Travel Year

At age 34 Jo Piazza got her romantic-comedy ending when she met the man of her dreams on a boat in the Galápagos Islands and was engaged three months later. But before long Jo found herself riddled with questions. How do you make a marriage work in a world where you no longer need to be married? How does an independent, strong-willed feminist become someone's partner - all the time?

A few years ago, Mark Adams made a strange discovery: Everything we know about the lost city of Atlantis comes from the work of one man, the Greek philosopher Plato. Then he made a second, stranger discovery: Amateur explorers are still actively searching for this sunken city all around the world, based entirely on the clues Plato left behind.

When Travels with Lizbeth was first published in 1993, it was proclaimed an instant classic. Lars Eighner's account of his descent into homelessness and his adventures on the streets has moved, charmed, and amused generations of readers and listeners. As Lars wrote, "When I began writing this account I was living under a shower curtain in a stand of bamboo in a public park. I did not undertake to write about homelessness, but wrote what I knew, as an artist paints a still life, not because he is especially fond of fruit, but because the subject is readily at hand."

What would happen if you quit your life for a year? In a pre-COVID-19 world, the Wheelan family decided to find out; leaving behind work, school, and even the family dogs to travel the world on a modest budget. Equal parts "how-to" and "how-not-to" - and with an eye toward a world emerging from a pandemic - We Came, We Saw, We Left is the insightful and often hilarious account of one family's gap-year experiment.

Laura was in her early twenties and directionless when she quit her job to backpack in Bolivia. Fate landed her at a wildlife sanctuary on the edge of the Amazon jungle where she was assigned to a beautiful and complex puma named Wayra. Wide-eyed, inexperienced, and comically terrified, Laura made the scrappy, make-do camp her home. And in Wayra, she made a friend for life.

Three years into a financial crisis that shows no sign of loosening its grip, a young couple make the unpopular decision to teach English in Saudi Arabia. The choice of Saudi Arabia is based primarily on the best salary offer and an all-expenses-paid round trip flight. Secondarily, it is to satiate a desire to explore a country steeped in mystery and taboo. Little do they know that the experience will come with a price and change their lives in a profound way.

This is an incredible story of adventure, human ingenuity, persistence, and resilience that shows firsthand what it is to adventure as a woman in the most dangerous of circumstance, what it is to be truly alone in the wild, and why someone would challenge themselves with an expedition others would call crazy. For Marquis, her story is about freedom, being alive and wild by nature.

Fünf Frauen... Fünf Länder... Ein Abenteuer... und die ganz große Liebe! Ein Jahr im Ausland, ganz allein auf sich gestellt? Für Julie Baker eine Horrorvorstellung! Dennoch zieht sie mit, als ihre Freundinnen diesen Plan aushecken, und verlässt zum ersten Mal in ihrem Leben ihre Komfortzone, um in das Land der Polarlichter zu reisen. Ein Jahr lang soll sie sich um die kleine Tochter der Hansens kümmern. Was ihr gar nicht bewusst war: Neben Ida gibt es auch noch einen großen, grummeligen und eindeutig heißen Sohn.

Fünf Frauen... fünf Länder... ein Abenteuer... und die ganz große Liebe! Cindia braucht einen Neuanfang, um mit ihrem alten Leben und ihren Verlusten abzuschließen. Da kommt ihr der Plan, den sie mit ihren vier Freundinnen geschmiedet hat, gerade recht. Ein Jahr Auszeit nach dem Studium, um sich auf die Zukunft vorzubereiten. Ein Jahr, in dem sie ihre Marketingfähigkeiten unter Beweis stellen kann. Ein Jahr, das sie in Evanton in den Highlands verbringen will. Ein Jahr weit weg von der Hektik der Großstadt. Ein Jahr fern aller Versuchungen.

Fünf Frauen... Fünf Länder... Ein Abenteuer... und die ganz große Liebe! Caylee Braddock hat einen Traum: Ein Auslandsjahr in Italien. Als dieser Wunsch in Erfüllung geht, kann sie es kaum fassen. Doch scheinbar verlässt das Glück die Vierundzwanzigjährige genau in der Sekunde, als ihre Füße den Boden Venedigs berühren. Inmitten des Chaos taucht auch noch der Mann auf, den sie seit zehn Jahren nicht mehr gesehen hat und der ihr mit dreizehn das Herz brach. Matteo DeSantis. Als die Situation für Caylee aussichtslos scheint, macht Matteo ihr ein Angebot, dass sie unmöglich ausschlagen kann.

Fünf Frauen... fünf Länder... ein Abenteuer... und die ganz große Liebe! Paige Holm ist eine Träumerin durch und durch. Vor allem wenn es um echte englische Gentlemen geht. Deswegen ist sie auch Feuer und Flamme, als es für ein Auslandsjahr nach London geht. In ihren Büchern gibt es nämlich immer diesen einen romantischen Helden in Strumpfhosen, warum sollte es ihn also nicht auch in Wirklichkeit geben? Vor allem im Land der Mr. Darcys? Wobei ihr klar ist, dass ein Typ wie Harvey Dawson definitiv nicht in die Kategorie Held fällt.

Every year on January 1, a quirky crowd of adventurers storms out across North America for a spectacularly competitive event called a Big Year: a grand, grueling, expensive, and occasionally vicious, "extreme" 365-day marathon of birdwatching. For three men in particular, 1998 would be a whirlwind, a winner-takes-nothing battle for a new North American birding record.

With an itinerary covering 41 countries, spanning all seven continents, and armed with a backpack, binoculars, and a series of one-way tickets, he sets out on the greatest adventure in the birding world. Along the way he meets a colorful cast of fellow birders—and discovers a world of blood-sucking leeches, chronic sleep deprivation, floods, war zones, ecologic devastation, and conservation triumphs.

At the age of 17, in a last-minute twist of fate, Laura Bradbury is sent to Burgundy, France, for a year’s exchange. She arrives knowing only a smattering of French and with no idea what to expect in her first foray out of North America. With a head full of dreams and a powerful desire to please, Laura quickly adapts to Burgundian life, learning crucial skills such as the fine art of wine tasting and how to savor snails.

Dorthe Nors's first nonfiction book chronicles a year she spent traveling along the North Sea coast—from Skagen at the northern tip of Denmark to the Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea. In fourteen expansive essays, Nors traces the history, geography, and culture of the places she visits while reflecting on her childhood and her family and ancestors' ties to the region as well as her decision to move there from Copenhagen.

Mike and his family sail the Western Mediterranean in a 72-foot yacht - a converted 100 ton Baltic Trader. The yachting anecdotes bring out the Irish in him.

Fourteen-year-old Nephele used to have friends. Well, she had a friend. That friend made the adjustment to high school easily, leaving Nephele behind in the process. And as Nephele looks ahead, all she can see is three very lonely years. Nephele is also a whip-smart lover of math and science, so she makes a plan. Step one: invent time travel. Step two: go back in time, have a do-over of ninth grade, crack the code on making friends, and become beloved and popular. Does it work? Sort of. Nephele does travel through time, but not the way she planned - she’s created a time loop.

From the incomparable John Baxter, the best-selling author of The Most Beautiful Walk in the World, a sumptuous and definitive portrait of Paris through the seasons, highlighting the unique tastes, sights, and changing personality of the city in spring, summer, fall, and winter.

In the world of speculative fiction… Your favorite authors… Have selected best new voices of the year.

In 1743, a ship carrying 14 Russian sailors was headed for whaling grounds near Norway when a violent storm blew it far off course, where the ship froze into the ice. Some of the sailors remembered that other sailors had erected a hut on a nearby island and spent the winter there. Four sailors volunteered to go ashore to look for the hut in hopes of finding supplies or using it as a refuge should the 14 sailors be forced to spend the winter before the summer thaw could free their ship.