Was it the last rush of youth or the desperateness of age, which coursed two people through a sea quest, a love story and their tragedies? Or maybe, the unlikely alliance fashioned by feelings of the heart bolstered their unique life-altering plan; a plan, which included the breaking away from the disciplines and comforts of successful corporate careers, and the transformation to an unconventional lifestyle. Possibly, it was their passion that compelled them to sail from Terra Firma in search of their destiny, to do what most people only dream of doing and few ever succeed in accomplishing. It is the unconventional discoveries and tribulations of two individuals who sailed a forty-two foot sloop in excess of four thousand nautical miles and journeyed to seven different countries. A voyage demarcated by the serendipity of their togetherness in the remote tropical coves of the out islands of Belize, and the serenity of secluded paradise in the blue clear waters of Cuba. The adversities of sailing across the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and the incursion into the incongruous Mississippi River, of dangerous storms, fires and groundings and the sufferings and calamities in the mountains and rivers of Guatemala. It is a story of passions satiated and novelties lost, and like the collapsed walls of Jericho the tumultuous demise of a dream.

If Joan Didion was right, and we do tell ourselves stories in order to live, then a travel story is the best story of them all. And I had form for escaping in stories... Kate Wills wasn't expecting to be divorced after less than a year of marriage. She hadn't anticipated restarting a life that had, for the last 12 years with her partner, seemed so stable. Luckily, her job as a travel journalist offered her the perfect opportunity to escape from it all. But this time, her jet-setting felt different. Kate felt more alone, particularly against a backdrop of never-ending hen dos, weddings and baby showers. So she began to search history for female travellers to inspire her. From a 4th-century nun to a globe-girdling cyclist, Kate discovers that throughout history, there have been astonishing women who've broken free from more burdensome expectations, clearing the path for us to do the same. A Trip of One's Own is a funny and heartfelt invitation to take that trip: to Paris, to Whitstable, and maybe down that street you've always wondered about.

Christmas is a time for family and friends, but will the allure of the French Riviera be able to work its magic? As a toddler Elodie Jacques was abandoned by her mother and left in the care of her French grandmother, Gabriella in Dartmouth, Devon. Now 24 years old, Elodie struggles to reconcile the deep anger for the mother she has never since seen. When Gabriella unexpectedly announces she wants the two of them to spend Christmas and her 70th birthday in her home town of Juan-les-Pins in the South of France Elodie is thrilled. Gabriella meanwhile has her own ulterior motives for wanting to return after 40 years, a daunting homecoming potentially filled with memories, secrets and recriminations. With Juan-les-Pins pulsing with lights, decorations and the festive spirit, Christmas promises to be filled with fun. But when Elodie learns there is the possibility that her long absent mother may join them she hides her feelings behind a show of indifference and animosity. Will there be the reconciliation that Gabriella longs for - or will the spirit of Christmas fail to work its wonder? 'What isn't to love? You are taken on an incredible journey to the vibrant French Riviera, with all the colours, lights and traditions of Christmas beautifully combined with the joy of friendship and the possibility of new romance... ' Bestselling author Judy Leigh

Working and travelling abroad is now a fact of life for those in business and European countries are the most common destination. This guide to seeking employment abroad combines hard facts, soft information (for example, insights into national character), and comparative charts.

See inside the gardens where literary giants from Tolstoy to Agatha Christie created some of their finest works in this visually stunning and fascinating book. Discover the flower gardens, vegetable plots, landscapes and writing hideaways of 30 great authors – from Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Orchard House’ where she wrote Little Women and Agatha Christie at Greenway, to Virginia Woolf at Monk’s House and the Massachusetts home of Edith Wharton. Fully illustrated with specially commissioned photography plus archive images, and spanning centuries and continents, this book visits the homes and gardens that inspired novelists, poets and playwrights. It shows how outdoor spaces were important to writers in many different ways and offers insight into the lives and creative processes of beloved authors. Writers featured include: Jane Austen at Godmersham and Chawton, Agatha Christie at Greenway, Beatrix Potter at Hill Top, Roald Dahl at Gipsy House, Virginia Woolf at Monk’s House, Walter Scott, Thomas Hardy at Hardy’s Cottage and Max Gate , Robert Burns at Ellisland, William Wordsworth at Cockermouth and Grasmere, Rudyard Kipling at Bateman’s, Louisa May Alcott at Orchard House, Emily Dickinson at The Homestead, Amherst, Beatrix Farrand, Mount Desert Island, Maine, Elizabeth Lawrence, Winghaven Gardens, F Scott Fitzgerald in Montgomery, Robert Frost at Derry, Ernest Hemingway in Florida, Jack London at Beauty Ranch and Wolf House, Henry David Thoreau at Thoreau Farm & Walden Pond, Mark Twain at Hartford, Alice Walker in Eatonton, Georgia, Marcel Proust, Illiers Combray, Georges Sand, Nohant, Nr Chatelroux, Emile Zola, Medan South of Paris, Herman Hesse, Casa Camuzzi, Lake Lugano, Weimer Group: Goethe, Christoph Martin Wieland & Schiller, Alessandro Manzoni, Milan + Lake Como, Tolstoy, Yasnay Polyana Estate, Moscow. This deeply insightful book sheds new light on some of literature's greatest works, offers rare glimpses into the lives of these brilliant minds, and showcases in stunning full colour the gardens in which these writers spent their time.

Fully updated and revised, this guide details information on 700 public campgrounds in Oregon accessible by car. It's a guide for everyone from tenters to RVers.

1001 Walking Tips by Paul Besley is a light-hearted and informative guide to all kinds of walking. This is no standard instruction manual - it is much more useful than that. This is a huge collection of small tips to make a real difference to your walking, whether you're on a leisurely stroll in your local urban area, exploring a national park, planning a long-distance trail or hiking in the mountains in winter - this book will help you to make the most of every walk. The vast range of topics covered includes navigation, essential kit and clothing, safety, fitness, food, walking with dogs, how to cope with various weather conditions and what to do if you get lost. Whether you're a walking novice or an experienced trekker, Paul's wealth of knowledge and practical advice will inspire you and help to enrich your time outdoors.

A merchant's account of his travels through an independent African state Muhammad ibn 'Umar al-Tunisi (d. 1274/1857) belonged to a family of Tunisian merchants trading with Egypt and what is now Sudan. Al-Tunisi was raised in Cairo and a graduate of al-Azhar. In 1803, at the age of fourteen, al-Tunisi set off for the Sultanate of Darfur, where his father had decamped ten years earlier. He followed the Forty Days Road, was reunited with his father, and eventually took over the management of the considerable estates granted to his father by the sultan of Darfur. In Darfur is al-Tunisi's remarkable account of his ten-year sojourn in this independent state. In Volume Two al-Tunisi describes the geography of the region, the customs of Darfur's petty kings, court life and the clothing of its rulers, marriage customs, eunuchs, illnesses, food, hunting, animals, currencies, plants, magic, divination, and dances. In Darfur combines literature, history, ethnography, linguistics, and travel adventure, and most unusually for its time, includes fifty-two illustrations, all drawn by the author. In Darfur is a rare example of an Arab description of Africa on the eve of Western colonization and vividly evokes a world in which travel was untrammeled by bureaucracy, borders were fluid, and startling coincidences appear almost mundane. A bilingual Arabic-English edition.

The definitive collection of Kansas's odd, wacky, and most offbeat people, places, and things, for Kansas residents and anyone else who enjoys local humor and trivia with a twist.

Lace up your boots and sample sixty-two of the finest hiking trails the Alpine Lakes Wilderness area has to offer. This rugged, 393,000-acre region at the southern margin of the North Cascades provides breathtaking scenery and a variety of challenges and elevations. Choose from easy outings along the Skykomish River, exhilarating summit ascents near Snoqualmie Pass, backcountry treks around Stevens Pass, and sublime parkland hikes in the Teanaway River area. Veteran hiker and outdoors writer Jeff Smoot will introduce you to these and more.
Inside you'll find: up-to-date trail information; accurate directions to popular as well as less-traveled trails; difficulty ratings for each hike; optional side trips and overnight hikes; zero-impact hiking and camping tips.

All the mapping you need to walk the Offa's Dyke Path National Trail that runs for 177 miles along the English-Welsh border between Sedbury (near Chepstow) and Prestatyn on the north Wales Coast. NOTE An accompanying Cicerone guidebook - Offa's Dyke Path - describes the full route from south to north with lots of other practical and historical information. The accompanying guidebook INCLUDES a copy of this map booklet. This booklet of Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer maps is conveniently sized for slipping into a jacket pocket or top of a rucksack. It shows the full and up-to-date line of the Offa's Dyke Path, along with the relevant extract from the OS Explorer map legend.

In the autumn of 1910, the celebrated Russian writer Leo Tolstoy secretly left his estate in Yasnaya Polyana in the dark hours of the night. A few days later, he died in a train station, at the age of 82. Why did he leave his family, and where was he headed? Through a detailed study of the diaries and letters written by the people close to the events, Fumiko Davis investigates the unusual circumstances leading to Tolstoy's disappearance, and unveils a touching story about the private life of a man regarded as one of the greatest writers of all time.

For your best adventures, use the best map. Madeiras favourite map is now in its 10th edition including the new Palheiro golf development, goodbye to the abandoned Ponta Pargo golf course, final sections of the VE3 road, loads of minor road updating especially in the south west. For hikers we have added several new highlighted walking routes. Madeira Tour and Trail Map is a large 960mm by 700mm double sided map sheet. Specialist concertina map folding means the 960mm by 700mm double sided map folds quickly to its 235mm by 120mm pocket size. This most detailed map of Madeira includes our Tour and Trail level of detail ranging from major roads to secondary roads to minor roads to streets and camino rural narrow country roads, plus dirt roads and walking trails. Altitude background colouring is designed to clearly show the altitude range when travelling across the island by car or on foot. 100 metre and 50 metre contours are clearly shown on the map along with a large number of individual height points and all of the official Trig points. Tour and Trail attention to detail is legendary as is our useful symbol range including miradors, picnic areas, petrol stations, bar restaurants and parking areas where you can pull off the road safely. You will easily identify springs, caves, sports grounds, cemetries, churchs, chapels, lighthouses, towers and forts, camping areas, wind turbines, hotels etc. For adventurers on foot Tour and Trail Maps are researched and designed by hikers for use by hikers. Our comprehensive gps ground surveys produce the best mapping available but the value of this on the ground research becomes even more important when you leave the tarmac. All of our DWG walking routes are accurately gps surveyed giving you confidence in the accuracy of our Tour and Trail Maps. All the walking routes from Madeira Walks volumes 1 and 2 by Shirley Whitehead highlighted in Red while other published walking routes (printed guide books and reliable web publications) are highlighted in Green. It all adds up to the most useful map of Madeira that you can buy anywhere. In use maps have a very tough life so you will appreciate our specialist concertina map fold that allows you to quickly open the map, and more importantly fold it back up to its pocket size after use. Paper maps will always suffer from the repeated unfolding, folding to the section you want to use, and then refolding.

Discover the answers behind the mysteries of the countryside in all their fascination and beauty... Ever wondered about the masses of twigs in bare-branched trees that look like abandoned nests? Seen fuzzy red balls on roses? A stranded pond on a hilltop? Or even considered the shaded ways we walk along? One of Britain's best-known naturalists, John Wright describes and explores fifty of the natural (and unnatural) puzzles of the countryside that might confound the ever-curious. He reveals the histories and practicalities of those that are man-made and the astounding and intricate lives of the natural wonders around us. From the enormous to the truly tiny he illuminates the oddities that pepper our countryside and reveals the many pleasures of spotting and understanding them. Informative, entertaining and beautifully illustrated, this is for anyone who has ever gone outside and wondered what is that?

Explore Exmoor and North Devon on your mountain bike with this laminated, waterproof Exmoor map. With 10 clearly-marked routes this easy-to-use map will help you discover the best of Exmoor and North Devon off road. From sand-dunes, surf beaches and rocky cliffs of the coast, through wooded hills and green-pastured valleys to the heather and tawny-grasses of the high moors; for such a small area Exmoor contains an extraordinary variety of scenery. Add the pubs and cafes of friendly country towns, and the fabled Devon cream teas of village tea-shops, all linked by narrow, high-banked lanes which see little traffic that much of their surface is covered by moss and grass, and a network of forest tracks and ancient green lanes and bridleways, and you have one of the secret jewels of the UK's off-road riding scene. But what you won't get - with one or two very obvious exceptions - are bone-juddering gnarly descents, so if you're looking for the "Oh my God" factor, this isn't the place. Instead, you have a collection of superbly varied and rideable routes - from the almost flat circuit of Braunton and the Burrows to the challenging climbs and long, open descents of some of the inland routes. Outside of Exmoor's National Park, the Quantock Hills deserve a special mention. With views out over the waters of the Bristol Channel, this area of interconnected ridges above steeply wooded combes is covered with trails that could have been designated for off-road biking. But when the sun is shining on the great ridge of the Quantocks from Crowcombe Park Gate towards Beacon Hill, or high up on Dunkery Beacon in the midst of Exmoor - one thing is for sure - this is as close to off-road riding heaven as it gets.

Cotswolds Map and Guide of Places to Visit is the ideal guide to the very best of Cotswolds. From the gorgeous, honey-coloured stone villages to the dramatic rolling hills The Cotswolds are a visual feast. Long, winding lanes connect beautiful villages with excellent pubs and friendly tearooms. This area of outstanding natural beauty is ideal for a day out, weekend away or destination holiday. Our Cotswolds Map & Guide presents the Cotswolds' multiple attractions in an accessible, easy-to-read and follow, format. It is in the format of a fold-out map and has a detailed visitor map on one side and visitor information on the other: Cotswolds Visitor Map An unbelievably detailed map on one side with lots of additional visitor information The ideal scale for touring at 1:126,720 (2 miles to 1 inch) Clear and easy-to-follow cartography also easy to fold and unfold Cotswolds Travel Guide All the information you need is shown on the reverse side of the map ensuring you will see the very best of the Cotswolds The best things to see and do are grouped into the following sections: Main Centres; Towns Villages of interest; Farm and Countryside interests; Birds and wildlife; Train and transport interests; Historic buildings; Gardens; Museums; Art Galleries; Arts and Crafts; Traditional inns with rooms; Pubs; Coffee, delis and teas... Carefully selected scenic drives including the distance and what to see and expect en route Illustrated with full-colour photographs, our renowned map and guide to the Cotswolds will make it easy to plan your trip. It really is the 'go-to' guide and map for the very best of the Cotswolds.