'An exhilarating story of freedom and constraint, told with a confident and unwavering verve. This is a journey driven by boundless curiosity, and by the desire for connection - across borders, across languages, across time' MALACHY TALLACK When Esa Aldegheri and her husband left their home in Orkney, Esa didn't know that their eighteen-month motorbike adventure would take them through twenty international frontiers - between Europe and the Middle East, through Pakistan, China and India - many of which are now impassable. Charting a story of shrinking and expanding liberties and horizons, of motherhood, womanhood, xenophobia and changing geopolitical situations, Free to Go examines the challenges of navigating a world where many assume that women ride pillion, both on a motorbike and within relationships. Part around-the-world adventure, part-literary exploration of womanhood, Free to Go is about the journeys that shape and transform us.

In 1966 Dervla Murphy travelled the length and breadth of Ethopia, first on a mule, Jock, whom she named after her publisher, and later on a recalcitrant donkey. The remarkable achievement was not surviving three armed robberies or the thousand-mile trail, but the gradual growth of affection for and understanding of another race.

Two middle-aged ladies, one Penelope Chetworth, the other her 12-year old mare La Marquesa, explored the high sierra north of Granada in 1961. Together the travellers brought out the best in their Spanish hosts and Chetwode's compelling account - warm, witty and candid - is informed by her infectious personal fascination for horses, religion and Spain.

AN ODE TO WALKING FROM ONE OF THE WORLD'S LEADING EXPLORERS AND THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SILENCE 'Erling Kagge is a philosophical adventurer - or perhaps an adventurous philosopher' New York Times ____________________________________ 'After having put my shoes on and let my thoughts wander, I am sure of one thing - to put one foot in front of the other is one of the most important things we do.' From those perilous first steps as a toddler, to great expeditions, from walking to work to trekking to the North Pole, Erling Kagge explains that he who walks goes further and lives better. Walking is a book about the love of exploration, the delight of discovery and the equilibrium that can be found in this most simple of activities. ____________________________________ 'If you are a walker this book will resonate with you, if you have seldom or never walked this book should be compulsory reading' Rosamund Young 'A thought-proving and enjoyable book that revels in seeing the global in the local. Erling Kagge reveals new ways to view home and homo sapiens, and, as he travels leisurely, we grow slowly wiser' Tristan Gooley 'Part rumination, part walking coach and companion . . . and one that might just do more for your health and happiness than your treadmill alone ever could' New York Journal of Books 'A thoughtful book-length essay on a taken-for-granted human activity' Kirkus '[Walking is] much more subtle than a typical self-help . . . Erling Kagge uses his acquaintance with extreme environments to reflect on the mental and physical benefits of walking' Economist

This stunning memoir-cum-travelogue from twice Booker winning author Peter Carey re-evaluates Japan through its attempts to understand the violent and disturbing cartoons which are so inherently concerned with Japan's rich and historic heritage. Accompanied by his son, Charley, father and son attempt to demystify the meanings hidden within magna and anime as they move towards a greater understanding of what they call their own 'real Japan.' Brilliantly reviewed in hardback with more publicity to come One of the warmest and most accessible travelogues of recent times A wonderful exploration of Japanese culture in the vein of Lost in Translation The hardback has gone on to sell extremely well with critics praising the beautiful packaging as well as the wonderful writing

In The Story of Scandinavia, political scholar Stein Ringen chronicles more than 1,200 years of drama, economic rise and fall, crises, kings and queens, war, peace, language and culture. Scandinavian history has been one of dramatic discontinuities of collapse and restarts, from the Viking Age to the Age of Perpetual War to the modern age today. For a thousand years, the Scandinavian countries were kingdoms of repression where monarchs played at the game of being European powers, at the expense of their own populations. The brand we now know as "Scandinavia" is a recent invention. During most of its history, Denmark and Sweden, and to some degree Norway, were bloody enemies. These sentiments of enmity have not been fully settled. Under the surface of collaboration remain undercurrents of hatred, envy, contempt and pity. What does it mean today to be Scandinavian? For the author, whose identity is Scandinavian but his life European, this masterly history is a personal exploration as well as a narrative of compelling scope.

In "The Waiting Land" (first published in 1967) Dervla Murphy affectionately portrays the people of Nepal's different tribes, the customs of an ancient, complex civilization and the country's natural grandeur and beauty. This is the third of Dervla Murphy's early travel books: an exploration of Nepal by a feisty, generous-hearted young Irish woman. Yet it can also be seen as the completion of a trilogy of books concerned with her experience of self- sufficient mountain cultures, first tasted in crossing Persia and Afghanistan in "Full Tilt", and deepened with her experience of working with Tibetan refugees in the frontiers of Northern India, as told in "Tibetan Foothold". Having settled in a village in the Pokhara Valley to work at a Tibetan refugee camp, she makes her home in a tiny, vermin-infested room over a stall in the bazaar. In diary form, she describes her various journeys by air, by bicycle and on foot into the remote and mountainous Lantang region on the border of Tibet. Murphy's charm and sensitivity as a writer and traveller reveal not only the vitality of an age-old civilization facing the challenge of Westernisation, but the wonder and excitement of her own remarkable adventures.

Shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year 2020 'A thought-provoking treatise interwoven with blistered-feet-on-the-ground accounts of spots both pretty and gritty' National Geographic 'Compelling, thought-provoking, and courageous, this epic-poetic journey peels back layers of collective emotional and imaginative inheritance. Jubber gets under the skin of our complicated continent and his timing is dead right' Kapka Kassabova 'A genuine epic' Wanderlust 'The prose is colourful and vigorous...Jubber's journeying has indeed been epic, in scale and ambition. In this thoughtful travelogue he has woven together colourful ancient and modern threads into a European tapestry that combines the sombre and the sparkling' Spectator 'Epic Continent sets out on a physical and mythological journey to uncover what it means to be European' Geographical These are the stories that made Europe. Reaching back into the ancient and medieval eras in which these defining works were produced, and investigating their continuing influence today, Epic Continent explores how matters of honour, fundamentalism, fate, nationhood, sex, class and politics have preoccupied the people of Europe across the millennia. In these tales soaked in blood and fire, Nicholas Jubber discovers how the world of gods and emperors, dragons and water maidens, knights and princesses made our own: their deep impact on European identity, and their resonance in our turbulent times. Journeying from Turkey to Iceland, award-winning travel writer Nicholas Jubber takes us on a fascinating adventure through our continent's most enduring epic poems to learn how they were shaped by their times, and how they have since shaped us.

Patrick Leigh Fermor was only 18 when he set off to walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople, described many years later in A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water. It was during these early wanderings that he started to pick up languages, and where he developed his extraordinary sense of the continuity of history: a quality that deepens the colours of every place he writes about, from the peaks of the Pyrenees to the cell of a Trappist monastery. His experiences in wartime Crete sealed the deep affection he had already developed for Greece, a country whose character and customs he celebrates in two books, Mani and Roumeli, and where he has lived for over forty years. Whether he is drawing portraits in Vienna or sketching Byron's slippers in Missolonghi, the Leigh Fermor touch is unmistakable. Its infectious enthusiasm is driven by an insatiable curiosity and an omnivorous mind - all inspired by a passion for words and language that makes him one of the greatest prose writers of his generation.

'Who among us has not felt his heart beat a little faster at the sight of a plane soaring into a wide blue sky, or admired the fellow who tears up the gas bills? . . . In this engaging and finely written book, Richard Grant, a restless Englishman and something of an itinerant himself seeks out the wanderers, the rootless, the "legion of drifters, grifters, hoboes and tramps". Grant traces their historical antecedents (the ghosts of the title are the nomadic horsemen of the American West) and ponders what drives a man to spend his life in motion . . . He is a first-class writer . . . I enjoyed this book immensely' Sara Wheeler, Daily Telegraph
 

Whilst on holiday in Kenya, Corinne Hoffman fell in love with a Masai warrior. Eventually she moved into a tiny shack with him and his mother and spent four years in Kenya. However, slowly but surely, the dream began to crumble. She eventually fled back home with her baby daughter. From wild animals through starvation to ritual mutilation, this is a book steeped in humanity and one that tells a fascinating tale. At once a hopelessly romantic love story and a gripping adventure yarn, The White Masai is a compulsive read.

Shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley Prize 2018. This is a memoir of intense physical and personal experience, exploring how swimming with seals, gulls and orcas in the cold waters off Orkney provided Victoria Whitworth with an escape from a series of life crises and helped her to deal with intolerable loss. It is also a treasure chest of history and myth, local folklore and archaeological clues, giving us tantalising glimpses of Pictish and Viking men and women, those people lost to history, whose long-hidden secrets are sometimes yielded up by the land and sea.

A charming, vibrant diary of Diana Athill's holiday to Florence in the late 1940s. In August 1947, Diana Athill travelled to Florence by the Golden Arrow train for a two-week holiday with her good friend Pen. In this playful diary of that trip, Athill recorded her observations and adventures - eating with (and paid for by) the hopeful men they meet on their travels, admiring architectural sights, sampling delicious pastries, eking out their budget and getting into scrapes. Written with an arresting immediacy and infused with an exhilarating joie de vivre, A Florence Diary is a bright, colourful evocation of a time long lost, and a vibrant portrait of a city that will be deliciously familiar to any contemporary traveller.

The Guide to the World's Most Iconic Road Known as America's Main Street, or the Mother Road, Historic Route 66 is more than just a road, it is the artery that connects America's heart with its head, a road-worthy metaphor of the nation's post-war rebirth of innovation and industrialism along the way, as well as a representation of freedom (and loss) for many of the nation's peoples. Route 66 is the place to get your kicks, don't forget too. A stretch of road with so many stunning stories and secrets to share and roadside attractions, and billboards, to see, all of which were built along its path to glory through its hundred-year tenure, a past that is now celebrated as a pilgrimage for millions of drivers and dreamers, truckers and tourists, yearning to reconnect with the country's golden age. So, come and get your kicks with The Little Book of Route 66. Full of facts, stats, quotes and quips - the perfect driving companion for those long family road-trips. If the road is a metaphor for life, then Route 66 is the road. Buckle up, because this is going to be a road-trip of a lifetime... and a journey to remember. SAMPLE TEXT: For the first twelve years of its existence, only 800 of its 2,400 miles were paved. The rest were dust and dirt tracks making for very bumpy riding. The highway was not finished being laid with tarmac until 1938.

Sofka Zinovieff had fallen in love with Greece as a student, but little suspected that years later she would, return for good with an expatriate Greek husband and two young daughters. This book is a wonderfully fresh, funny, and inquiring account of her first year as an Athenian. The whole family have to come to grips with their new life and identities--the children start school and tackle a new language, and Sofka's husband, Vassilis, comes home after half a lifetime away. Meanwhile, Sofka resolves to get to know her new city and become a Greek citizen, which turns out to be a process of Byzantine complexity. As the months go by, Sofka's discovers how memories of Athens' past haunt its present in its music, poetry, and history. She also learns about the difficult art of catching a taxi, the importance of smoking, the unimportance of time-keeping, and how to get your Christmas piglet cooked at the baker's.

Finalist for the Man Booker International Prize 2015 Alain Mabanckou left Congo in 1989, at the age of twenty-two, not to return until a quarter of a century later. When at last he comes home to Pointe-Noire, a bustling port town on Congo's south-eastern coast, he finds a country that in some ways has changed beyond recognition: the cinema where, as a child, Mabanckou gorged on glamorous American culture has become a Pentecostal temple, and his secondary school has been re-named in honour of a previously despised colonial ruler. But many things remain unchanged, not least the swirling mythology of Congolese culture which still informs everyday life in Pointe-Noire. Mabanckou though, now a decorated French-Congolese writer and esteemed professor at UCLA, finds he can only look on as an outsider at the place where he grew up. As he delves into his childhood, into the life of his departed mother and into the strange mix of belonging and absence that informs his return to Congo, Mabanckou slowly builds a stirring exploration of the way home never leaves us, however long ago we left home.

Over the last two and a half years, Chris Tarrant has travelled, literally, all around the world filming Extreme Railway Journeys for Channel 5. The hugely successful TV series is already being repeated, and broadcast rights have been, and continue to be, picked up in other countries, while it is also being released on DVD. Chris's journeys have taken him to the Congo, India, Australia, Bolivia (twice), Japan, Siberia, Myanmar, Canada and Cuba, and the latest programmes see the completion of filming in Alaska, Argentina, Azerbaijan, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Chris Tarrant's Extreme Railway Journeys brings to life beautifully not only the romance of travelling by train, but also the sights, sounds and smells of the countries and places visited, while also illuminating the customs and attitudes of the people the author encountered along the way. But, as he says, 'I should have known what I was in for and what the word "extreme" means, when the very first show saw us filming in the Congo - where the train was six DAYS late.' Beautifully illustrated with exclusive colour photographs, Extreme Railway Journeys is not only a record of remarkable journeys in extraordinary places by one of our shrewdest commentators. It is also a demonstration of the principle that 'to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive'.

In an old wooden sloop, Philip Marsden plots a course north from his home in Cornwall. He is sailing for the Summer Isles, a small archipelago near the top of Scotland that holds for him a deep and personal significance. On the way, he must navigate the west coast of Ireland and the Inner Hebrides. Through the people he meets and the tales he uncovers, Marsden builds up a haunting picture of these shores - of imaginary islands and the Celtic otherworld, of the ageless draw of the west, of the life of the sea and perennial loss - and the redemptive power of the imagination. The Summer Isles is an unforgettable account of the search for actual places, invented places, and those places in between that shape the lives of individuals and entire nations.

'A book worth reading' Andrew Marr, Sunday Times The Debatable Land was an independent territory which used to exist between Scotland and England. At the height of its notoriety, it was the bloodiest region in Great Britain, fought over by Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and James V. After the Union of the Crowns, most of its population was slaughtered or deported and it became the last part of the country to be brought under the control of the state. Today, its history has been forgotten or ignored. When Graham Robb moved to a lonely house on the very edge of England, he discovered that the river which almost surrounded his new home had once marked the Debatable Land's southern boundary. Under the powerful spell of curiosity, Robb began a journey - on foot, by bicycle and into the past - that would uncover lost towns and roads, reveal the truth about this maligned patch of land and result in more than one discovery of major historical significance. Rich in detail and epic in scope, The Debatable Land takes us from a time when neither England nor Scotland could be imagined to the present day, when contemporary nationalism and political turmoil threaten to unsettle the cross-border community once more. Writing with his customary charm, wit and literary grace, Graham Robb proves the Debatable Land to be a crucial, missing piece in the puzzle of British history. Includes a 16-page colour plate section.

The first of a set of 5 additions to the best selling Recollections series taking us on a nostalgic tour of Britain during the 1950s, 60s and 70s.Cedric Greenwood takes us on a photographic journey from Cornwall to Scotland with a wide selection of atmospheric shots taken during those three decades.Using the means of transport available including buses, trams, trains and ships we see the street scenes and life as it was back then.The fashions, the vehicles, the shops, the industries, the landscape and much, mich more frozen in the moment and captured by Cedric's camera for us to enjoy 40, 50, 60 years later!This first volume (No 70 in the Recollections series takes us to the centre of Britain covering Northamptonshire to Merseyside.

To travel the Silk Road, the greatest land route on earth, is to trace the passage not only of trade and armies but also of ideas, religions, and inventions. Making his way by local bus, truck, car, donkey cart, and camel, Colin Thubron covered some seven thousand miles in eight months--out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran into Kurdish Turkey--and explored an ancient world in modern ferment.

In June 1863 an English lady set off by train on the trip of a lifetime: Thomas Cook's first Conducted Tour of Switzerland. A century and a half later, travel writer Diccon Bewes, author of the bestselling Swiss Watching, decided to go where she went and see what she saw. Guided by her diary, he followed the same route to discover how much had changed and how much hadn't. She went in search of adventure, he went in search of her, and found far more than he expected. Slow Train to Switzerland is the captivating account of two trips through the Alps: hers glimpsing the future of travel, his revisiting its past. Together they make a journey to remember. This is a tale of trains and tourists, of the British and the Swiss, of a Victorian traveller and a modern-day Englishman abroad. It is the story of a tour that changed both Switzerland and the world of travel forever.

Nicolas Bouvier was an image merchant and photographer as well as a writer. The Eland edition of "Japanese Chronicles" will be accompanied by many of his startling images of Japan. "The Japanese Chronicles" is a distillation of Bouvier's lifelong quest for Japan and his many travels, so that the reader is able to discover the country through the eyes of both a passionate young man, the sensual appeciation of a middle-aged artist and the serenity of an experience writer. 'Like other great literature, [Bouvier's] Chronicles pulls the reader into a timeless dimension where all is transformed and there is no separation between the reader and the work' - "San Francisco Review of Books". 'Some of the most resonant and perceptive travel writing in recent years'. - "Kirkus Reviews". 'Bouvier's distinguished accomplishments have culminated here in a book that succeeds in transforming personal experiences into a series of epiphanies for the reader'. - "Booklist".