Tourism History

In The Geography of Genius, acclaimed travel writer Weiner sets out to examine the connection between our surroundings and our most innovative ideas. He explores the history of places, like Vienna of 1900, Renaissance Florence, ancient Athens, Song Dynasty Hangzhou, and Silicon Valley, to show how certain urban settings are conducive to ingenuity.

These are the true life tales of adventure and travel throughout Central America by John L. Stephens who employed Frederick Catherwood to create artistic renderings of their discoveries. First published in 1858, the world was amazed and intrigued by their travels.

Step into the rugged Rockies with Osborne Russell! Journey nine years through his trapper's journal, facing blizzards, bears, and bison while navigating life off the grid. Witness the clash of trappers and tribes, and glimpse the untamed beauty of a changing wilderness. This historical adventure unfolds in Russell's own words, offering a unique perspective on the early American West.

In May 2018, former Monty Python stalwart and intrepid globetrotter Michael Palin ventured into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, camera crew in tow, to gain a glimpse of life in the most notoriously secretive and cut-off nation on earth. His resulting two-part documentary for Channel 5 fascinated millions and won universal plaudits.

Tom Zoellner loves trains with a ferocious passion. In his new audiobook he chronicles the innovation and sociological impact of the railway technology that changed the world, and could very well change it again. From the frigid Trans-Siberian Railroad to the antiquated Indian Railways to the futuristic maglev trains, Zoellner offers a stirring story of man's relationship with trains. Zoellner examines both the mechanics of the rails and their engines and how they helped societies evolve. Not only do trains transport people and goods in an efficient manner, but they also reduce pollution and dependency upon oil.

The color of one's skin and passport have long dictated the conditions of travel. For Shahnaz Habib, travel and travel writing have always been complicated pleasures. Habib threads the history of travel with her personal story as a child on family vacations in India, an adult curious about the world, and an immigrant for whom roundtrips are an annual fact of life. Tracing the power dynamics that underlie tourism, this insightful debut parses who gets to travel, and who gets to write about the experience.

The history of Iceland began 1,200 years ago, when a frustrated Viking captain and his useless navigator ran aground in the middle of the North Atlantic. Suddenly, the island was no longer just a layover for the Arctic tern. Instead, it became a nation whose diplomats and musicians, sailors and soldiers, volcanoes and flowers, quietly altered the globe forever. How Iceland Changed the World takes readers on a tour of history, showing them how Iceland played a pivotal role in events as diverse as the French Revolution, the Moon Landing, and the foundation of Israel.

A profound and moving journey into the heart of Christianity that explores the mysterious and often paradoxical lives and legacies of the Twelve Apostles—a book both for those of the faith and for others who seek to understand Christianity from the outside in.

Richard Henry Dana called this book a "a voice from the sea". It had an influence on both Joseph Conrad and Herman Melville, both of whom sang its praises. Dana was a law student at Harvard College who decided, in 1834, to take a break from his studies in order to experience the "real world" by signing on as a common sailor for a two year voyage from Boston around Cape Horn to California. He kept a journal which he turned into a book after the voyage.

In 1955, a young TV producer named David Attenborough was approached by six recent graduates from Oxford and Cambridge universities determined to drive the entire length of Eurasia, as it was then known, from London to Singapore. Many tried this before, but none succeeded. Sensing this time might be different, Attenborough gave The Oxford and Cambridge Far Eastern Expedition enough film reels to cover their attempt. The 19,000-mile journey completed by Tim Slessor and the team was told in Attenborough's Travellers' Tales and captivated a nation emerging from postwar austerity.

The Darkest Jungle tells the harrowing story of America's first ship canal exploration across a narrow piece of land in Central America called the Darien, a place that loomed large in the minds of the world's most courageous adventurers in the nineteenth century. With rivals from England and France days behind, the 27-member U.S. expedition landed on the Atlantic shore at Caledonia Bay in eastern Panama to begin their mad dash up the coast-hugging mountains of the Darien wilderness.

Armed with knife, fork, and corkscrew, Peter Mayle travels to every corner of France. From bouillabaisse to escargot, here is all the glory and pleasure of the French table in the most satisfying audiobook. Bon appétit!

For hundreds of years, the City of Light has set the stage for larger-than-life characters-from medieval lovers Heloïse and Abelard to the defiant King Henri IV to the brilliant scientist Madame Curie, beloved chanteuse Edith Piaf, and the writer Colette. In this book, Susan Cahill recounts the lives of 22 famous Parisians and then takes you through the seductive streets of Paris to the quartiers where they lived and worked: the scenes of their greatest triumphs and tragedies, their favorite cafes, bars, and restaurants, and the places where they found inspiration and love.

Propelled by a wish to reclaim the brilliant, chaotic, endlessly varied German civilization that the Nazis buried and ruined, and that so many Germans have worked to rebuild, Germania was recorded to enlighten us on serious topics, curiosities, and on the limits of language, the meaning of culture, and the pleasure of townscape.

For a period of seven years, Wilfred Thesiger canoed through the marshes at the confluence of Iraq's Tigris and Euphrates rivers, living among the native Madan tribes and their islands made of reeds. Now extinct, their ancient way of life is speculated to have existed for 5,000 years, going back to the days of ancient Sumer, and possessed a unique culture found nowhere else in the Middle East. Thesiger documents the tribes' conflicts, traditions, cuisine, relationships, justice systems, and art, and reveals how they built their unique water-borne society

Go with Mike on foot accros Basutoland; by motorbike from Cape Town to Cairo; to sea in a 36-foot ketch; into the Kalahari desert - and more. In the final chapter he describes how he and his wife move to an Edenic island in the Okovanga delta, and the terrible and wonderful events that took place there.

Committed Belgophile and road cycling obsessive Harry Pearson takes you on a journey across Flanders - through the lumpy horizontal rain, up the elbow-juddering cobbled inclines, past the fans dressed as chickens and the shop window displays of constipation medicines as he follows races big, small and even smaller, through one glorious, muddy spring. Ranging over 500 years of Flemish and European history, Pearson examines the characters, the myths and the rivalries that make Flanders a place where cycling is a religion and the riders its Lycra-clad priests.

American-born Paul Theroux had lived in England for 11 years when he realized he'd explored dozens of exotic locations without discovering anything about his adopted home. So, with a knapsack on his back, he set out to explore by walking and by short train trips. The result is a witty, observant and often acerbic look at an ever eccentric assortments of Brits in all shapes and sizes.

In this original and evocative book, we accompany Raja on six walks taken between 1978 and 2006. The earlier forays are peaceful affairs, allowing our guide to meditate at length on the character of his native land, a terrain of olive trees on terraced hillsides, luxuriant valleys carved by sacred springs, carpets of wild iris and hyacinth, and ancient monasteries built over 1,000 years ago. Shehadeh’s love for this magical place saturates his renderings of its history and topography.

The fascinating, true account of the quest for one of the Old Testament’s most infamous cities. Like many modern-day Christians, Dr. Steven Collins struggled with what seemed to be a clash between his belief in the Bible and the research regarding ancient history - a crisis of faith that inspired him to put both his education and the Bible to the test by embarking on an expedition that has led to one of the most exciting finds in recent archaeology.