Travel Writing Memoirs

As far back as stories go, pioneers have reached for the skies. In the last two hundred years, they have mastered the air and made the modern world possible. Today they are bringing outer space within our reach. They're inventors and toymakers, amateurs and adventurers, visionaries, dreamers and, yes, crackpots....

Newbery Medalist Paul Fleischman reflects on his childhood with his award-winning father, Sid Fleischman, and details his own path to becoming a writer in this memorable audiobook that is part memoir, part travelogue, and part reflection on craft and creativity. Acclaimed author Paul Fleischman considers how growing up with a father who was an award-winning author helped to shape and inspire his own career. Paul and Sid Fleischman are the only father-son Newbery Medalists in history, and life in the Fleischman home was extraordinary.

The February 2015 issue samples the sorts of cons and scams experienced by travelers - their quest to travel safely, securely, and relatively comfortably, without falling victim to the innumerable schemes, scams, shams, and rip-offs perpetrated upon them at just about every turn in their travels (as well as, all too often, even in their own home countries).

Michael Brein's Travel Tales Monthly Bookazine Issue No. 11 for May 2015 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.

Michael Brein's Travel Tales Monthly bookazine, Issue No. 12, June 2015, 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.

Travel Tales Collections are groups of very interesting similar travel stories on a variety of very specific travel subjects, themes, or countries, such as close calls, great escapes, pickpocketing, scams, safety and security in travel, Paris, Morocco, Mexico, and so on. Eventually several hundred collections on all sorts of specific travel subjects, themes, and countries will be available on all the major eReaders.

Why not laugh yourself silly with this collection of funny, hilarious, gut-wrenching travel humor. Oh yeah, we do our fair share of ridiculous, raucous, belly-achingly funny things when we travel. And, I ask you: Is this not one of the most important goals of travel - to laugh ourselves stupid?

Paris is by far my most favorite city, not only in Europe but in all the world. And I love France as well. And while modern Paris is always exciting for me to visit, it is the old Paris that remains particularly etched in my memories. I got to know Paris particularly well when I researched it for my travel guide series to sightseeing by public transportation, Michael Brein's Travel Guide to Paris by the Metro. Although you could say that I popped in and out of holes in the ground (the Metro!), I still walked a great deal all around Paris.

London is one of my most favorite cities, not only in Europe, but also in the entire world. And I love England and the rest of the U.K. as well. And while London is always exciting for me to visit, it is the whole of the United Kingdom that remains particularly etched in my memories.

Mungo Park was an explorer of the real kind. In 1795, only aged 24, he left Gambia for the uncharted interior of Africa, in a journey that would be filled with tragedy, heroism, and adventure. Park was the first European to ever reach the river Niger and the legendary city of Timbuctoo, thus resolving, once and for all, a century-old geographic debate. He travelled with local guides and later entirely alone, through warring kingdoms, robberies, imprisonment, and extreme duress. By the time he returned to Gambia, he had long been given up for dead.

Michael Brein's Travel Tales Collection: Close Calls and Great Escapes 1 features a bunch of frightening and horrific tales of fear and panic that can most certainly happen to you in your travels. Scary things do happen occasionally, and mostly your travels are the usual, typical, expected sorts of normal non-anxious experiences. But there are also those unexpected, strange and dangerous surprises that pop up now and again in your journeys.

Travel Tales Collections, Food & Drink, No. 7, February 2015, is part of Michael Brein's Travel Tales Collections series. It contains some of the best stories from Michael's huge collection of 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.

Toilet experiences are an unfortunate yet essential aspect of living that, like it or not, we all must come to terms with, whether on the home front or in strange exotic foreign lands. The necessity of dealing with toilets, where to find them; what to do about them; and how to use them even, elicits from many travelers nothing less than abject terror.

Michael Brein's Travel Tales Monthly Bookazine Issue No. 2 for August 2014 contains 10 among the best travel stories from Michael's huge collection of travel tales that he has gathered in interviews with nearly 1,750 world travelers and adventurers during his four decades of his own travels to more than 125 countries throughout the world.

In March 2019, the Viking Sky cruise ship was struck by a bomb cyclone in the North Atlantic. Rocked by 50-foot swells and 40-knot gales, the ship lost power and began to drift straight toward the notoriously dangerous Hustadvika coast in Norway. This is the suspenseful, harrowing, funny, touching story by one passenger who contemplated death aboard that ship.

The Road to Villa Page: A He Said/She Said Memoir of Buying Our Dream Home in France is the first in a series of books that captures the experience of living in the Dordogne region of France, as filtered through the eyes of an American family from a “he said, she said” perspective. Our story begins with falling in love with France, specifically the enchanting Dordogne. We weren’t the first and we won’t be the last.

Dr. Rod Bailey was sent on a once-in-a-lifetime mission trip to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, as part of the One Child Matters Program. With some reservations, he enters into a land where driving recklessly on crowded streets is normal, roosters crow from the rusty rooftops, and the strong coffee gets no creamer. But, the greater lessons lie in his interaction he has with the proud people, the grateful children, and the mission he came to serve.

Michael Brein's Travel Tales Collection, Spooky Tales 1, features a bunch of bizarre and strange tales of the paranormal that can happen to you in your travels. Strange things do happen, and mostly they are the usual, typical, expected sorts of normal experiences. But there are also those unexpected, strange surprises that pop up now and again in your journeys.

Issue No. 1, Jul 2014 features such hilarious tales as "The Porno Prof Capers", which describes all the crazy, stupid sorts of trouble that a scurrilous scoundrel traveling to the former Soviet Union can possibly get himself into. And, if that is not enough, how about "The Mad Bomber", who cannot help getting himself into all sorts of embarrassing situations? You are going to laugh this month, but you will also see the unfortunately sad and serious sides to travel as well.

Michael Brein's Travel Tales Collection: Turkey 1 includes Michael's own personal travel tales of the sorts of things that can happen to you in your travels in Turkey. Of course, Michael's Turkey stories are fairly unique to him, but somewhat similar things may happen to you. To Michael, Turkey has been a paradox: On the one hand he found the Turkish people to be among the most hospitable and kindest people in the world; on the other hand - as in other parts of the world - Turkey also has its dangerous and dark side.