Travel Adventure Writing

On a visit to Jerusalem, Bruce Feiler has a revelation: the stories of the Bible occurred in real places, places he could visit today. So he sets out on a perilous 10,000 mile journey retracing the greatest stories ever told.

The unforgettable true story of larger-than-life whitewater raft guides Clancy Reece and Jon Barker, two men who share a love of wild rivers and an unbending will to live life on their terms, no matter the cost. Clancy's motto, "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing," leads them into a decade of beautiful - and beautifully strange - river adventures.

Sixty years after Mount Everest was first climbed, this unique book of letters celebrates, in a very personal way, this most majestic of mountains. With exclusive access to the private archives of pioneering New Zealand climber George Lowe, this is a welcome tribute to an unsung hero.The ascent of Everest in the summer of 1953 was one of the twentieth century’s great triumphs of exploration. George Lowe’s efforts on the mountain were crucial to the endeavour.

In this powerful, passionate chronicle, Noah Adams, the beloved host of NPR's All Things Considered, takes us on a river journey through the heart of Appalachia - a journey shared by pioneers and preachers, white-water daredevils, bluegrass musicians, and an unforgettable cast of vivid historical characters.

In 2008, Lynn Barber's passion for birding led her to drive, fly, sail, walk, stalk, and sit in search of birds in 25 states and three provinces. Traveling more than 175,000 miles, she set a 21st century record at the time, second to only one other person in history. Over 272 days, Barber observed 723 species of birds in North America north of Mexico.

This short history audiobook features the story of Ernest Shackleton. He was among the last of a group of intrepid men from the Golden Age of Discovery in the Victorian era. He sought honor for England and himself in embarking on a dangerous journey to lead a team of men to cross the Antarctic continent.

The Red Bull X-Alps is the world's most extreme race. With only a paraglider and a pair of hiking boots athletes attempt to cross the Alps from Salzburg in Austria to Monaco. In this book, British athlete Jon Chambers brings you even closer to the action and reveals his personal story of his 2011 race. In doing so he reveals the harsh reality of what it takes to compete in this uniquely demanding challenge: the physical and mental hardship, equipment, extreme conditions, strategic thinking and lucky escapes.

The project that Kuralt was working on when he died was An American Moment with Charles Kuralt, a series of brief television essays about the people, places, and ideas that define the national spirit: the man who handcrafts the President's shoes; the origin of buffalo wings; Paul Bunyan's hometown of Bemidji, Minnesota; the Pony Express Museum; Pike Place Market in Seattle; Ferris wheels; and more.

These stories exude suffering at its worst - from the desperate cannibalism of the Donner Party to the brutal starvation and bitter cold endured by Ernest Shackleton's team. Tales of such suffering may be distressing to their listeners, but at the same time, they engage us, offering glimpses of our most fundamental needs.

If geologist, adventurer, and risk-prone eccentric John Lane can prove the existence of the elusive tree kangaroo on the remote Pacific island of New Britain, he just might be able to save one of the last truly wild endangered forests on Earth. But first he and his ragtag expedition party - college students, adventure-seeking biologists, disinterested local teenagers - will have to find the rare animal. Award-winning writer Matthew Power plunges into one of the world's most foreboding jungles alongside Lane. It is a quest that's equal parts noble, dangerous, and wacky, in a place that's truly off the map.

Fed up with questions about what he was going to do when he retired, Edward decided to get on his bicycle and ride from Le Havre to the Mediterranean. He struggled in Normandy to get directions from old men tipsy on Calvados by 9 am, passed by prairies of corn and acres of sunflowers, and hit his stride on the towpath of the Burgundy canal. He explored the mystery of what an ouvrier eats for lunch, and was barred from a swimming pool because his trunks were too decent.

Is it impossible to be lonely, or is loneliness an impossibly difficult thing? In the first part of this book, Chinle Miller wanders the desert and mountains with her dogs, exploring nature and an inner life of solitude, until an event happens that shakes her life to its core - her best friend and cousin Janie is killed by a grizzly in Alaska.

Cathy has captured the drama of her Everest climbs, her passion for the challenge of climbing mountains, and her love for wild places in this story of her four attempts on the mountain. Cathy tries to answer the question of why, if climbing Everest can be so dangerous, people still want to do it.

As Ellie’s 50th birthday approaches and her ambitions of a steady income, a successful career and an ascent of Everest seem as far away as ever, she begins to doubt she’s capable of achieving anything at all. So when her best friend Mick suggests a gruelling cycle ride from Land’s End to John o’Groats, she takes up the challenge. They opt for the scenic route which takes them along cycle paths, towpaths and the back roads and byways of Britain, unable to resist sampling beers in the pubs they pass along the way.

Throughout his almost four decades of life on the road, Charles Kuralt has introduced us to people and places that have warmed our hearts. Now in Charles Kuralt's Christmas, he retraces his most memorable Christmas sojourns to remind us of the many marvelous ways that we celebrate this special holiday.

Curious about the modern love affair with criminal personalities, investigative reporter Conor Woodman spent four years exploring the hidden depths of dynamic cities across the globe. Sharks takes us on a journey through the lawless backstreets of cities as diverse as Mumbai, Bogotá, New Orleans, Barcelona and London. In each he uncovers the people and the scams that keep the global black economy moving.

In September 1870, Truman Everts was separated from one of the first exploratory parties in what is now Yellowstone National Park. With little food, equipment, or cold-weather clothing, Everts spent more than a month wandering the wilderness before two mountaineers found him alive: frostbitten, scalded, and delirious. Nobody else has been lost so long in Yellowstone and survived.

In the long hot summer of '88, the author packed up his motorcycle and pulled out of the garage with no destination or return date in mind. The year 1988 would prove to be the worst drought since the dustbowl of the 1930s. Yellowstone would burn, Ronald Reagan would shake his fist at the Evil Empire, and the author, oblivious to it all, hit the road and never looked back. That trip would consume the entire summer, logging over 12,000 miles from sea to sea and back.

The United States is full of natural wonders, but few remain unspoiled by man as much as Yosemite National Park: a 750,000 square acre park near the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Despite being inhabited by people for nearly 3,000 years, the relatively remote spot helped ensure that even as America expanded west, the Yosemite area avoided being settled or exploited like so many other areas on the frontier.

In this extraordinary narrative, Alan Tennant recounts his all-out effort to radio-track the transcontinental migration of the peregrine falcon, an investigation no one before him had ever taken to such lengths.