Travel Writing Memoirs

In 1994, retired CBS correspondent Charles Kuralt set out to spend a perfect year in America - traveling to his 12 favorite American places, in just the right month for a visit to each. With his well-known warmth, humor, and insight, he shows them to us now in Charles Kuralt's America.

A child who never quite fit in, Rebecca Dana worshipped at the altar of Truman Capote and Nora Ephron, dreaming of one day ditching Pittsburgh and moving to New York, her Jerusalem. After graduating from college, she made her way to the city to begin her destiny. For a time, life turned out exactly as she’d planned: glamorous parties; beautiful people; the perfect job, apartment, and man. But when it all came crashing down, she found herself catapulted into another world....

Take a journey over the last four decades of news, from Hollywood to Washington and around the world, from Andorra to Zimbabwe. Ride the campaign plane with Ronald Reagan; get the inside story of why Congress is such a disaster; and share adventure travel stories from a globetrotting correspondent. Retired CBS news correspondent Bob Fuss has traveled with half a dozen presidents and covered Congress for more than 20 years.

Our First Year: Sketches from an Alpine Village is the true story of an American couple's first year living abroad in northern Italy. Told through short, often humorous sketches, this book introduces the reader to life in Italy's South Tirol region through the eyes of newly arrived American residents. Centered in the small alpine village of Tret, the people, language, and customs here come to life through a personal narrative of everyday living.

Everyone wants to escape their boring, stagnant lives full of inertia and regret. But so few people actually have the bravery to run - run away from everything and selflessly seek out personal fulfillment on the other side of the world where they don’t understand anything and won’t be expected to. The world is full of cowards. Tim Anderson was pushing 30 and working a string of dead-end jobs when he made the spontaneous decision to pack his bags and move to Japan.

A true story of courage and survival, South to Alaska carries listeners from the heartland of America to the last frontier... the hard way. Born in the dusty heart of Oklahoma in 1916, 10-year-old Melvin sees a photograph of a cabin in the Alaska wilderness in his fourth-grade geography book and dreams of living there. Nearly 50 years later he builds a 47-foot boat in his Arkansas backyard, launches it on the Arkansas River, and cruises 10,000 miles to Alaska by way of the Panama Canal. Melvin has never been south of the United States/Mexico border.

Paradise is Larry McMurtry's most original and personal work to date. From the harsh violent landscape of west Texas to the lush sensuality and easy living of Tahiti, McMurtry answers some of the questions of what paradise is, whether it exists, and how different it is from life in his hometown.

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.

As a true crime book, Tracks to Murder is witty and informative and enriches these classic American murder cases by placing them within their original settings. Goodman also plays them against their locations as they are today, resulting in a series of character sketches both contemporary and historical. As a travel book, it presents the seasoned reflections of a cultivated English writer on American manners and morals observed during his serendipitous transcontinental journey.

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.

Heartfelt and awe inspiring, Leigh Ann Henion's Phenomenal is a moving tale of physical grandeur and emotional transformation, a journey around the world that ultimately explores the depths of the human heart. A journalist and young mother, Henion combines her own conflicted but joyful experiences as a parent with a panoramic tour of the world's most extraordinary natural wonders.

Ted Kooser describes with exquisite detail and humor the place he calls home in the rolling hills of southeastern Nebraska, an area known as the Bohemian Alps. Nothing is too big or too small for his attention, including memories of his grandmother's cooking. And Kooser reminds us that the closing of local schools, thoughtless county weed control, and irresponsible housing development destroy more than just the view.

Like many of us, YES! Magazine cofounder Sarah van Gelder was alarmed about the state of American society. The deep divides, racial violence, climate change, economic insecurity, and inequality - is our society coming unraveled? Has anyone got answers? She confided her fears to a friend, who said, "If the universe could deploy the one small person that is you, what would it have you do?" Her answer surprised them both: "I'd go out traveling and see for myself."

Danger lurks on every voyage - what the cruise lines don't want you to know - how to be safe on your cruise. Crew with criminal backgrounds, drug dealers and mules carrying drugs on the ship, crime at the ports of the Caribbean and the biggest danger of all - fire on cruise ships. Learn about the one small item you should bring that fits in your pocket. Read this book before booking a cruise.

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.

Would you leave your job, sell your house, abandon your family and friends, and move to France to live on a boat? With no income, and no idea what the next day would bring? Probably not. But that's what Mike and Liz did, choosing to cast off from corporate life to live on and travel the waterways of France.

Somewhere beyond the Salish Sea lived the Stout Men who did the Megin River, and Tibet, and the Amazon. There was Tictac and Poldy, Cliffy and Madame, Captain and Gung, and Papa Smurf, who would die someday, but not yet. These are the stories of where they rushed headlong, towards adventure and suffering, and how it all took place.

Tired of his disconnected life and uninspiring job, Leon Logothetis leaves it all behind - job, money, home, and even his cell phone - and hits the road with nothing but the clothes on his back and five dollars in his pocket, relying on the kindness of strangers and the serendipity of the open road for his daily keep. Along the way, Leon offers up the intriguing and charming tales gathered along his one-of-a-kind journey: riding in trains, buses, big rigs and classic cars; sleeping on streets and couches and firehouses....