When Sybil Hall Nowell set off from San Francisco one February morning in 1935 on a round-the-world trip with her husband Jack, the energetic American couple fell into the embrace of the British Empire with great gusto. As they traveled through Australia and New Zealand and then through Africa up to Britain they delighted in the formality, civility, and good manners that defined at least the surface of the British imperial experience. During their four-month voyage, Sybil Nowell studiously wrote letters home at every stop, describing this calm and orderly world. Sybil Nowell's letters, introduced and edited here by Robert N. White (her grandson) who has provided useful historical and political commentary, portray the easy complacency of Empire that came with power, privilege, and prestige.

In December 1965, in a smoke-filled hotel room in Morocco, South African journalist Terry Bell accepted a challenge: to paddle a kayak from London to Tangier.

At the time, Terry and his wife Barbara were living as political exiles in London. By August 1967, they agreed it was time to get back to Africa. But they decided to up the ante. Their plan: paddle 11 000 kilometres from England to Dar es Salaam in a 5-metre glass fibre kayak.

The book includes a section on culinary kayaking – the recipes that Barbara cooked along the way.

A Cult Classic, "The Way of the World" is one of the most beguiling travel books ever written. Reborn from the ashes of a Pakistan rubbish heap, it tells of a friendship between a writer and an artist, forged on an impecunious, life-enhancing journey from Serbia to Afghanistan in the 1950s. On one level it is a candid description of a road journey, on another a meditation on travel as a journey towards the self, all written by a sage with a golden pen and a wide infectious smile. It is published here for the first time in English with the Vernet drawings which are such a dynamic part of its whole.

CONTENTS include: CHAPTER I. CHAPTER II. BETWEEN ROME AND NAPLES l6 CHAPTER III. NAPLES NAPOLI ... 65 CHAPTER IV. EXCURSIONS WEST OF NAPLES. . . . . . .152 CHAPTER V. EXCURSIONS EAST OF NAPLES IQ2 CHAPTER VI. NOLA, AVELLINO, AND BENEVENTUM 247 CHAPTER VII. IN THE ABRUZZI . 26 1 vni CONTENTS. IN APULIA . . . . ... CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER IX. . PAGE . . 284 IN MAGNA GRAECIA EASTERN CALABRIA . . . . 335 CHAPTER X. IN THE BASILICATA AND WESTERN CALABRIA . . . 359 SICILY . . . CHAPTER XL . . . . . . . .371 CHAPTER XII. SICILY THE EASTERN COAST . . . . ... CHAPTER XIII. 384 GIRGENTI AND THE SOUTHERN COAST . . . . . 457 CHAPTER XIV. PALERMO AND THE NORTHERN COAST ., ... 476 SOUTHERN ITALY. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION: THE attractions of Naples and its neighbourhood have always been familiar to travelling Englishmen, but, in publishing a book on the rest of Southern Italy, the author has an uncomfortable sense of sending forth what few will read, and fewer still will make use of on the spot. English travellers nearly always play at follow the leader, and there are probably not two hundred living who have ever explored the savage scenery of the Abruzzi, the characteristic cathe- drals of Apulia, or the historic sites of Magna Graecia. Except the admirable Unter-Italien of Gsell-fells, the Grande Grece of Frangois Lenormant, and the chapters on the Abruzzi, Apulia, and Naples, in the Italian Sculptors of C. C. Perkins, nothing of importance has been written about these places it has not been considered worth while even the beautiful illustrations in Lears Journal of a Landscape Painter have failed to attract a stream of travellers as far south as Calabria. The vastness and ugliness of the districts tobe traversed, the bareness and filth of the inns, the roughness of the natives, the torment of zinzare the terror of earthquakes, the insecurity of the roads from brigands, and the far more serious risk of malaria or typhoid fever from the bad water, are natural causes which have hitherto frightened strangers away from the south. But every year these risks are being mitigated, and some of the travellers along the southern railways to Sicily may perhaps now be induced to linger on the way, though, with the single exception of the hotel at Reggio, the inns in Calabria are still such as none but the hardiest tourists, will like to encounter, and all the lower sites are seldom free from fever. There is not, however, the same reason for hurrying through Apulia, which is generally healthy, and where the rapid improvement of the inns will soon permit archeologists to its explore wonderful old cities with comfort. Every year the glorious country between Rome and Naples is becoming better known. All the places near the Eternal City have been already fully described in Days near Rome, but they are more briefly noticed here, as all the cities north ofRome will henceforward be included in Cities of Central Italy. In the towns of the Alban, Sabine, Volscian, and Hernican hills, the accommodation is often poor, but the inns are for the most part clean, and travellers will almost always receive a genial and disinter ested welcome from the kind-hearted inhabitants. The Italy of artists is to be found more amongst these mountain districts than in any other part of the peninsula. Here the costumes still glow with colour, and the wonderful picturesqueness of the towns is only equalled by the exqui- sitebeauty and variety of the scenery. The way in which the national character alters, as Naples is approached, must be incredible to those who have not lived in Italy...

This volume is not a guide of where to stay and what to do, rather it is a collection of writing that aims to invest the traveller with a cultural and historical background to Croatia, which will give life and meaning into the sights, sounds and tastes that the traveller will experience.

Op 40 voel Gerard Scholtz onfiks, vet en verveeld. Hy koop ’n tweedehandse fiets en trap saam met sy vrou Anuta die Argus tot hulle gereed is om verder te reis.

Van St Petersburg tot Moskou; die lengte en breedte van Frankryk; oor die Alpe, oor die groot riviere van Europa, Ierland en Wallis reis hulle. Later is dit twee skoeters waarmee hulle elke jaar tot 10 000 kilometer deur Europa aflê. Hulle reis ook per trein, per motor, boot en soms te voet.

In hierdie bundel spreek Gerard se vertellings van sy kennis en liefde vir geskiedenis, kuns, musiek, letterkunde … Hy word veel meer as net reisiger en verteller. Gerard neem die leser ook ’n op metafisiese avontuur …

As read on BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week' Shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award Longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize 'Sherman's is a special book. Every sentence, every thought she has, every question she asks, every detail she notices, offers something. The Bells of Old Tokyo is a gift . . . It is a masterpiece.' - Spectator For over 300 years, Japan closed itself to outsiders, developing a remarkable and unique culture. During its period of isolation, the inhabitants of the city of Edo, later known as Tokyo, relied on its public bells to tell the time. In her remarkable book, Anna Sherman tells of her search for the bells of Edo, exploring the city of Tokyo and its inhabitants and the individual and particular relationship of Japanese culture - and the Japanese language - to time, tradition, memory, impermanence and history. Through Sherman's journeys around the city and her friendship with the owner of a small, exquisite cafe, who elevates the making and drinking of coffee to an art-form, The Bells of Old Tokyo presents a series of hauntingly memorable voices in the labyrinth that is the metropolis of the Japanese capital: An aristocrat plays in the sea of ashes left by the Allied firebombing of 1945. A scientist builds the most accurate clock in the world, a clock that will not lose a second in five billion years. A sculptor eats his father's ashes while the head of the house of Tokugawa reflects on the destruction of his grandfather's city ('A lost thing is lost. To chase it leads to darkness'). The result is a book that not only engages with the striking otherness of Japanese culture like no other, but that also marks the arrival of a dazzling new writer as she presents an absorbing and alluring meditation on life through an exploration of a great city and its people.

**Soon to be a major film starring Game of Thrones' Sophie Turner - Girl Who Fell From the Sky** On December 24th 1971, the teenage Juliane boarded the packed flight in Peru to meet her father for Christmas. She and her mother fought to get some of the last seats available and felt thankful to have made the flight. The LANSA airplane flew into a heavy thunderstorm and went down in dense Amazon jungle hundreds of miles from civilization. She fell two miles from the sky, still strapped to her plane seat, into the jungle. She was the sole survivor among the 92 passengers, which included her mother. Juliane's unexplainable survival has been called a modern-day miracle. With incredible courage, instinct and ingenuity, she crawled and walked alone for 11 days in the green hell of the Amazon. She survived using the skills she'd learned in assisting her parents on their research trips into the jungle before coming across a loggers hut, and, with it, safety. Now she tells her fascinating story for the first time and shares not only the private moments of her survival and rescue but her inspiring life in the wake of the disaster.

Seeking a temporary escape from the city and a world gone mad, Alan Brown plots out a personal challenge: an epic coast-to-coast trip through the lonely interior of the Highlands. He traverses paths historic and new, eschewing creature comforts and high-tech gear, trusting his (mostly) serviceable bike and his own skills. Armed with the essentials and a sense of curiosity, he discovers more about nature, people, our country, risk and himself than he ever thought possible. Alan traces a route from Argyllshire's Loch Etive across remote Rannoch moors, dramatic Grampian terrain and the beautiful glens of Strathspey to reach the Moray Firth at Findhorn. Ready for all weathers and obstacles, he succumbs to the hypnotic daily routine of ride, eat, sleep, repeat. He's savouring the landscapes, the wildlife and the solitude, and relishing the self-reliance. He is also picking up clues to past lives and discovering how the land has been altered by industry and game sports or, sometimes, conserved for wildlife and trees.

"Turley presents a thoroughly-researched literay and cultural history of the transgressive pirate figure in the early eighteenth-century."
--"Journal of Folklore Research"

Despite, or perhaps because of, our lack of actual knowledge about pirates, an immense architecture of cultural mythology has arisen around them. Three hundred years of novels, plays, painting, and movies have etched into the popular imagination contradictory images of the pirate as both arch-criminal and anti-hero par excellence. How did the pirate-a real threat to mercantilism and trade in early-modern Britain-become the hypermasculine anti-hero familiar to us through a variety of pop culture outlets? How did the pirate's world, marked as it was by sexual and economic transgression, come to capture our collective imagination?

In Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash, Hans Turley delves deep into the archives to examine the homoerotic and other culturally transgressive aspects of the pirate's world and our prurient fascination with it. Turley fastens his eye on historical documents, trial records, and the confessions of pirates, as well as literary works such as Robinson Crusoe, to track the birth and development of the pirate image and to show its implications for changing notions of self, masculinity, and sexuality in the modern era.

Turley's wide-ranging analysis provides a new kind of history of both piracy and desire, articulating the meaning of the pirate's contradictory image to literary, cultural, and historical studies.

First published in 2006. A traveller's tale set in the islands of Samoa with the legendary traveller Robert Louis Stevenson as guide, this book is valuable not only for its enjoyment as a tale of adventure, but also for its record of Stevenson himself - a literacy figure more commonly seen as author and not subject.

Tales of the Road is a collection of delightful travel vignettes. The author describes many odd, strange and curious events which befell him as he was visiting different places in the world over the past fifty years. Its pages are filled with unusual and interesting characters like the very tall transsexual in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a generous subway security guard in Rome, Italy, an angry lady cyclist in Bremerhaven, Germany, and a money hungry taxi driver in Beijing, China, to name only a very few. The volume is illustrated (by the author) with whimsical drawings that give the book charm, depth and just the right touch of humor.

Few corners of the earth still remain shrouded in secrecy and mystery. Few places are left where Western feet have never trod. Such a region -- of unknown allurements, of strange and savage desert dwellers, of extraordinary skyscraping cities rising like phantoms out of the sand, of shadeless glitter and thirst and wonderment -- is the Hadhramut ("in the presence of death") in southwestern Arabia. Norman Pearn risked his life to visit this unvisited Arabian wonderland, much of which is unmarked on any map, with odds of two thousand to one being laid against the possibility of his return. His remarkable and memorable travel commentary not only adds an important contribution to the romantic story of Arabia, it gives also the personal record of fascinating experiences and adventures while following in the steps of the Queen of Sheba who once ruled this land. Guided by instructions left to him by one of Lawrence of Arabia's lieutenants, Pearn found signal traces of Sheba's past -- the only queen in Arabian history.

William Bartram's journeys around North America in the late 18th century crossed through much of what was then Native American territory. In the 1790s when this book was first published, the United States was newly formed and was expanding beyond its original thirteen colonies. However, American settlement into the distant lands beyond the Appalachians was limited and gradual. The vast expanse of land was unknown, and much was inhabited by Native American tribes. Determined to traverse and discover the lands of North America, William Bartram set out from the city of Philadelphia, making his way toward the south of the continent. Along his way he describes the wilderness terrain, rivers, landscape and peoples he meets. Many of the Native American tribes he encountered were welcoming, viewing Bartram as a strange curiosity. He would join the natives to eat at feasts, observing their lives and customs, learning their dialects and eventually gaining their trust and friendship.

As America's finest writer, Mark Twain could make entertaining reading -- and great literature -- out of almost anything. Here we have a book begun out of adversity. The great novelist, satirist, and public celebrity was broke, ruined by various ill-advised investment schemes; but, being a man of honor on a public stage, he resolved to pay off every cent of his crushing debt. He did so by going on a two-year, round-the-world lecture tour, where he spoke to sold-out houses in Europe, India, and Australia, all the while gathering material for yet another best-selling travel book, filled with his trademark wit and brilliant observation. Even after more than a century this book is still a must-read. Whatever has been forgotten about the times and places Twain describes he has recreated for us, vividly and forever.

'[A] delightful hymn of praise to the most extraordinary of all the world's bird families - hummingbirds' STEPHEN MOSS 'A brilliant read' MARK AVERY 'Ever thoughtful and engaging, Jon Dunn pursues these dazzling creatures through dust and jungle' BENEDICT ALLEN 'A warm-hearted and enthusiastic triumph of nature writing' TIM DEE _____________________ For centuries hummingbirds have captured our imaginations: revered by Native Americans, coveted by European collectors and admired worldwide for their jewel-like plumage, acrobatic flight and immense character. Though their renown extends throughout the world, hummingbirds are found exclusively in the Americas. Small in stature yet fiercely tenacious, they have conquered every habitat imaginable: from boreal woodlands to deserts, mangrove swamps to volcanic slopes, and on islands both tropical and sub-polar. The Glitter in the Green takes us on an unforgettable journey in search of the most remarkable examples of this wildly variable family. There's the Bee Hummingbird in Cuba, the smallest species of bird to have ever lived; the diminutive Rufous Hummingbird, whose annual migration exceeds 3,000 miles; and the critically endangered Juan Fernandez Firecrown, marooned on the remote Pacific island that inspired Robinson Crusoe. Jon Dunn brings us closer than ever before to these magnificent creatures, exploring a heady mix of rare birds, a history redolent with mythology, and the colourful stories of the people obsessed with hummingbirds through the ages. With great passion for his subject and a taste for adventure, Dunn transports us to wondrous landscapes from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, and invites us into the kaleidoscopic world of the hummingbird - the bird that has won the hearts and minds of mankind for millennia.

In 1932 Evelyn Waugh left the salons of Mayfair for the savannah and rainforest of what was then British Guiana. The result: classic travel writing.

The legendary travel writer drives the entire length of the US–Mexico border, then takes the back roads of Chiapas and Oaxaca, to uncover the rich, layered world behind the everyday headlines.

Paul Theroux has spent his life crisscrossing the globe in search of the histories and peoples that give life to the places they call home. Now, as immigration debates boil around the world, Theroux has set out to explore a country key to understanding our current discourse: Mexico. Just south of the Arizona border, in the desert region of Sonora, he finds a place brimming with vitality, yet visibly marked by both the US Border Patrol to the north and mounting discord from within. With the same humanizing sensibility that he employed in Deep South, Theroux stops to talk with residents, visits Zapotec mill workers in the highlands, and attends a Zapatista party meeting, communing with people of all stripes who remain south of the border even as family members brave the journey north.

From the writer praised for his “curiosity and affection for humanity in all its forms” (The New York Times Book Review), On the Plain of Snakes is an exploration of a region in conflict.

Comprehensive, illustrated guidebook to the magical land of Ladakh in the far north of India, beyond the Himalayas. Up to date information on hotels and transport and practical advice on planning and budgeting your trip. Detailed explanatory descriptions of the regions' famous Buddhist monasteries and other sights besides the stupendous road journeys to Ladakh from Manali and Kashmir, with entire sections on these two regions. There are extensive sections on Zanskar, Nubra, and the Pangong-Tsomoriri lakes, besides a chapter on the treks in Ladakh. Also included is a detailed introduction to Tibetan Buddhism and a section on the people and history of Ladakh. Apart from a foldout map of the Ladakh-Kashmir region at the back, there are some 25 other maps in the books, and about 270 colour photographs.

'Jonathan Raban is simply one of the great writers of non-fiction at work today. I hold his work in awe.' Robert Macfarlane 'Unfailingly witty and entertaining.' Salman Rushdie Following in the footsteps of countless emigrants, Jonathan Raban takes ship for New York from Liverpool, to explore how succeeding generations of newcomers have fared in America. He finds a country of massive contrasts, between the Street People and the Air People in New York, between small town and big city, between thrusting immigrants and down-at-heel native Americans. Having outgrown his minute rented New York apartment, he heads for Guntersville, Alabama, where he settles for a few months as a good ol' boy in a cabin on the lake with a 'rented' elderly lab. From there he flies to the promise of Seattle, discovering its thrusting but alienated Asian community and thence to the watery lowlife of Key West. The result is a breathtaking observation of the States - a travelogue, a social history and a love letter in one.