Paul Theroux, the author of the train travel classics The Great Railway Bazaar and The Old Patagonian Express, takes to the rails once again in this account of his epic journey through China. He hops aboard as part of a tour group in London and sets out for China's border. He then spends a year traversing the country, where he pieces together a fascinating snapshot of a unique moment in history. From the barren deserts of Xinjiang to the ice forests of Manchuria, from the dense metropolises of Shanghai, Beijing, and Canton to the dry hills of Tibet, Theroux offers an unforgettable portrait of a magnificent land and an extraordinary people.

TV presenter, writer and adventurer Alice Morrison gives her own unique and personal insight into Morocco, the place she's made her home. When Alice Morrison headed out to Morocco, it was to take on one of the most daunting challenges: to run in the famous Marathon des Sables. Little did she expect to end up living there. But once she settled in a flat in Marrakech, she was won over by the people, the spectacular scenery and the ancient alleyways of the souks. Soon she was hiking over the Atlas mountains, joining nomads to sample their timeless way of life as they crossed the Sahara desert, and finding peace in a tranquil oasis. Despite more than 10 million tourists coming to Morocco each year, there are remarkably few books about its people, their customs and the extraordinary range of places to visit, from bustling markets to vast, empty deserts. Alice makes sure she samples it all, and as she does she provides a stunning portrait of a beautiful country. As a lone woman, she often attracts plenty of curiosity, but her willingness to participate - whether thigh deep in pigeon droppings in a tannery or helping out herding goats - ensures that she is welcomed everywhere by a people who are among the most hospitable on the planet. Alice came to fame with her BBC2 series Morocco to Timbuktu, and now she joins the ranks of great travel writers who can bring a country vividly to life and instantly transport the reader to a sunnier place. If you're thinking of going to Morocco, or you want to recall your time there, Adventures in Morocco is the ideal book.

Twee vriendinne besluit om die spoor van die die Nama-mense (afstammelinge van die Khoi-Khoi) van die Noord-Kaap te volg. Hulle vertrek met die doel om uit te vind hoe hulle "gefragmenteerde" kulturele ervaringe eenders of anders as die van Annie en haar mense, die sogenaamde Kaapse bruinmense is. Maar wat begin het as 'n soeke na "objektiewe" feite en inligting, het mettertyd gelei tot 'n proses van selfondersoek en 'n ontdekkingstog wat deur noue, intieme interaksie met die mense van Namakwaland, hoop skep dat lampe aangesteek kan word wat die "andersheid", maar veral die "eendersheid" van die verskillende etniese en kulturele groepe in SA sal uitlig.

In this sequel to the wildly successful Hey Ranger: True Tales of Humor and Misadventure from America's National Parks, former ranger Jim Burnett casts his net globally in search of the most outrageous and humorous stories of man in his eternal quest to experience the natural world. Burnett tells of campers being belted by mysterious objects falling from the sky, like potatoes and ice cream; wildlife photos that went awry, including a ground squirrel that outwits a photographer; dumb crooks in parks, such as the drunk driver who mistakenly knocked on a judge's door to report an accident; and drivers who went over the hill and into the woods instead of to Grandma's house. Burnett also assembles contenders for the strangest questions ever asked of a park ranger, lessons on how not to pick a campsite, life lessons you can learn from a canoe trip, as well as some classic bear stories. As always, Burnett's stories are meant to inform as well as entertain, and serve as cautionary tales on how not to become "a victim of your vacation." Told in Burnett's classic, conversational style, Hey Ranger 2 will not disappoint.

When Charles Darwin, then age 22, first saw the HMS Beagle, he thought it looked "more like a wreck than a vessel commissioned to go round the world." But travel around the world it did, taking Darwin to South America, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, and of course the Galapagos Islands, in a journey of discovery that lasted almost five years. Now, in Fossils, Finches and Fuegians, Richard Keynes, Darwin's great grandson, offers the first modern full-length account of Darwin's epoch-making expedition.

This was the great adventure of Charles Darwin's life. Indeed, it would have been a great adventure for anyone--tracking condor in Chile, surviving the great earthquake of 1835, riding across country on horseback in the company of gauchos, watching whales leaping skyward off Tierra del Fuego, hunting ostriches with a bolo, discovering prehistoric fossils and previously unknown species, and meeting primitive peoples such as the Fuegians. Keynes captures many of the natural wonders that Darwin witnessed, including an incredible swarm of butterflies a mile wide and ten miles long. Keynes also illuminates Darwin's scientific work--his important findings in geology and biology--and traces the slow revolution in Darwin's thought about species and how they might evolve. Numerous illustrations--mostly by artists who traveled with Darwin on the Beagle--grace the pages, including finely rendered drawings of many points of interest discussed in the book.

There has probably been no greater or more important scientific expedition than Darwin's voyage on the Beagle. Packed with colorful details of life aboard ship and in the wild, here is a fascinating portrait of Charles Darwin and of 19th century science.

The incredible memoir by international bestselling author of Where The Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens and her then partner Mark Owens', charting their time researching wildlife in the Kalahari Desert. Reissued and in full colour, for the first time since its original publication. In the early 1970s, carrying little more than a change of clothes and a pair of binoculars, Mark and Delia Owens caught a plane to Africa, bought a third-hand Land Rover, and drove deep into the Kalahari Desert. There they lived for seven years, in an unexplored area with no roads, no people, and no source of water for thousands of square miles. In this vast wilderness the Owenses began their zoology research, working alongside lions, brown hyenas, jackals, giraffes, and the many other creatures they came to know. Cry of the Kalahari is a gripping account of how two young Americans survived the dangers of living in one of the last pristine areas on Earth. Reissued for the first time since its original publication in 1984, this beautiful new edition contains never-seen-before, colour photographs of Mark and Delia on their adventure of a lifetime. 'A remarkable story beautifully told . . . Among such classics as Goodall's In the Shadow of Man and Fossey's Gorillas in the Mist' Chicago Tribune 'For anyone interested in animals or in real life adventure, this book is a must' Jane Goodall 'Extraordinary . . . How the couple overcome the hazards of the desert and came to appreciate its living richness makes fascinating reading . . . Read their remarkable book to be delighted, moved, and awed' People Magazine

HMS Queen Elizabeth 2 is the most celebrated craft afloat and one of the greatest technical achievements of the 20th century. In her construction and maintenance are involved almost every science, profession, and trade known to civilization. On her bridge stand officers, who besides being the pick of the Royal Navy, have passed rigid examinations in all studies pertaining to winds, tides, currents, navigation, and the geography of the sea.
For 91 days, author Bernard M. Patten, M.D., sailed around the world on this ultimate cruise ship. What was it like onboard this most luxurious of luxury liners? "Marvelous, simply marvelous," he assures the reader with obvious enthusiasm that spills off every page.
Determined to give the reader the complete QE2 experience, Patten and his wife, Ethel, roomed in progressively better accommodations, moving level by level from the least expensive class ("Mauritania 5") to the Penthouse Suite, which included their own butlers, Geoffrey and Paul. Along with the Pattens, readers will experience every deck, every restaurant, and every level of luxury that this incredible ocean liner has to offer.
Whether you're a cruise buff, or planning your own stay aboard this fabulous ship, or just want to take a trip in your imagination on a cold rainy night, Cruising on the Queen Elizabeth 2 will provide you with interesting information, entertaining stories, and ample pleasures.

In a life full of momentous episodes, Theodore Roosevelt's fifteen-month post-presidential odyssey to Africa and Europe has never been given its due place. In 1909 and 1910, fresh from the presidency, Rooosvelt embarked on a grand expedition that fulfilled a long-held dream for the hunter-naturalist. Moving from Egypt to British East Africa to the Belgian Congo, Roosevelt hunted elephants and rhinos, parlayed with mercenaries and tribal kings, and observed the changes wrought by European colonialism. Along with his big game rifles, Roosevelt also brought his bully pulpit and accompanying ideals, lecturing diplomats and politicians on both continents on the exertions required to maintain the burden of empire.

In this engaging narrative, J. Lee Thompson traces the exhilarating adventures Roosevelt undertook as well as periods of doubt and disillusionment. Even as TR realized one dream of nature on safari, he came to believe another, more vital to his heart and legacy, was being undermined at home by President William Howard Taft. Having initially assumed that the new president would continue his predecessor's cherished conservation policies, Roosevelt came to realize that Taft, left alone in the political jungles of Washington, was directly undermining his legacy. This led to an acrimonious split between the two old friends, Roosevelt's explosive return to the American political stage, and ultimately the election of Woodrow Wilson.

A tale of daring adventure, international celebrity, a friendship lost, and a political legacy transformed, "Theodore Roosevelt Abroad "is the first full account of a critical episode in the life of an American icon.

Various unique facts and oddities observed by the author during his employment in Saudi Arabia by Aramco (Arabian American Oil Company) in 1954 are presented, and these are contrasted to changes observed later in 1982 when he returned as a contractor. All photographs were made by the author. The style of the author is similar to that of James Burke in his TV Series "Connections" in which various topics connect to other seemingly unrelated subjects. Thus, a chapter on The Holy Land and one on the origins of the New Testament are included. Many of the topics discussed in this book-customs, contracting and government in particular-give background and insight into today's situation in the Middle East.

This exciting scholarly work examines Dutch maritime violence in the seventeenth-century. With its flourishing maritime trade and lucrative colonial possessions, the young Dutch Republic enjoyed a cultural and economic pre-eminence, becoming the leading commercial power in the world. Dutch seamen plied the world's waters, trading, exploring, and colonizing. Many also took up pillaging, terrorizing their victims on the high seas and on European waterways. Surprisingly, this story of Dutch freebooters and their depredations remains almost entirely untold until now. Piracy and Privateering in the Golden Age Netherlands presents new data and understandings of early modern piracy generally, and also sheds important new light on Dutch and European history as well, such as the history of national identity and state formation, and the history of crime and criminality

Travel and Representation is a timely volume of essays that explores and re-examines the various convergences between literature, art, photography, television, cinema and travel. The essays do so in a way that appreciates the entanglement of representations and travel at a juncture in theoretical work that recognizes the limits of representation, things that lie outside of representation and the continuing power of representation. The emphasis is on the myriad ways travelers/scholars employ representation in their writing/analyses as they re-think the intersections between travelers, fields of representation, imagination, emotions and corporeal experiences in the past, the present and the future.

The 'Neverland Valley-Welcome" sign depicts a little boy, bending over to talk to a troll. Opera wafted on the air. Bronze statues of boys and girls dotted the gardens and falls, and an ornate gazebo offered a shady spot to enjoy the stunning tableau. Two trains carried visitors about. Five pink flamingos on an island in the stream coolly eyed onlookers. Unescorted pre-teen boys scampered everywhere.

"Peter Pan" was playing at the packed, eighty-seat, seven-thousand-square-foot theatre. Popcorn and drinks were dished up gratis to mobs at the concession stand in the entry. On the screen, Captain Hook had ten wide-eyed children bound and gagged, about to be fed to the crocodile. Nearby, amid the rides, two sound stages stood ready to rock. A band was taking a break. "Beat It" was thumping loudly from hidden speakers. A circus-like tent houses the bumper cars, where jubilant lads, faces flushed with excitement, rammed each other's cars with enthusiasm.

I freely admitted, there was no doubt that allegations of child molestation had hurt Jackson in this community. Where wouldn't such charges resonate? Sodom and Gomorrah?

Over two decades of turmoil and change in the Middle East, steered via the history-soaked landscape of Palestine. This new edition includes a previously unpublished epigraph in the form of a walk. When Raja Shehadeh first started hill walking in Palestine, in the late 1970s, he was not aware that he was travelling through a vanishing landscape. These hills would have seemed familiar to Christ, until the day concrete was poured over the flora and irreversible changes were brought about by those who claim a superior love of the land. Six walks span a period of twenty-six years, in the hills around Ramallah, in the Jerusalem wilderness and through the ravines by the Dead Sea. Each walk takes place at a different stage of Palestinian history since 1982, the first in the empty pristine hills and the last amongst the settlements and the wall. The reader senses the changing political atmosphere as well as the physical transformation of the landscape. By recording how the land felt and looked before these calamities, Raja Shehadeh attempts to preserve, at least in words, the Palestinian natural treasures that many Palestinians will never know.

Education expert Raphael Wilkins, author of Accidental Traveller, recounts his travels around the world as a visiting expert, where he set up and advised on several educational projects, all very different from each other, and all providing challenges in working across languages and cultures. He battles with unenthusiastic school principals in Dammam, a volatile project manager in Mexico and awkward hosts in Lucknow. Among other adventures, he visits a navy school in Karachi, completes a fulfilling project in Jeddah, secures a valuable contract with the Colombian government in Bogota, and enjoys a tender reunion in Cyprus. Combining informative and thought-provoking insights on education with personal reflections from a lifetime of travel, An Educational Journey is an inspirational book about the importance of broadening horizons, both physical and personal.

Virginia Thorndike, Maine's own version of Studs Terkel, traveled to all the Maine coast islands that still maintain a year-round population and persuaded the islanders to talk openly about their lives. The result is a compulsively readable, unvarnished, and appealing portrait, much of it in the islanders? own words. The 15 islands not accessible by bridge that still have year-round populations are: Isle au Haut, Islesboro, the Cranberry Isles (near Mt. Desert Island), Eagle Island, Long Island (Frenchboro), Long Island (Casco Bay), Matinicus, Monhegan, North Haven, Swans Island, Vinalhaven, Peaks, Chebeague, Great Diamond, and Cliff.

Over the past several years, "the American in Tuscany" has become a literary subgenre. Launched by the phenomenal success of Frances Mayes's Under the Tuscan Sun, bookstores now burgeon with nimble, witty accounts of this clash in cultures-Americans trying to do American things in Italy and bumping against a brick wall of tradition. Before this subgenre exhausts itself, it's only fair that we hear the other side of the story-that of a native Tuscan and of dozens of Americans who have stormed through his life and homeland, determined to find in it whatever they are looking for, whether quaintness or wisdom, submission or direction. There is no one better to provide this view than Dario Castagno. A Tuscan guide whose client base is predominantly American, Dario has spent more than a decade taking individuals and small groups on customized tours through the Chianti region of Tuscany. Reared in Britain through early childhood, he speaks English fluently and is therefore capable of fully engaging his American clients and getting to know them. Too Much Tuscan Sun is Dario's account of some of his more remarkable customers, from the obsessive and the oblivious to the downright lunatic. It is also a primer on Tuscany--its charms and its culture. Structured around a typical Tuscan year, Dario takes us through the sights, smells, and sounds of Chianti during each of the twelve months, including the festivities and pageantry that accord with the season, most notable the Palio-the bareback horse race that consumes the social energies of the people of Siena for all of July and August. Dario also intersperses an account of his own life and times-that of a transplanted British "little lord" who learns to love the wilds of Chianti; of his discovery and adoption of abandoned peasant farmhouses; of his apprenticeship in the wine industry; and of his arduous transformation from bohemian layabout to thriving Tuscan guide. But the bulk of the book is devoted, with humor and affection, to the Americans he has met-the vain, the silly, the ignorant, the ambitious, the horny, the condescending, the charming, and the outright pathological. Some of them have made his life hell and live in his nightmares; others became lifelong friends.

Whether he's looking for wild orangutans on Borneo or diving off the coast of South Africa, Randy Wayne White is one of America's most adventurous travelers. In Last Flight Out, White challenges and charms us with tales of his excursions into the dangerous, into the ludicrous, and - especially - into the heart of humanity.
Randy White is a "mover" and has no time for people who can't keep up. Join him as he dives in the infamous lake called the Bad Blue Hole on the desolate Cat Island in the Bahamas. Search for the perfect hot pepper in Colombia, and closer to home; go raccoon hunting in Pioneer, Ohio, where the hunted almost always outsmart the hunters. Get in the ring with Shine Forbes, an eighty-year-old fighter in prime condition and Ernest Hemingway's former sparring partner, and go on a secret mission to steal back General Manuel Noriega's bar stools. Though he rarely finds what he's looking for - such as the half-human, half-alligator creature known as "Gatorman" - he cultivates his unique ability to revel in the unique and comical situations of each exotic trip.
From a jungle survival school in Panama to a week at a professional wrestler's training camp, White leaves the reader mesmerized by the potential of undiscovered places and the promise of endless adventure in unfamiliar territory. An icon of the new breed of thick-skinned, high endurance travelers, Randy White is the real deal.

This is the story of ordinary life in an extraordinary place. The beautiful city of Venice has been a fantasy land for people from around the globe for centuries, but what is it like to live there? To move house by boat, to get a child with a broken leg to hospital or set off for school one morning only to find that the streets have become rivers and the playground is a lake full of sewage? When Polly Coles and her family left England for Venice, they discovered a city caught between modern and ancient life - where the locals still go on an annual pilgrimage to give thanks for the end of the Black Death; where schools are housed in renaissance palaces and your new washing machine can only be delivered on foot. This is a city perilously under siege from tourism, but its people refuse to give it up - indeed, they love it with a passion. The Politics of Washing is a fascinating window into the world of ordinary Venetians and the strange and unique place they call home.

For more than ten years, Elizabeth Peavey has been traveling around the state of Maine, and writing about her wide-ranging experiences and discoveries in Down East magazine. This book collects her very best columns and essays. In a light and entertaining style laced with lots of entertaining humor, she weaves a wide-ranging tapestry that will give readers a vivid and fresh view of the state.

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw the rise of the "Home Tour," with travelers drawn to Scotland, the less explored regions of England and North Wales, and, increasingly, to Ireland. Although an integral part of the United Kingdom from 1800, Ireland represented for many travellers a worryingly unknown entity, politically intractable and unstable, devoutly Catholic, and economically deprived. This book examines British responses to the "Sister Isle" throughout a period of significant cultural and historical change, and examines the varied means through which Ireland was represented for a predominantly British audience.

Over the course of twenty years of delivering sailboats to far-flung quaysides, John Kretschmer has had innumerable adventures, both humorous and terrifying. in Flirting with Mermaids, he recounts the most memorable of them. He crosses the Western Caribbean with a crew of eccentric Swedes researching ancient Mayan mariners, lands in Aden at the outbreak of civil war, and endures a North Atlantic crossing during which he disocvers the existence of Force 13 winds. Approaching Japan at the end of a particularly trying delivery, he finds himself sailing in "a high impact debris zone," but his resolve is unshaken. "If a piece of rocketship jetsam fell out of the sky and sank [me] after encounters with Hurricane Floyd, General Noriega,a tsunami, an erupting volcano, and Typhoon Roy, then it was meant to be."

What types of holidays do Japanese people celebrate? What is the educational system like in Japan? What are Japanese festivals like? What are some of the customs and traditions of the Japanese people? Professor Todd Jay Leonard, writing from the perspective of living and working in Japan, provides in this fascinating book the answers to these and many other questions. Letters Home: Musings of an American Expatriate Living in Japan delivers a firsthand account of daily Japanese life through the eyes and personal experiences of Professor Leonard who has enjoyed an ongoing relationship with Japan and the Japanese people for nearly twenty-five years. This anecdotal book of essays, written in the style of personal letters, offers commentary on a wide range of topics and issues including culture, history, education, language, society, and religion of modern Japan from the point-of-view of an American expatriate who has made Japan his home. The author's friendly, down-to-earth, yet authoritative, style of writing will transport you to modern Japan, where you will learn about the customs and traditions of this most fascinating country. Japan and its people.

Alexander von Humboldt, sometimes called 'the last man who knew everything', was an extraordinary polymath of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In 1798 he received unprecedented permission from the Spanish Crown to explore its American and Caribbean colonies, which he did from 1799-1804. This is the journal of those explorations, in which he extensively covers the region's topography, geology, fauna and flora, anthropology and comparative linguistics. Volume III sees him recording more information on Venezuela, visiting Cuba where he also writes about local politics and speaks out fervently against the slave trade; he then sails for Colombia. The volume ends with a comprehensive geognostic description of the northern part of South America.

"God bless the United States and God bless New York City" proclaimed a sign as the bus rolled through a small Indiana town. In October 2001, author Bill Markley was traveling by public bus from Pierre, South Dakota, to Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, for a Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity celebration. The day Markley left South Dakota began simply enough, but soon tragedy unfolded when a deranged man of Croatian descent slit the throat of a Greyhound bus driver causing an accident and throwing the nation's bus system into disarray. "American Pilgrim" is an honest account of life on the bus, the characters on the bus, bus culture, and the mood of the American people-reflective, patriotic, and upbeat.In those challenging days after the attacks on 9/11, everyone struggled to make sense of the world; as Markley worked on this story; it grew beyond the story of a simple 3,000-mile bus trip. He recalls many of his life's detours, recounting past events at locations the bus traveled through and people associated with those locations-a rambling personal history of people, places, and things. The trip took on new meaning and became a spiritual journey into the country's past and Markley's past.