A collection of the greatest women's travel writing selected by journalist and presenter Mariella Frostrup. From Constantinople to Crimea; from Antarctica to the Andes. Throughout history adventurous women have made epic, record-breaking journeys under perilous circumstances. Whether escaping constricted societies back home or propelled by a desire for independence, footloose females have ventured to the four corners of the earth and recorded their exploits for posterity. For too long their triumphs have been overshadowed by those of their male counterparts, whose honourable failures make bigger news. In curating this collection of first-hand accounts, broadcaster, writer and traveller Mariella Frostrup puts female explorers back on the map. Her selection includes explorers from the 1700s to the present day, from iconic heroines to lesser-known eccentrics, celebrating 300 years of wild women and their amazing adventures over land, sea and air. Reviews for Wild Women: 'A stirring whistle-stop tour, led by women who often risked disapproval in leaving home to roam the world' Vanity Fair 'Like any good travel book, Wild Women succeeds in casting the reader's mind off on journeys of its own, inspiring fresh plans and what the Germans call Fernweh, or a longing for faraway places' TLS 'Required reading for anyone who assumed that 'the road less travelled' was a solely masculine preserve' Sunday Independent

A facsimile edition of Bradshaw's Handbook of 1863, the book that inspired the BBC television series 'Great British Railway Journeys'. When Michael Portillo began the series 'Great British Railway Journeys', a well-thumbed 150-year-old book shot back to fame. The original Bradshaw's guides had been well known to Victorian travellers and were produced when the British railway network was at its peak and as tourism by rail became essential. It was the first national tourist guide specifically organized around railway journeys, and this beautifully illustrated facsimile edition offers a glimpse through the carriage window at a Britain long past.

The small island archipelago of St Kilda, which rises majestically from the stormy waters of the North Atlantic, has a magic and allure which is both enduring and inexplicable. For centuries, St Kilda's remoteness (it lies sixty miles west of the Scottish Hebrides), together with the way of life of its inhabitants, has attracted huge attention from outsiders, who have been fascinated by this small community literally clinging to the edge of the world. Although St Kildans were always few in number (the population was under 100 when Hirta, the only inhabited island, was evacuated in 1930), their society was extraordinarily well developed - they famously had their own daily 'parliament', at which the men of the island would meet and discuss the tasks of the day. This remains a work of vital importance for the understanding of this fascinating island society.

This open access book provides an analysis of human actors and their capacity to explore and conceptualise their own agency by being curious, gathering knowledge, and shaping identities in their travel reflections on Asia. Thus, the actors open windows across time to present a profound overview of diverse descriptions and constructions of Asia. It is demonstrated that international and transnational history contributes to and benefits from analyses of national and local contexts that in turn enrich our understanding of transcultural encounters and experiences across time. The book proposes an actor-centred contextual approach to travel writing to recount meaningful constructions of Asia's physical, political and spiritual landscapes. It offers comparative reflections on the patterns of encounter across Eurasia, where from the late medieval period an idea of civilisation was transculturally shared yet also constantly questioned and reframed. Tailored for academic and public discussions alike, this volume will be invaluable for both scholars of Global History and interested audiences to stimulate further discussions on the nature of global encounters in Asia.

People have been attracted to the lure of distant, exotic places throughout the ages, and over the centuries a vast store of legends and lore relating to travel have grown up. This encyclopedia represents a complilation of travel legends and lore of civilizations throughout the world.

Open boat cruising has never been more popular, in the doing or the reading of it; magazines, websites, associations and events around the world attest to this, and of course the countless sailors who just 'get on with it' in their own unassuming manner. Two such, some fifty years ago, long before today's explosion of activity, were Ken Duxbury and his wife B; Ken's three books recounting their adventures in the eighteen-foot Drascombe Lugger 'Lugworm' delighted many on their first appearance, yet they became unavailable for years. 'Lugworm on the Loose' describes how Ken and B quit the 'rat race' and explored the Greek islands under sail. 'Lugworm Homeward Bound' recounts their voyage home from Greece to England. 'Lugworm Island Hopping' has Ken and B exploring the Scilly Isles and the Hebrides. The light touch of Ken's writing belies the sheer ambition, resourcefulness and seamanship which infuse these exploits. And beyond pure sailing narrative, his books convey the unique engagement with land and people which is achieved by approaching under sail in a small boat.

Abu Abdalla Ibn Battuta (1304-1354) was one of the greatest travelers of pre-modern times. He traveled to Black Africa twice. He reported about the wealthy, multi-cultural trading centers at the African East coast, such as Mombasa and Kilwa, and the warm hospitality he experienced in Mogadishu. He also visited the court of Mansa Musa and neighboring states during its period of prosperity from mining and the Trans-Saharan trade. He wrote disapprovingly of sexual integration in families and of hostility towards the white man. Ibn Battuta's description is a unique document of the high culture, pride, and independence of Black African states in the fourteenth century. This book is one of the most important documents about Black Africa written by a non-European medieval historian.

Eastward bound looks at travel and travellers in the medieval period. An international range of distinguished contributors offer discussions on a wide range of themes, from the experiences of Crusaders on campaign, to the lives of pilgrims and missionaries and traders in the Middle East. It examines their modes of travel, equipment and methods of navigation, and considers their expectations and experiences en route. The contributions also look at the variety of motives - public and private - behind the decision to travel eastwards to lands of strange and unfamiliar peoples. Other essays look at the attitudes of Middle-Eastern rulers to their visitors. In so doing they provide a valuable perspective and insight into the behaviour of the Europeans and non-Europeans alike. There have been few such accessible volumes, covering such a broad range of material for the reader. The book will be of use to students and scholars involved in the history, literature and historical geography of the period.

Grounded in historical sources and informed by recent work in cultural, sociological, geographical and spatial studies, Romantic Geography illuminates the nexus between imaginative literature and geography in William Wordsworth's poetry and prose. It shows that eighteenth-century social and political interest groups contested spaces through maps, geographical commentaries and travel literature; and that by configuring 'utopian' landscapes Wordsworth himself participated in major social and political controversies in post-French Revolutionary England.

'All those interested in South Asia and its complex politics and culture should read this book' - Pankaj Mishra The demise of Pakistan - a country with a reputation for volatility, brutality and radical Islam - is regularly predicted. But things rarely turn out as expected, as renowned journalist Declan Walsh knows well. Over a decade covering the country, his travels took him from the raucous port of Karachi to the gilded salons of Lahore to the lawless frontier of Waziristan, encountering Pakistanis whose lives offer a compelling portrait of this land of contradictions. He meets a crusading lawyer who risks her life to fight for society's most marginalised, taking on everyone including the powerful military establishment; an imperious chieftain spouting poetry at his desert fort; a roguish politician waging a mini-war against the Taliban; and a charismatic business tycoon who moves into politics and seems to be riding high - till he takes up the wrong cause. Lastly, Walsh meets a spy whose orders once involved following him, and who might finally be able to answer the question that haunts him: why the Pakistanis suddenly expelled him from their country. Intimate and complex, unravelling the many mysteries of state and religion, this formidable book offers an arresting account of life in a country that, often as not, seems to be at war with itself. 'Thrilling, big-hearted' - Memphis Barker, Daily Telegraph 'Sets a new benchmark for non-fiction about the complex palace of mirrors that is Pakistan' - William Dalrymple

Evliya Celebi was the 17th century's most diligent, adventurous, and honest recorder, whose puckish wit and humor are laced throughout his ten-volume masterpiece. This brand new translation brings Evliya sparklingly back to life. "Well worth a read."-Irish Echo 7/2011

Richard Hakluyt and Travel Writing in Early Modern Europe is an interdisciplinary collection of 24 essays which brings together leading international scholarship on Hakluyt and his work. Best known as editor of The Principal Navigations (1589; expanded 1598-1600), Hakluyt was a key figure in promoting English colonial and commercial expansion in the early modern period. He also translated major European travel texts, championed English settlement in North America, and promoted global trade and exploration via a Northeast and Northwest Passage. His work spanned every area of English activity and aspiration, from Muscovy to America, from Africa to the Near East, and India to China and Japan, providing up-to-date information and establishing an ideological framework for English rivalries with Spain, Portugal, France, and the Netherlands. This volume resituates Hakluyt in the political, economic, and intellectual context of his time. The genre of the travel collection to which he contributed emerged from Continental humanist literary culture. Hakluyt adapted this tradition for nationalistic purposes by locating a purported history of 'English' enterprise that stretched as far back as he could go in recovering antiquarian records. The essays in this collection advance the study of Hakluyt's literary and historical resources, his international connections, and his rhetorical and editorial practice. The volume is divided into 5 sections: 'Hakluyt's Contexts'; 'Early Modern Travel Writing Collections'; 'Editorial Practice'; 'Allegiances and Ideologies: Politics, Religion, Nation'; and 'Hakluyt: Rhetoric and Writing'. The volume concludes with an account of the formation and ethos of the Hakluyt Society, founded in 1846, which has continued his project to edit travel accounts of trade, exploration, and adventure.

This study examines and explains how British explorers visualized the African interior in the latter part of the nineteenth century, providing the first sustained analysis of the process by which this visual material was transformed into the illustrations in popular travel books. At that time, central Africa was, effectively, a blank canvas for Europeans, unknown and devoid of visual representations. While previous works have concentrated on exploring the stereotyped nature of printed imagery of Africa, this study examines the actual production process of images and the books in which they were published in order to demonstrate how, why, and by whom the images were manipulated. Thus, the main focus of the work is not on the aesthetic value of pictures, but in the activities, interaction, and situations that gave birth to them in both Africa and Europe.

First published in 1937 this is a collection of articles written by the author under the pseudonym 'Waseda Eisaku' for the Japan Tourist Bureau's magazine over twenty five years. Intended to satisfy the intellectual curiosity of cultivated tourists from abroad by giving the insider's view of all things Japanese, it was published as a book just before the outbreak of World War II.

Writing in the first person, Katsumata becomes both guide and confidante, writing about his own travel experiences in Japan and about Japanese customs and practices that interest him, such as traditional incense ceremonies, or fishing with rod and creel. This personal approach results in an unusual selection of topics and itineraries including tray landscapes, old Japanese clocks, hot springs, Japanese humour, sumo wrestling, pines in Japanese scenery, the Japanese sun flag and Buddhist temple bells. The author not only describes, but draws the reader into his own experiences - his joy on buying an antiquarian book he cannot really afford, the monotony he feels when travelling too long through snowy landscapes, the delight he takes in telling you that the best bait for carp fishing is sweet potato. Katsumata's unconventional choice of subjects and his informal and individualistic writing style make this a refreshingly different guide to Japan, and a valuable record of the period in which it was written.

George Sand recounts the story of her 1838 winter in Majorca, a winter she passed in the company of Frederick Chopin. She describes the natural beauties of Majorca as well as the rumblings of approaching war.