Travel Memoir

In May 2006, armed only with a small rucksack and a staff, Tony Kevin, an overweight, sedentary, 63-year-old former diplomat, set off on an eight-week trek across Spain. But this was not just a very long walk — it was a pilgrimage. From Granada, in the southeast, to Santiago de Compostela, in the far northwest, Tony followed the Via Mozarabe and the Via de la Plata, two of the many pilgrim trails that crisscross Spain and Portugal and that all lead to a single destination.

At 43, Ninya was depressed, out of shape, and filled with crippling anxiety after addiction, cancer, and divorce had destroyed nearly everything. One day, she received a message from a stranger. This woman offered to lead her on a self-healing trip hiking through the Scottish highlands. In this memoir, an introverted Pollyanna is paired up with her opposite, a steamrolling, abrasive female with unorthodox healing methods. As they barrel through the winding roads in a rental car, a series of events forces Ninya to find the strength to heal in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

With teenage children and in-laws in tow, the Fleetwood family embarks on their three-month family vacation just days after the tragic loss of their beloved dachshund, Coco. When two miniature dachshunds in smart winter coats are spotted in Moscow, it’s game on! A riotous, often hilarious dachshund-spotting competition for the lovable long-bodied dog ensues across 15 countries. Filled with love, laughter, and sadness at times, Destination Dachshund offers a unique twist on the travel memoir with remembrance for those who have been loved and lost.

Journeys to Impossible Places continues the story Simon started in his phenomenal Sunday Times best seller Step by Step, which traced the first decades of his life from depressed and unemployed teenager through to his early TV programmes. Now Simon takes us on the epic and thrilling adventures that followed, in beautiful, tricky and downright dangerous corners of the world, as he travelled through the Tropics, to remote paradise islands, jungles dripping with heat and life and on nerve-wracking secret missions.

A true story of a man who took it upon himself to live alone on a deserted island in the South Pacific, in fact he loved it so much he decided to return and stay a while longer!

Stephen Kuusisto was born legally blind - but he was also raised in the 1950s and taught to deny his blindness in order to "pass" as sighted. Stephen attended public school, rode a bike, and read books pressed right up against his nose. As an adult, he coped with his limited vision by becoming a professor in a small college town, memorizing routes for all of the places he needed to be. Then, at the age of 38, he was laid off. With no other job opportunities in his vicinity, he would have to travel to find work.

Since his time on Hildasay, Chris’s adventure has only gotten wilder. No one was more surprised than Chris when, in November 2020, he had an unlikely (seemingly destined) encounter with fellow adventurer Kate. The two turned out to be kindred spirits and – even more astonishingly – Kate made the bold decision to join Chris on the walk of a lifetime. Day in, day out, as they trekked the coastline down from Scotland together, their relationship grew, and soon the couple were thrown in at the deep end when their first child – baby Magnus – arrived.

In 2017, Kurt Davis traveled to Africa and volunteered at many business accelerators and humanitarian nonprofits. Finding Soul, from Silicon Valley to Africa gives listeners a detailed description of not only what Africa is like, but also how the experiences changed and inspired him. Each chapter comes across like a vignette while developing the key themes in the book: experiencing deep empathy for others, releasing ego and identity, and discovering a deeper meaning for life.

In the powerful travel-writing tradition of Ryszard Kapuscinski and V. S. Naipaul, a haunting memoir of a dangerous and disorienting year of self-discovery in one of the world's unhappiest countries.

Early on in his life, Matt craved a return to nature. When he became an adult, he set aside his comfortable urban life and lived entirely off the land. In this riveting narrative that brings together epic adventure and spiritual quest, he shows us what extraordinary things the human body is capable of when pushed to its limits. He learns the secrets of the Tarahumara Indians, which help him run the 1,600-mile Pacific Crest Trail in just 58 days and endure temperature swings of 100 degrees.

Suffused with her much-loved warmth and wit, Emma John's memoir follows her moving and memorable journey to master one of the hardest musical styles on earth - and to find her place in an alien world. Emma had fallen out of love with her violin when a chance trip to the American South introduced her to bluegrass music. Classically trained, highly strung and wedded to London life, Emma was about as country as a gin martini. So why did it feel like a homecoming?

Different Natures takes you on three journeys. Each gives an honest and passionate insight into the evolution of a compulsive traveler. Looking for direction with the wrong eyes spawned Graham’s lust for wandering. The miles cleared his vision, and the hunger for longer distance grows with an insatiable appetite for new experiences.

Ed Stafford - adventurer extraordinaire and Guinness World Record holder for walking the length of the Amazon River - likes a challenge. Casting about for an adventure that would top the extraordinary feat he recounts in Walking the Amazon, Stafford decides to maroon himself on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific. His mission: to survive for 60 days equipped with nothing - no food, water, or even clothing - except the video cameras he would use to document his time.

A bracing memoir about self-discovery, liberating escape, and moving forward across an adventurous and volatile American landscape. One year. One national park at a time.

Michael Brein’s Travel Tales Monthly Bookazine Issue No. 3 for September 2014 contains among the best travel stories from Michael’s huge collection of about 10,000 travel tales that he has gathered in interviews with nearly 1,750 world travelers and adventurers during his four decades of travel to more than 125 countries throughout the world. The 10 travel tales that are featured for September, as well as each following month, include a fascinating mix of travel stories as well as a few brief vignettes.

The City of Falling Angels opens on the evening of January 29, 1996, when a dramatic fire destroys the historic Fenice opera house. The loss of the Fenice, where five of Verdi's operas premiered, is a catastrophe for Venetians. Arriving in Venice three days after the fire, Berendt becomes a kind of detective - inquiring into the nature of life in this remarkable museum-city - while gradually revealing the truth about the fire.

Throughout history, precious stones have inspired passions and poetry, quests and curses, sacred writings and unsacred actions. Blending adventure travel, geology, exciting new research and her own irresistible charm, Finlay has fashioned a treasure hunt for some of the most valuable, glamorous, and mysterious substances on earth. Jewels is a unique and often exhilarating voyage through history, across cultures, deep into the earth's mantle, and up to the glittering heights of fame, power and wealth.

Losing her TV news career and her home in the same year wasn’t on Casey Roman’s 2018 Bingo card. Neither was sleeping in Walmart parking lots and nearly deciding to end her own life. But the world is full of blind curves, and salvation comes in unusual forms, like a cargo van. What began as a three-week road trip to erase her “news lady” image became a 12,000-mile solo journey that saved Casey’s life.

Back again with even more "mostly true" tales from the trail, Lawton Grinter's new book I Hike Again is sure to find a place in every adventurer's library! I Hike Again imparts hard-earned wisdom from trails both in the United States (Arizona Trail, Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail, Grand Enchantment Trail, Wind River High Route) and abroad (Spain's GR11 and New Zealand's Te Araroa).

For more than 30 years, Patience Gray, author of the celebrated cookbook Honey from a Weed, lived in a remote area of Puglia in southernmost Italy. She lived without electricity, modern plumbing, or a telephone, grew much of her own food, and gathered and ate wild plants alongside her neighbors in this economically impoverished region. She was fond of saying that she wrote only for herself and her friends, yet her growing reputation brought a steady stream of international visitors to her door.