'Are we the same, I wonder, when all our surroundings, association, acquaintances are changed? I conclude that it is not the person who danced with you at Mansfield St who writes to you today from Persia. Yet there are dregs, English sediment at the bottom of my sherbet, and perhaps they flavour it more than I think. I write to you of Persia: I am not me, that is my only excuse. I am merely pouring out for you some of what I have received in the last two months.' When Gertrude Bell's uncle was appointed Minister in Tehran in 1891, she declared that the great ambition of her life was to visit Persia. Several months later, she did. And so began a lifetime of travel and a lifelong enchantment with what she saw as the romance of the East, which evolved into a deep understanding of its cultures and people. This vivid and impressionistic series of sketches, her first foray into writing, is an evocative meditation that moves between Persia's heroic past and its long decline; the public face of Tehran and the otherworldly 'secret, mysterious life of the East', the lives of its women, its lush, enclosed gardens; from the bustling cities to the lonely wastelands of Khorasan.

Foreign adventurers have been tramping around China for centuries, and this book presents some of the best of the stories from the dozens of travel memoirs published, particularly in the golden era of the late nineteenth century. These accounts, abridged and explained, concentrate on the gripping details with a constant commentary on the significance of what is being recounted. They are a window into old China and also into the mentality of the adventurers. Lost China Travel Classics is a digestible and exciting way of meeting some of the greatest travelers of a bygone age.

Real ladies do not travel - or so it was once said. This collection of women's travel writing dispels the notion by showing how there are few corners of the world that have not been visited by women travellers. Jane Robinson takes us on an exhilarating journey through sixteen centuries of travel writing, in the company of Isabella Bird, Karen Blixen, Christina Dodwell, Jan Morris, Dervla Murphy, Freya Stark, Rebecca West, and many more.

A remarkable nineteenth-century account of Istanbul - which begins with a dazzling description of the city gradually appearing through the fog as the author's ship approaches the harbour - Constantinople expertly combines personal anecdote, breathtaking visual observation and entertaining historical information. An invaluable record of the metropolis as it used to be - a fascinating crossroads between Eastern and Western civilization and one of the most cosmopolitan cities of its time - as well as a vivid example of a European tourist's reaction to it - part delight, part incomprehension - this book will provide an enriching read for lovers of history or those planning to visit Istanbul themselves.

"I traveled through the Caucasus like a perfect vagabond, one who] seeks to know the world and its people as they are and, in order to acquire that knowledge, is ready to become all things with all men and to make himself equally at home in all places. In this sense of the word I do not hesitate to avow myself a vagabond of the most pronounced type."

George Kennan (1845--1924) was a pioneering explorer, writer, and lecturer on Russia in the nineteenth century, the author of classic works such as "Tent Life in Siberia" and "Siberia and the Exile System," and great-uncle of George Frost Kennan, the noted historian and diplomat of the Cold War.

In 1870, Kennan became the first American to explore the highlands of Dagestan, a remote Muslim region of herders, silversmiths, carpet-weavers, and other craftsmen southeast of Chechnya, only a decade after Russia violently absorbed the region into its empire. He kept detailed journals of his adventures, which today form a small part of his voluminous archive in the Library of Congress. Frith Maier has combined the diaries with selected letters and Kennan's published articles on the Caucasus to create a vivid narrative of his six-month odyssey.

The journals have been organized into three parts. The first covers Kennan's journey to the Caucasus, a significant feat in itself. The second chronicles his expedition across the main Caucasus Ridge with the Georgian nobleman Prince Jorjadze. In the final part, Kennan circles back through the lands of Chechnya to slip once again into the Dagestan highlands.

Kennan's remarkable curiosity and perception come through in this lively and accessible narrative, as does his humor at the challenges of his travels.

In her Introduction, Maier discusses Kennan's illustrious career and his reliability as an observer, while providing background on the Caucasus to help clarify Kennan's descriptions of daily life, religion, etiquette, customary law, and local government. In an Afterword, she retraces Kennan's steps to find descendants of Prince Jorjadze and describes her work in coproducing, with filmmaker Christopher Allingham, a documentary inspired by Kennan's Caucasus journey.

Frith Maier shares Kennan's adventurous spirit; she became interested in his writings as a student of Russia and went on to a career in adventure travel herself. She is the author of "Trekking in Russia and Central Asia: A Travelers Guide." She lives in Seattle. Additional contributions have been provided by Daniel C. Waugh, professor of history and international studies at the University of Washington.

Marco Polo’s account of his journey throughout the East in the thirteenth century was one of the earliest European travel narratives, and it remains the most important. The merchant-traveler from Venice, the first to cross the entire continent of Asia, provided us with accurate descriptions of life in China, Tibet, India, and a hundred other lands, and recorded customs, natural history, strange sights, historical legends, and much more. From the dazzling courts of Kublai Khan to the perilous deserts of Persia, no book contains a richer magazine of marvels than the Travels.

This edition, selected and edited by the great scholar Manuel Komroff, also features the classic and stylistically brilliant Marsden translation, revised and corrected, as well as Komroff’s Introduction to the 1926 edition.

The era in which Ibn Battuta traveled to the East was exciting but turbulent, cursed by the Black Plague and the fall of mighty dynasties. His account provides a first-hand account of increased globalisation due to the rise of Islam, as well as the relationship between the Western world and India and China in the 14th century. There are insights into the complex power dynamics of the time, as well a personal glimpse of the author's life as he sought to survive them, always staying on the move. The Ri?la contains great value as a historical document, but also for its religious commentary, especially regarding the marvels and miracles that Ibn Battuta encountered. It is also an entertaining narrative with a wealth of anecdotes, often humorous or shocking, and in many cases touchingly human. The book records the journey of Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan jurist who travels to the East, operating at high levels of government within the vibrant Muslim network of India and China. It offers fascinating details into the cultures and dynamics of that region, but goes beyond other travelogues due to the dramatic narrative of its author - tragedies and wonders fill its pages - shared for the greater glory of Allah and the edification of its contemporary audience in the West.