Travel Year

Two Years Before the Mast, written by Richard Henry Dana, provides a vivid account of "the life of a common sailor at sea". Dana sails from Boston, around Cape Horn, stopping in several ports along the California coast including San Diego, San Pedro, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco. On the return trip around Cape Horn in the middle of the Antarctic winter Dana describes terrifying storms and incredible beauty, giving vivid descriptions of icebergs and the scurvy that afflicts members of the crew.

Ever since leaving his San Francisco business to his associates, filmmaker Christopher Strong has been doing what many of us dream of doing: cycling the French Country backroads with no fixed itinerary, tasting the land and the people as well as the food and wine. As a result of those memorable meetings with exceptional people in amazing places, Christopher Strong has morphed into: The Bicycle Gourmet. He has more than a few all tales to tell. In this audiobook, Christopher has selected his personal best. Close your eyes, open your ears, and glide down the French Country backroads.

In the near future of Robert Charles Wilson's Last Year, the technology exists to open doorways into the past - but not our past, not exactly. Each "past" is effectively an alternate world, identical to ours but only up to the date on which we access it. And a given "past" can be reached only once. After a passageway is open, it's the only road to that particular past; once closed, it can't be reopened.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In Bucharest, Romania's capital, Kaplan discovered that few Westerners were reporting on the country - one of the darkest corners of Europe during the Cold War. In an intense and cinematic travelogue, Kaplan explores the history and culture of the only country in the West where the leading intellectuals have been right-wing rather than left-wing; a country that gave rise to the dictator Ion Antonescu, Hitler's chief foreign accomplice during WWII; a country where the Latin West mixes with the Greek East, producing a fascinating fusion of cultures.

Larry had dreamed of sailing around the world ever since he first stepped foot into a sailboat at the age of 13. He held onto that dream for 30 years, until one day he realized that "it's now or never". He left his corporate job, trading his comfortable executive life for adventure. A true story memoir packed with lessons from the ocean that served as a teacher of seamanship, personal strength, growth, leadership, and perseverance, while Larry and his crew discovered themselves, and the world.

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.

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.

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.

Leslie White knew she wanted more out of life - She found it in an unlikely place. Devastated from the loss of both parents to cancer nine months apart, Leslie vowed to change her life. She bought the neighbor’s old motorhome, found a job as a traveling histologist, and hit the road. But she found she could not trust the one person she was still holding onto.

Step into the rugged Rockies with Osborne Russell! Journey nine years through his trapper's journal, facing blizzards, bears, and bison while navigating life off the grid. Witness the clash of trappers and tribes, and glimpse the untamed beauty of a changing wilderness. This historical adventure unfolds in Russell's own words, offering a unique perspective on the early American West.

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.

Two Years Before the Mast is an 1840 memoir by the author Richard Henry Dana. A Harvard graduate, he spent the years 1834 to 1836 as a sailor on a merchant ship on a voyage from Boston to California. The journey took them past Cape Horn on the Tierra del Fuego archipelago where the Pacific and Atlantic oceans meet. Dana provides detailed descriptions of ship life and the technical aspects of sailing. A chapter on California and its inhabitants offers valuable historical insights on the state which was then a foreign land.