Travel Writing Memoirs

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.

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.

Roughing It is a book of semi-autobiographical travel literature written by American humorist Mark Twain. He published in 1872 as a prequel to his first book, The Innocents Abroad. Roughing It is the hilarious record of those early years traveling from Nevada to California to Hawaii, as Twain tried his luck at anything and everything--and usually failed. Twain's encounters with tarantulas and donkeys, vigilantes and volcanoes, even Brigham Young, the Mormon leader, come to life with his inimitable mixture of reporting, social satire, and rollicking tall tales

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.

Осенью 1922 года Альберт Эйнштейн предпринял путешествие по Дальнему и Ближнему Востоку длиной почти полгода. На нить его сложного маршрута были нанизаны Гонконг и Сингапур, две короткие остановки в Китае, многочисленные лекции по всей Японии, почти двухнедельное пребывание в Палестине и трехнедельное — в Испании. Под этой обложкой приводится полный текст дневника, который физик вел на протяжении поездки. Сделанные наскоро записи отражают соображения автора о науке, философии, искусстве и политике, а также сиюминутные впечатления и отвлеченные размышления об актуальных событиях.

Jim Payne follows the waterways of America, living a Tom Sawyer life in his 12-foot kayak, getting scared, soaked, and bailed out of trouble by Samaritans he discovers along the way. His escapades span the country, from the Hudson River to the Columbia, from the Mississippi to the Erie Canal. As Payne's adventures unfold, you never know what's around the next bend He's entrapped by security guards at Mount Vernon, loses his rudder off the Florida Keys, and sleeps in Franklin Roosevelt's bed.

On June 19, 1953, Harry Truman got up early, packed the trunk of his Chrysler New Yorker, and did something no other former president has done before or since: he hit the road. No Secret Service protection. No traveling press. Just Harry and his childhood sweetheart Bess off to visit old friends, take in a Broadway play, celebrate their wedding anniversary in the Big Apple, and blow a bit of the money he’d just received to write his memoirs. Hopefully incognito. In this lively history, author Matthew Algeo meticulously details how Truman’s plan to blend in went wonderfully awry.

South Solo is a story of indomitable courage, of passion to save an endangered species like the albatross, and the unique adventure of solo kayaking in the frigid waters off Antarctica.

Louise Minchin went from presenting BBC Breakfast to competing for the GB Triathlon Team. Driven to bring more attention to female stories, she embarks on adventures with trailblazing women who are breaking down barriers, smashing records and challenging stereotypes in the world of sports and endurance. Join Louise on a roller coaster of highs and lows in this celebration of courageous women and a moving reminder of the power of the female spirit.

In June 2016 I decided to sell my house of 22 years and leave my comfort zone. Slowly the Camino de Santiago showed itself and I decided, with no rucksack or hiking experience, to start... But that’s another story, the one that led to this one. My Camino in Spain taught me to let go of everything I didn’t need, to travel light and wash my clothes in the shower, but most importantly it taught me to trust my heart and my feet, to let my journey unfold naturally, instinctively, intuitively.

Buckle up and get ready for a raw, unfiltered ride as Josh Goodman goes from being a guy who couldn't get a drink in a busy bar to building a multimillion-dollar technology company that lets guests pour their own beer, wine, and cocktails and pay by the ounce. Travel with Goodman to Ireland, where he spent a week driving around the entire country to secure his first business partners—who eventually tried to put him out of business. Then, visit northern Austria and discover how he landed the deal that brought his business back to life.

For those looking to teach English in Japan or are already there, this series offers hard-won lessons of how to land with a running start and set yourself up for success.

Dana has written two thrillers, Blindfold Game and Prepared for Rage, and when researching both novels she went on patrol with the US Coast Guard, first on the Alex Haley for 16 days in the Bering Sea, and then on Munro for seven weeks off the coasts of Central and South America. Dana was invited to write a daily blog from the ship so the shore-bound families of the crew could witness, as much as possible, the lives their loved ones were living at sea.

When you dive into Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad, you have to be ready to learn more about the unadorned, ungilded reality of 19th-century “touring” than you might think you want to learn. This is a tough literary journey. It was tough for Twain and his fellow “pilgrims”, both religious and otherwise. They set out, on a June day in 1867, to visit major tourist sites in Europe and the near east, including Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, “the Holy Land”, and Egypt. What Twain records are the day-to-day ups and downs of discovering the truth about people and places.

Tim Cahill's adventures typically include equal parts farce and discovery. "Cahill Among The Ruins of Peru" is no exception. Here Cahill sets out to find undiscovered pre-Incan ruins in northeatern Peru. Oily beaueaucrats, superstitious locals, a know-it-all companion and the Peruvian wilderness did not daunt him. Though they were annoying.

Published in Rock and Ice Magazine in 1986, this essay, co-written by John Long and Dwight Brooks, tells the story of a hair-raising caving adventure in Papua New Guinea.

Canadian writer Lawrence Millman has made courting adventure to unusual places his lifelong trade. In "An Evening Among Headhunters," Millman tells the story of his visit to the Jivaro Indians living along at the Equadorian border.

In the summer of 1957, anxious to impress an admirer who had moved to Paris, while rebelling against her family, Gill Johnson, aged twenty-five, gave up her comfortable job at the National Gallery in London and travelled to Venice to take up a job teaching English to an aristocratic Italian family. Love from Venice is her vivid evocation of that summer, the last hurrah of the European Grand Tour, when the international jet set lit upon the city for their fun.

Named one of Time Magazine International's 30 most important people of 2005, Maud Fontenoy presents us with a terrific, entertaining adventure story on the high seas as she challenges the Pacific Ocean - a feat no woman before her ever accomplished. Already the first woman to row alone across the North Atlantic, Maud raised the bar to defy the elements, the daunting solitude, and the circling sharks of the South Pacific on her second solo voyage.

In 1831, the HMS Beagle took sail. Onboard was a young Charles Darwin. He would set out on an adventure that would lead him to question everything about man's place in the world. The Voyage of the Beagle is the journal Darwin kept of his observations of the extraordinary and natural wonders he encountered, from volcanoes to the coral reefs of Australia. It would be these natural wonders that would lead to him questioning how the different species of the world came to be and eventually to his radical theories.