Adventure Writing

Seven years ago, readers and listeners around the country fell in love with a singular American voice: Rinker Buck, whose infectious curiosity about history launched him across the West in a covered wagon pulled by mules and propelled his book about the trip, The Oregon Trail, to ten weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, Buck returns to chronicle his latest incredible adventure: building a wooden flatboat from the bygone era of the early 1800s and journeying down the Mississippi River to New Orleans.

If you have never ridden a mule along a 48-inch wide trail whose ledge drops off, in places, 700 feet to the Colorado River, straight down, you may have difficulty picturing the temporary insanity that leads otherwise responsible adults to sign away the remainder of their natural life expectancy just for the chance to see the Grand Canyon's natural beauty close-up.

Whether your idea of travel at its finest is trekking through Europe with a backpack, a map and a foreign-language dictionary; road-tripping across America in a fully loaded RV; or cruising the Caribbean aboard a luxury liner, Chicken Soup for the Traveler’s Soul celebrates the people you’ll meet, the lands you’ll discover and the lessons you’ll learn. Like traveling itself, the stories in this book will take you on a journey of adventure, insight, and discovery. Through the real-life experiences of others, you’ll see that regardless of the destination, it is the journey that provides the fondest memories.

Mount Kilimanjaro is sometimes called "Everyman's Everest" because it is possible for a novice climber to reach the summit. And every year, more than 30,000 adventure tourists try. But for each person who goes to the mountain, there are thousands more who chat about it at parties, making plans to go...someday. That's how Daniel Dorr got started: flirting with a beautiful brunette and spouting impressive plans. Six months later, he was lying on the gravel trail at 18,000 feet, panting and hacking in the darkness.

After Kim and her husband, Brian, decide to quit their jobs to travel around the world, they're given a yellow envelope containing a check and instructions to give the money away. There are only three rules for the envelope: don't overthink it, share your experiences, and don't feel pressured to give it all away. Through Ecuador, Peru, Nepal, and beyond, Kim and Brian face obstacles, including major challenges to their relationship.

In To the Island of Tides, Alistair Moffat travels to - and through the history of - the fated island of Lindisfarne. Walking from his home in the Borders, through the historical landscape of Scotland and northern England, he takes us on a pilgrimage in the footsteps of saints and scholars, before arriving for a secular retreat on the Holy Isle. To the Island of Tides is a meditation on the power of place, but also a more personal journey - a chance for a personal stocktaking and a reflection on where life leads us.

In the summer of 2004, Tony James Slater went to Ecuador looking to become a man. Not all of him returned. But the bit that did was fueled by a burning desire to do...something. Something that mattered. And, ideally, to get the hell out of England in the process.

This guide is based on our larger guide to Naples and the surrounding area, but it zeros in on the Sorrento Peninsula & the Amalfi Coast. Plush resorts line the coast and islands, Greek and Roman excavations, plus street theater and musical performances are everywhere. Positano, the most photographed fishing village in the world, clings to a rock above the sea. The unforgettable coastal town of Ravello is here. The superlative Greek temples at Paestum.

This is the account of a unique journey – a 600-mile trek on foot around Cyprus in the last year of the island's peace. Colin Thubron intertwines myth, history and personal anecdote in a quest from which the characters and places, architecture and landscape all spring vividly to the listener's ear.

What would you do if you're given a €20 note in Greece with an email address scribbled on it: Spend it, slip the suspect counterfeit bill into an enemy’s birthday card, or send an email, hoping it will lead to you finding everlasting love? Brad, a hopeless romantic, chose the latter. Two years later, his love life remains a disaster and his career is misfiring. As he’s about to walk Spain’s fabled Camino de Santiago to ponder some profound life changes, Brad receives a reply.

When best-selling mystery writer David Rosenfelt and his family moved from Southern California to Maine, he thought he had prepared for everything. They had mapped the route, brought three GPSs for backup, as well as refrigerators full of food, and stoves and microwaves on which to cook them. But traveling with 25 dogs turned out to be a bigger ordeal than he anticipated, despite RVs, the extra kibble, volunteers (including a few readers), and camping equipment.

In 1958, while flying from one island to another, Audrey Sutherland sees the remote and roadless northeast side of Molokai, with its spectacular sea cliffs and waterfalls. Always an adventurer, she decides that she must find a way to explore this then inaccessible area. After much study, she determines that the best way for her to navigate these treacherous sea walls is to swim while towing an inflatable kayak. This is the story of fulfilling her dream, of planning then implementing, of launching and advancing, of retreating and reconnoitering, of challenge and success.

Join John Rogers as he ventures out into an uncharted London like a redbrick Indiana Jones in search of the lost meaning of our metropolitan existence. Nursing two reluctant knees and a can of Stella, he perambulates through the seasons seeking adventure in our city's remote and forgotten reaches. When John Rogers packed away his rucksack to start a family in London he didn't stop travelling. But instead of canoeing up the Rejang River to find retired headhunters in Sarawak, he caught the ferry to Woolwich in search of the edge of the city at Crayford Marshes.

Roads bind our world—metaphorically and literally—transforming landscapes and the lives of the people who inhabit them. Roads have unparalleled power to impact communities, unite worlds and sunder them, and reveal the hopes and fears of those who travel them.

The desire to travel is instinctive; to see what's ahead of us, around the corner, or across the sea. We've been curious about the world since time began. So get out there, see the world, have an adventure, have fun, live! This section of British Columbia may have some of the most diverse landscape anywhere in Canada: from the high mountains at the western edge of the Rockies, to the desert climates of the Okanagan, to the thick forests outside Kamloops.

Polly Letofsky left her Colorado home and headed west across four continents and over 14,000 miles - by foot - to become the first woman to walk around the world. In a spirit of adventure, along with the goal of raising global awareness for breast cancer, strangers welcomed her into their homes. The world had embraced her. But in the middle of Polly's journey, 9/11 flung us all into a crossroads in world history, and she found herself navigating a vastly changing world.

Over the years the American writer Emma Larkin has spent traveling in Burma, she has come to know all too well the many ways this police state can be described as "Orwellian". The life of the mind exists in a state of siege in Burma, and it long has. The connection between George Orwell and Burma is not simply metaphorical, of course; Orwell's mother was born in Burma, and he was shaped by his experiences there as a young man working for the British Imperial Police.

India is one of the oldest places to inhabit civilization, with a history dating back thousands of years. Since time immemorial, people have visited this country for various reasons - to work, shelter, tourism, spiritual uplifting and the like. India is surrounded by the great Himalayas in the north, Arabian Sea on the West, Indian Ocean in the South, and the Bay of Bengal in the East. India is a very diverse country in terms of people, climate, locales, languages, customs, cuisines, cultures and beliefs.

After Paul Stutzman finished hiking the Appalachian Trail, he found himself longing for another challenge, another adventure. Trading his hiking boots for a bicycle, Paul set off to discover more of America. Starting at Neah Bay, Washington, and ending at Key West, Florida, Paul traversed the 5,000 mile distance between the two farthest points in the contiguous United States.

Many an incredible story may have been told about young courageous men and women cycling the globe in search of adventure, covering vast distances at speed each day with not a care in the world. Well, this story is a little different. It is a story about a 350-pound middle-aged, disabled, working-class husband and father. I was never a regular cyclist, and I knew nothing about bicycle maintenance and repair. Solo, self-financed, with no support network and without any fixed route plan other than, “I’m going that way.” What could go wrong? I wondered.