First published in 1985, this is a history of the Grand Tour, undertaken by young men in the eighteenth century to complete their education - a tour usually to France, Italy and Switzerland, and sometimes encompassing Germany. Rather than being another popular treatment of the theme, this is a scholarly analysis of the motives, purposes, activities and achievements of those who made the Grand Tour.

The book considers to what extent the Grand Tour did fulfil its theoretical educational function, or whether travellers merely parroted the observations of their guidebooks. It also indicates the importance of the Grand Tour in introducing foreign customs into Britain and extending the cosmopolitanism of the European upper classes.

Robert Mads Anderson is an elite mountaineer with a solitary goal: to conquer Everest. After nearly getting killed on his first expedition, he led a team up a new route on the Kangshung Face without oxygen or Sherpa support, climbed solo on the remote North Face, and finally guided a team to the top of the world. Incorporating a who's who of internationally recognised climbers, including Stephen Venables, Reinhold Messner and Chris Bonington, Nine Lives traces the story of Everest, from the big, nationally supported expeditions of the 1980s; through the small teams forging new routes and climbing solo; to the commercially guided expeditions of today. Set against the majestic backdrop of the world's tallest peak, Anderson's nine Everest expeditions over eighteen years define what truly drives a human being to the greatest of heights. With a foreword by Peter Hillary and 32 pages of colour photography, in Nine Lives Robert Mads Anderson offers his personal account of the world's highest mountain.

This upbeat nitty-gritty memoir, based on the author's 2001 trail journal, chronicles one man's hike the whole length of the Appalachian Trail, beginning just north of Atlanta and finishing six months later in Maine. The journey included adventures with a faithful and eccentric dog, a new romance, and the challenges and triumphs of walking 2167 miles in all kinds of weather.

Changing the narrative of mountaineering books, Sherpa focuses on the people who live and work on the roof of the world. Amid all the foreign adventurers that throng to Nepal to scale the world's highest peaks there exists a small community of mountain people at the foothills of Himalayas. Sherpa tells their story. It's the story of endeavour and survival at the roof of the world. It dives into their culture and tells of their existence at the edge of life and death. Written by Ankit Babu Adhikari - a writer, social science researcher and musician - and Pradeep Bashyal - a journalist with the BBC based in Nepal - Sherpa traces their story pre- and post-mountaineering revolution, their evolution as climbing crusaders with previously unpublished stories from the most notable and incredible Sherpas of the last 50 years. This is the story of the Sherpas.

Robert Twigger goes to the Far East in search of the world's longest snake - 'echoes of Gerald Durrell's trips crossed with Redmond O'Hanlon's foray into the heart of Borneo . . . a fantastic book' DAILY MAIL About to be married, Robert Twigger decides on his last great adventure as a bachelor. Surfing the net, he discovers the Roosevelt Prize - worth $50,000 - for the capture of a live 30 foot python. Armed only with a tin of High Toast Snuff (deadly if sniffed by a snake), Twigger sets off into the remote jungles of Indonesia in search of his prey. Along the way, he investigates the legendarily beautiful women of Sulawesi, treads in Nabokov's footsteps, looks for giant snakes beneath the sewers of Kuala Lumpur, and spends time with a variety of snake catchers and cults. After being caught up in anti-Chinese riots and surviving on greasy civet cat in the jungle, Twigger finally comes face to face with the big one; but the final capture is not quite what he had in mind.

There are only few human beings who can adapt, survive and thrive in the coldest regions on earth. And below a certain temperature, death is inevitable. Sir Ranulph Fiennes has spent much of his life exploring and working in conditions of extreme cold. The loss of many of his fingers to frostbite is a testament to the horrors man is exposed to at such perilous temperatures. With the many adventures he has led over the past 40 years, testing his limits of endurance to the maximum, he deservedly holds the title of 'the world's greatest explorer'. Despite our technological advances, the Arctic, the Antarctic and the highest mountains on earth, remain some of the most dangerous and unexplored areas of the world. This remarkable book reveals the chequered history of man's attempts to discover and understand these remote areas of the planet, from the early voyages of discovery of Cook, Ross, Weddell, Amundsen, Shackleton and Franklin to Sir Ranulph's own extraordinary feats; from his adventuring apprenticeship on the Greenland Ice Cap, to masterminding over the past five years the first crossing of the Antarctic during winter, where temperatures regularly plummeted to minus 92C. Both historically questioning and intensely personal, Cold is a celebration of a life dedicated to researching and exploring some of the most hostile and brutally cold places on earth.

Adam Thorpe's home for the past 25 years has been an old house in the Cévennes, a wild range of mountains in southern France. Prior to this, in an ancient millhouse in the oxbow of a Cévenol river, he wrote the novel that would become the Booker Prize-nominated Ulverton, now a Vintage Classic.

In more recent writing Thorpe has explored the Cévennes, drawing on the legends, history and above all the people of this part of France for his inspiration. In his charming journal, Notes from the Cévennes, Thorpe takes up these themes, writing about his surroundings, the village and his house at the heart of it, as well as the contrasts of city life in nearby Nîmes. In particular he is interested in how the past leaves impressions - marks - on our landscape and on us. What do we find in the grass, earth and stone beneath our feet and in the objects around us? How do they tie us to our forebears? What traces have been left behind and what marks do we leave now?

He finds a fossil imprinted in the single worked stone of his house's front doorstep, explores the attic once used as a silk factory and contemplates the stamp of a chance paw in a fragment of Roman roof-tile. Elsewhere, he ponders mutilated fleur-de-lys (French royalist symbols) in his study door and unwittingly uses the tomb-rail of two sisters buried in the garden as a gazebo. Then there are the personal fragments that make up a life and a family history: memories dredged up by 'dusty toys, dried-up poster paints, a painted clay lump in the bottom of a box.'

Part celebration of both rustic and urban France, part memoir, Thorpe's humorous and precise prose shows a wonderful stylist at work, recalling classics such as Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes.

From one of the most important chroniclers of our time, come two extended excerpts from her never-before-seen notebooks - writings that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary writer. Joan Didion has always kept notebooks: of overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays and articles Here is one such draft that traces a road trip she took with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, in June 1970, through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. She interviews prominent local figures, describes motels, diners, a deserted reptile farm, a visit with Walker Percy, a ladies' brunch at the Mississippi Broadcasters' Convention. She writes about the stifling heat, the almost viscous pace of life, the sulfurous light, and the preoccupation with race, class, and heritage she finds in the small towns they pass through. And from a different notebook: the "California Notes" that began as an assignment from Rolling Stone on the Patty Hearst trial of 1976. Though Didion never wrote the piece, watching the trial and being in San Francisco triggered thoughts about the city, its social hierarchy, the Hearsts, and her own upbringing in Sacramento. Here, too, is the beginning of her thinking about the West, its landscape, the western women who were heroic for her, and her own lineage.

Shortlisted for the The Great Outdoors Awards - Outdoor Book of the Year 2020 Shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature 2020 There are strange relics hidden across Scotland's landscape: forgotten places that are touchstones to incredible stories and past lives which still resonate today. Yet why are so many of these 'wild histories' unnoticed and overlooked? And what can they tell us about our own modern identity? From the high mountain passes of an ancient droving route to a desolate moorland graveyard, from uninhabited post-industrial islands and Clearance villages to caves explored by early climbers and the mysterious strongholds of Christian missionaries, Patrick Baker makes a series of journeys on foot and by paddle. Along the way, he encounters Neolithic settlements, bizarre World War Two structures, evidence of illicit whisky production, sacred wells and Viking burial grounds. Combining a rich fusion of travelogue and historical narrative, he threads themes of geology, natural and social history, literature, and industry from the places he visits, discovering connections between people and place more powerful than can be imagined.

The unbelievable story of how one town truly prayed without ceasing In 1999, a small town on the south coast of England became the birthplace of the extraordinary, accidental, international movement known as 24-7 Prayer. Their inspiration was a seemingly chance visit by founder Pete Greig to Herrnhut in Germany, where the eighteenth-century Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf had initiated the Moravian prayer watch, which ran without ceasing for a hundred years. Five years later, Phil Anderson undertook an aerial road trip on a tiny four-seat airplane from England to Germany, a remarkable journey to uncover the history of Zinzendorf and the movement he led. Part history, part narrative, The Lord of the Ring takes readers on a fascinating journey back to the eighteenth-century Moravian renewal movement and their hundred-year prayer watch. Anderson retraces the steps of Zinzendorf, reconnects with his legacy, and seeks to apply it to life and faith in a new millennium. Learning from the past, readers will discover crucial signposts for grappling with the church's identity and calling as an authentic, relational, missional community.

The story begins in a public square in New Delhi. On a cold December evening a young European woman of noble descent appears before an Indian street artist known locally as PK and asks him to paint her portrait – it is an encounter that will change their lives irrevocably.

PK was not born in the city. He grew up in a small remote village on the edge of the jungle in East India, and his childhood as an untouchable was one of crushing hardship. He was forced to sit outside the classroom during school, would watch classmates wash themselves if they came into contact with him, and had stones thrown at him when he approached the village temple. According to the priests, PK dirtied everything that was pure and holy. But had PK not been an untouchable, his life would have turned out very differently.

This is the remarkable true story of how love and courage led PK to overcome extreme poverty, caste prejudice and adversity – as well as a 7,000-mile, adventure-filled journey across continents and cultures – to be with the woman he loved.

Isaac Titsingh was intermittently head of the Japan factory (trading station) of the Dutch East India Company 1780-94. He was a career merchant, but unusual in having a classical education and training as a physician. His impact in Japan was enormous, but he left disappointed in the ability of the country to embrace change. After many years in Java, India and China, he came to London, and then settled in Paris where he devoted himself to compiling translations of prime Japanese texts. It is one of the most exciting anthologies of the period and reveals the almost unknown world of eighteenth-century Japan, discussing politics, history, poetry and rituals. The Illustrations of Japan appeared posthumously in 1821-1822 in English, French and Dutch. This fully annotated edition makes the original English version available for the first time in nearly two centuries

Based on acclaimed author Zora Neale Hurston's personal experiences in Haiti and Jamaica--where she participated as an initiate rather than just an observer during her visits in the 1930s--"Tell My Horse" is a fascinating firsthand account of the mysteries of Voodoo. An invaluable resource and remarkable guide to Voodoo practices, rituals, and beliefs, it is a travelogue into a dark, mystical world that offers a vividly authentic picture of ceremonies, customs, and superstitions.

'Scotland as I saw it on this journey is vibrant and exciting and very much alive, a tartan patchwork of the past, present and future of the country woven together by all those people who have ever called it 'home' and all the others who will.' James McEnaney sees Scotland as a 'complicated and conflicted place' that needs a disruption of the status quo. He presents the country as he found it on his journey - struggling with contemporary mistakes and historic wrongs, but also bustling with energy and expectation, ultimately offering glimpses of the better, brighter future which might just be on the way.

'A Latin American James Dean or Jack Kerouac' Washington Post 'It's true; Marxists just wanna have fun... a revolutionary bestseller' Guardian At the age of twenty-three, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado set out from their native Argentina to explore their continent, with only a single 1939 Norton motorcycle to carry them, nicknamed La Poderosa ('the powerful one'). They travelled not to visit the usual tourist attractions, but to meet ordinary people and understand Latin American life. In amidst the tales of youthful adventures - of women, wine, thrilling escapes and the power of friendship - the young Che also learns first-hand about poverty, philosophy and philosophy and forms himself into the man who would become the world's most famous and admired revolutionary and freedom fighter. 'For every comic escapade of the carefree roustabout there is an equally eye-opening moment in the development of the future revolutionary leader. By the end of the journey, a politicized Guevara has emerged to predict his own legendary future' Time

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.

The acclaimed travel writer's youthful journey - as an 18-year-old - across 1930s Europe by foot began in A Time of Gifts, which covered the author's exacting journey from the Lowlands as far as Hungary. Picking up from the very spot on a bridge across the Danube where his readers last saw him, we travel on with him across the great Hungarian Plain on horseback, and over the Romanian border to Transylvania. The trip was an exploration of a continent which was already showing signs of the holocaust which was to come. Although frequently praised for his lyrical writing, Fermor's account also provides a coherent understanding of the dramatic events then unfolding in Middle Europe. But the delight remains in travelling with him in his picaresque journey past remote castles, mountain villages, monasteries and towering ranges. The concluding part of the trilogy was published in September 2013 as The Broken Road.

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 1888, this guide for travellers to Georgia presents information on all of the country's regions, as well as its history, language, literature, and political conditions.

Travelling through 3500 miles of Burmese landscape, the author captured the essence of this country before internal political problems in that country emerged. Filled with lively descriptions of Burma from its bustling cities to its lush jungles, the highlight is the author's recount of his thousand-mile journey up the Irrawaddy River. Supplemented by the author's own illustrations, this book conveys Kelly's appreciation of the beauty of the country and the happiness of its people.

In his beautifully written prose, Dr Jonathan Reisman - physician, adventure traveller and naturalist - allows readers to navigate their insides like an explorer discovering a new world. Through his offbeat adventures in healthcare and travel, Reisman discovers new perspectives on the body: a trip to the Alaskan Arctic reveals that fat is not the enemy, but the hero; a stint in the Himalayas uncovers the boundary where the brain ends and the mind begins; and eating a sheep's head in Iceland offers a lesson in empathy. By relating his experiences in far-flung lands and among unique cultures back to the body's inner workings, he shows how our organs live inextricably intertwined lives in an internal ecosystem that reflects the natural world around us. Reisman's unique perspective on the natural world and his expert wielding of wit ultimately helps us make sense of our lives, our bodies and our world in a way readers have never before imagined. 'An elegant, elegiac, and deeply enjoyable meander through human anatomy . . . the images Reisman conjures will linger long after you've devoured his delightful prose.' - Nicola Twilley, co-author of Until Proven Safe and co-host of Gastropod podcast

Mary Montagu was one of the most extraordinary characters in the world. She was a self-educated intellectual, a free spirit, a radical, a feminist but also an entitled aristocrat and a society wit with powerful friends at court. In 1716 she travelled across Europe to take up residence in Istanbul as the wife of the British ambassador. Her letters remain as fresh as the day they were penned: enchanted by her discoveries of the life of Turkish women behind the veil, by Arabic poetry and by contemporary medical practices - including inoculation. For two years she lovingly observed Ottoman society as a participant, with affection, intelligence and an astonishing lack of prejudice.

This critical study analyzes major concepts in the travel literature of Mark Twain and notes how his ouvre (including his classic works of fiction) revolves around travel as a central issue. The book focuses especially on his representations of time, place, and identity in the travel works ""Roughing It"", ""A Tramp Abroad"", ""The Innocents Abroad"", ""Life on The Mississippi"", and ""Following the Equator"". All receive an in-depth analysis, nothing Twain's strong sense of nostalgia for the disappearing American frontier, his growing concern over the assimilation of Native American cultures, and his continual search for a sense of personal and national identity. One appendix provides a complete list of the travel literature contained in Twain's personal library.