquent travelogue, historical inquiry, unforgettable portraits of people and interviews with Iranians from all walks of life, Neither East Nor West is a landmark contribution to both travel writing and cultural studies, as well as a timely illumination of an enthralling nation deeply misunderstood by Westerners. Bird, who spent several years of her early childhood in Iran, sets out to write a safarnameh- the Persian word for travelogue or, literally, travel letter- but soon delivers much more. In describing the sights, sounds and overall tenor of life in Iran today, she helps to ... View More...
Five hundred years before Columbus, a Viking woman named Gudrid sailed off the edge of the known world. She landed in the New World and lived there for three years, giving birth to a baby before sailing home. Or so the Icelandic sagas say. Even after archaeologists found a Viking longhouse in Newfoundland, no one believed that the details of Gudrid's story were true. Then, in 2001, a team of scientists discovered what may have been this pioneering woman's last house, buried under a hay field in Iceland, just where the sagas suggested it could be. Joining scientists experimenting with cutting-e... View More...
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The classic chronicle of a "terribly misguided and terribly funny" (The Washington Post) hike of the Appalachian Trail, from the author ofA Short History of Nearly Everything and The Body "The best way of escaping into nature."--The New York Times Back in America after twenty years in Britain, Bill Bryson decided to reacquaint himself with his native country by walking the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia to Maine. The AT offers an astonishing landscape of silent forests and sparkling lakes--and to a writer with the comic genius of Bill Br... View More...
A loving and hilarious--if occasionally spiky--valentine to Bill Bryson's adopted country, Great Britain. Prepare for total joy and multiple episodes of unseemly laughter. Twenty years ago, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to discover and celebrate that green and pleasant land. The result was Notes from a Small Island, a true classic and one of the bestselling travel books ever written. Now he has traveled about Britain again, by bus and train and rental car and on foot, to see what has changed--and what hasn't. Following (but not too closely) a route he dubs the Bryson Line, from B... View More...
The British Isles, encompassing thousands of islands both big and small, are like sparkling rough-cut gems sprinkled into the North Atlantic. Discovering their diverse and jaw-dropping landscapes are like treasures waiting to be dug up. As a wonderful compilation of original short stories closer to home, Zo Cano captures the very essence of Britain's natural beauty with eclectic travels she's taken over the years exploring England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.Unsurprisingly, these journeys turn into mini adventures that include motorcycling around the legendary Wild Atlantic Way in Ireland, s... View More...
The Windward Road, published in 1956, made history. When Archie Carr began to rove the Caribbean to write about sea turtles, he saw that their numbers were dwindling. Out of this appeal to save them grew the first ventures in international sea turtle conservation and the establishment of the Caribbean Conservation Corporation. In addition to sea turtle biology, Carr recorded his general impressions, producing a natural history sprinkled with colorful stories. View More...
This chronicle of the author's kayaking trip down the length of the Yellowstone River combines a stirring portrait of Montana and its people with a powerful vision of what an unspoiled America might look and feel like. First serial to New York Times Sunday travel section and the San Francisco Examiner Chronicle. View More...
