Sports Travel

Every year on January 1, a quirky crowd of adventurers storms out across North America for a spectacularly competitive event called a Big Year: a grand, grueling, expensive, and occasionally vicious, "extreme" 365-day marathon of birdwatching. For three men in particular, 1998 would be a whirlwind, a winner-takes-nothing battle for a new North American birding record.

In the great depths surrounding the Lofoten islands in Norway lives the infamous Greenland shark. At 26 feet in length and weighing more than a ton, it is truly a beast to behold. But the shark is not just known for its size alone: Its meat contains a toxin that, when consumed, has been known to make people drunk and hallucinatory.

Prêt(e)s à vous lancer dans l'aventure ? Depuis plus de 30 ans, Mike Horn explore les régions les plus sauvages et reculées de la planète. Tour du monde au niveau de l'équateur sans assistance, descente de l'Amazone à la nage, traversée de l'Antarctique en solitaire, expédition au Pôle Nord de nuit...Aujourd'hui, il vous partage sa philosophie de vie et son savoir à travers une série audio inédite.

Like a well-crafted stage play, Just Passin' Thru delivers one suspenseful scene after another. But in this historic setting a store on the Appalachian Trail called Mountain Crossings the characters who show up are no fictional creations. Like any good drama, there are the good guys (and gals) and the weirdos, too. Some show up once (and that’s enough), and some appear again and again. But all are united by two things: the author’s story-capturing talent, and whatever it is that lures them to attempt (or conquer) a 2,200-mile path that climbs and plummets from Georgia to Maine.

For 18 years Ed Viesturs pursued climbing's holy grail: to stand atop the world's 14 8,000-meter peaks, without the aid of bottled oxygen. But No Shortcuts to the Top is as much about the man who would become the first American to achieve that goal as it is about his stunning quest. As Viesturs recounts the stories of his most harrowing climbs, he reveals a man torn between the flat, safe world he and his loved ones share and the majestic and deadly places where only he can go.

For the '70s child, summer holidays didn't mean the joy of CentreParcs or the sophistication of a Tuscan villa. They meant being crammed into a car with Grandma and heading to the coast. With just a tent for a home and a bucket for the necessities, we would set off on new adventures each year stoically resolving to enjoy ourselves. For Emma Kennedy, and her mum and dad, disaster always came along for the ride no matter where they went.

In the fall of 1978, Ray Ordorica packed everything he thought he would need into his Toyota LandCruiser and drove north to Alaska. He came to a land he had never seen, to find something he wasn't even sure existed: a wilderness cabin he could use for a year or more to live, think, relax, read, and write. Ordorica found his cabin, fixed it up, and, although it was just an un-insulated 12- by 16-foot one-room log structure, he spent three winters in it in relative comfort.

On 30 January, 1981 Joe Tasker and Ade Burgess stood at 24,000 feet on the west ridge of Mount Everest. Below them were their companions, some exhausted, some crippled by illness, all virtually incapacitated. Further progress seemed impossible. Everest the Cruel Way is Joe Tasker's story of an attempt to climb the highest mountain on earth - an attempt which pushed a group of Britain's finest mountaineers to their limits. The goal had been to climb Mount Everest at its hardest: via the infamous west ridge, without supplementary oxygen and in winter.

Set in the remote arctic region of Northern Canada, this book takes listeners on a harrowing canoe voyage that results in tragedy, redemption, and, ultimately, transformation. George Grinnell was one of six young men who set off on the 1955 expedition led by experienced wilderness canoeist Art Moffatt. Poorly planned and executed, the journey seemed doomed from the start. Ignoring the approaching winter, the men became entranced with the peace and beauty of the arctic in autumn.

The plan is simple. George and Ben have three weeks to cycle 1000 miles from the bottom of England to the top of Scotland. There's just one small problem - they have no bikes, no clothes, no food, and no money. Setting off in just a pair of Union Jack boxer shorts, they attempt to rely on the generosity of the British public for everything from food to accommodation, clothes to shoes, and bikes to beer.

In June 2007, Erin McKittrick and her husband, Hig, embarked on a 4,000-mile expedition from Seattle to the Aleutian Islands, traveling solely by human power. This is the story of their unprecedented trek along the northwestern edge of the Pacific Ocean-a year-long journey through some of the most rugged terrain in the world - and their encounters with rain, wind, blizzards, bears, and their own emotional and spiritual demons.

In 2010, Jonathon Stalls and his blue-heeler husky mix began their 242-day walk across the United States, depending upon each other and the kindness of strangers along the way. In this collection of essays, Stalls explores walking as waking up: how a cross-country journey through the family farms of West Virginia, the deep freedom of Nevada’s High desert, and everywhere in between unlocked connections to his deepest aches and dreams—and opened new avenues for renewal, connection, and change.

It is a gentle art; know how to tramp and you know how to live. Know how to meet your fellow wanderer, how to be passive to the beauty of nature and how to be active to its wildness and its rigour. The adventure is not the getting there, it’s the ‘on-the-way’. It is not the expected, it is the surprise.

Coyote Peterson, YouTube star, animal enthusiast, and creator of the Brave Adventure series, has tracked down some of the world's most painfully stinging insects and chronicled getting stung by each of them on his YouTube channel. Coyote has saved the best - or possibly the worst - for last, and he's finally ready to share his experience with the most painful sting in the world: the Executioner Wasp. Packed with facts about nature's most misunderstood creatures, The King of Sting is a dream book for any kid that loves animals, bugs, outdoor exploration, and danger!

Rising from the depths of the North Pacific lies a fabled island, now submerged just 15 feet below the surface of the ocean. Rumors and warnings about Cortes Bank abound, but among big wave surfers, this legendary rock is famous for one simple (and massive) reason: this is the home of the biggest rideable wave on the face of the earth.

There must be easier ways to heal and grow than walking 500 miles across Spain. But it’s hard to imagine one filled with more adventure, laughter, and excitement. The author sets off armed with idealistic expectations and a backpack. But then things quickly get real on the Camino, and she soon learns a thing or two about humility, vulnerability, and letting go.

En Lugares asombrosos. Travesías insólitas y otras maneras extrañas de conocer el mundo podrás viajar -con Luisito como compañero y guía- a los lugares más recónditos de uno, dos y más continentes: a sitios abandonados que conservan la huella de un hecho inexplicable; espacios delineados por trazos y personajes místicos; habitáculos hechizados por almas que vagan entre dimensiones desconocidas; zonas marcadas por los errores de la historia y sus fantasmas, y pintorescas comisuras del orbe con el sello de una costumbre o un suceso perturbador.

Join cruising legends Lin and Larry Pardey as from England they proceed into the Baltic, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Germany. During their voyage they dealt with armed guards on the Polish waterfront who watched while the people greeted them with flowers and fruit. They weathered a fierce mast-under broach in a Baltic gale. And experienced great friendships found in harbors large and small.

Blind Descent explores both the brightest and darkest aspects of the timeless human urge to discover - to be first. It is also a thrilling epic about a pursuit that makes even extreme mountaineering and ocean exploration pale by comparison.

Bob Shepton is an ordained minister in the Church of England in his 70s, but spends most of his time sailing into the Arctic and making first ascents of inaccessible mountains. No tea parties for this vicar. Opening with the disastrous fire that destroyed his yacht whilst he was ice-bound in Greenland, the book travels back to his childhood growing up on his family's rubber plantation in Malaysia, moving back to England after his father was shot by the Japanese during the war, boarding school, the Royal Marines, and the church.