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A Traveller's Year is an anthology of extracts from diaries, journals and letters, two or three for each day of the year, on the subject of travel and exploration. The extracts convey men and women's experiences of travel and discovery from the sixteenth to the early twenty-first centuries, with an emphasis on the period 1750-1950, the classic era of both European exploration and diary-writing. The authors of the pieces range from famous explorers such as Captains Cook and Scott to modern travel...

A sweet, leisurely exploration of the life of Les Arques (population 159), a hilltop village in a remote corner of France, untouched by the modern era. It is a story of a dying village's struggle to survive, of a dead artist whose legacy begins its rebirth, and of chef Jacques Ratier and his wife, Noelle, whose bustling restaurant - the village's sole business - has helped ensure its future. The author set out to explore the inner workings of a French restaurant kitchen but ended up stumbling o...

After a heavy night of tequila comedian Dave Gorman embarks on a quest to find all the other people in the world with same name as him. Sounds simple, but it wasn't. In this wonderful book, flatmates Dave and Danny set off on what turns out to be a 24,000-mile journey. Along the way they meet many Dave Gormans. They visit Scotland, Israel, America, France. They even hold a party in London where 50 Dave Gormans attend. Including two women who have kindly changed their name via deed-poll. Silly, b...

Set twenty years after VANILLA BEANS & BRODO and ten years after BEL VINO, THE TERRACOTTA MADONNA continues the story of Australians Isabella and Luigi, who gave up their lives to move to the medieval Montalcino, a village in Tuscany. Isabella tells of a Tuscany that is closer to reality than the mystical dream it is so often portrayed to be. Her true story involves not only her personal struggles in moving and adapting to Montalcino (her reasons for which are a secret that none in the village k...

Inside Tracks is the retelling of Robyn Davidson's journey from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean, seen through the eyes of world renowned photographer, Rick Smolan, and now reimagined in the major motion picture, Tracks. In the late 1970s Robyn Davidson undertook an epic adventure - to travel solo across the Australian outback from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean, armed only with a few camels and her dog for company. Rick Smolan, a National Geographic photographer at the time, was employed to...

In recent years, Los Angeles Times writer and editor Frank Clifford has journeyed along the Continental Divide, the hemispheric watershed that spans North America from the alkali badlands of southernmost New Mexico to the roof of the Rockies in Montana and into Canada. The result is The Backbone of the World, an arresting exploration of America’s longest wilderness corridor, a harsh and unforgiving region inhabited by men and women whose way of life is as imperiled as the neighboring wildlife....

The world knows more about secret North Korea than the free society of the South. As a peace summit heralded a new era for a country divided for 50 years, Jennifer Barclay searched for the spirit of South Korea, discovering a land full of passion, tradition and spirituality, good humour and great food. Jen quit her high-pressure job and followed her musician boyfriend to South Korea, where his band had a contract to play funk at a luxury hotel. But life in Seoul was lonely and bewildering. De...

This book contains John Ray's personal life account as Principal of the Biscoe School in the heart of Srinagar between 1962 and 1986. Intended as 'something to give leaving students', it touches on people and events in a very different age. Hippies, chief ministers, bishops and Kashmiri people of every background crowd the stage, set against the background of a school extraordinary in its range of adventurous activities. Jyoti Sahi's drawings picture the now vanished Kashmiri scene and Wajahat H...

"More like spying on the natives than reading a travel book, the eclectic personal accounts collected in Travelers' Tales San Francisco illuminate many Bay Area experiences...." - Margaret Weir, San Francisco Chronicle

Before 1991 Hannah Hauxwell had barely been beyond her own county. Now, following her travels in Europe chronicled in "Innocent Abroad", she ventures further afield to North America. She sails to New York and stands amidst Manhattan's towering sky-scrapers, feeds her passion for jazz music on a visit to New Orleans, and then journeys onwards to the Wild West following an original pilgrim trail. Amongst the other experiences recounted in the book are visiting the White House, stepping back into t...