This book is a celebration of the life and adventures of Andy Jackson, Scottish kayaking legend. In December 2004 the kayaking community was stunned by the premature death of Andy Jackson. "Tall Stories" collates accounts and photos of the tall man's adventurous life. As we follow him around the world, Andy's gregarious good humour comes across at every turn. From his native Scotland to Nepal, New Zealand and North America on his 'World Tour' and on to Iceland and Chile, Andy made a friend of everyone he met.Every first weekend in September, kayakers from around the world gather at the Wet West Paddlefest to celebrate his life and paddle two of his favourite rivers. Andy will remain an inspiration for generations to come.Ron Cameron first encountered Andy Jackson in Tain, Easter Ross when Andy was 19 and he was 43 and kayaked, skied and climbed with him regularly until the time of his death, suffering no significant injuries as a result. He was stupid/smart enough to rent Andy a house for about six years. Sometimes he thinks he should have stuck to climbing but paddling and skiing with Andy was a life enhancing experience.

'An absolute gem of a book' Alastair Humphreys First published in 1926, The Gentle Art of Tramping is as relevant now as then. Tramping is an approach: to nature, to humankind, to nations, to beauty, to life itself. This lost classic is a breath of fresh air for world-weary souls. It is a gentle art; know how to tramp and you know how to live. Know how to meet your fellow wanderer, how to be passive to the beauty of nature and how to be active to its wildness and its rigour. The adventure is not the getting there, it's the 'on-the-way'. It is not the expected, it is the surprise.

"Amerikafahrt" by Wolfgang Koeppen is a masterpiece of observation, analysis, and writing, based on his 1958 trip to the United States. A major twentieth-century German writer, Koeppen presents a vivid and fascinating portrait of the US in the late 1950s: its major cities, its literary culture, its troubled race relations, its multi-culturalism and its vast loneliness, a motif drawn, in part, from Kafka's "Amerika." A modernist travelogue, the text employs symbol, myth, and image, as if Koeppen sought to answer de Tocqueville's questions in the manner of Joyce and Kafka. "Journey through America" is also a meditation on America, intended for a German audience and mindful of the destiny of postwar Europe under many Americanizing influences.

An entrancing, sun-drenched bicycle journey, from the beaches of southern Spain to solar temples in the Outer Hebrides. In this great feast of armchair travel, John Hanson Mitchell tells of his fifteen-hundred-mile ride on a trusty old Peugeot bicycle from the port of Cadiz to just below the Arctic Circle. He follows the European spring up through southern Spain, the wine and oyster country near Bordeaux, to Versailles (the palace of the "Sun King"), Wordsworth's Lake District, precipitous Scottish highlands, and finally to a Druid temple on the island of Lewis in the Hebrides, a place where Midsummer is celebrated in pagan majesty as the near-midnight sun dips and then quickly rises over the horizon. In true John Mitchell fashion this journey is interspersed with myth, natural history, and ritual, all revolving around the lure and lore of the sun, culturally and historically. The journey is as delicious as it is fascinating, with an appeal for all those who look south in February and are drawn to dunes, picnics under castle walls, spring flowers, terraced vineyards, Moorish outposts, magic and celebrations. In short, to everything under the sun. A Merloyd Lawrence Book

Hiram Bingham is the generally recognised as the discover of Machu Picchu, alsthough other Europeans have claim to have seen it earlier. This is his record of the exploration that led to Machu Picchu.

Originally published in 1900, this early works on The South Indian Railway is extensively illustrated throughout and will appeal greatly to any historian interested in the subject. Chapters include; General History, Races & People, Religions & Castes, Architecture, Description of the railway, Information for travellers, Tourist Routes, Itinerary and Sport. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900's and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

* NOW A MAJOR DOCUMENTARY SERIES ON ALL 4 * ‘This is a fabulous adventure – reckless, insanely ambitious and filled with sweat, tears and laughter ... irresistible reading.’ Joanna Lumley ‘Alex Bescoby weaves travel, adventure, history and the contemporary together like no one else. His great gift is to take us on a journey through past and present. By its end we have learned more about the world and ourselves.’ Dan Snow _______________________________________________________________ ‘A journey that I don’t think could be made again today’. It was this comment by Sir David Attenborough on the fiftieth anniversary of the iconic First Overland expedition that became an irresistible challenge for filmmaker and adventurer Alex Bescoby. In 1955, Attenborough, then a young TV producer, was approached by six recent university graduates determined to drive the entire length of ‘Eurasia’, from London to Singapore. It was the unclimbed Everest of motoring – many had tried, none had succeeded. Sensing this time might be different, Attenborough gave the expedition enough film reel to cover their attempt. The 19,000-mile journey completed by Tim Slessor and the team captivated a nation emerging from postwar austerity. Tim’s book, The First Overland, soon became the bible of the overlanding religion. Inspired by the First Overland, Alex made contact with now eighty-six-year-old Tim and together they planned an epic recreation of the original trip, this time from Singapore to London. Their goal was to complete the legendary journey started more than sixty years ago in the original ‘Oxford’ Land Rover. In awe of the unstoppable Tim, and haunted by his own grandfather’s declining health, Alex and his team soon find themselves battling rough roads, breakdowns and Oxford’s constantly leaky roof to discover a world changed for the better ­­– and worse – since the first expedition.

By the YouTube sensation with two and a half million followers, the inspiring account of a young woman who, in a moment of personal crisis, embarked on an epic, transcontinental motorcycle ride—and along the way found a new sense of purpose.

Noraly Schoenmaker was a thirtysomething geologist living in the Netherlands when she learned that her live-in partner had been having a long-term affair. In desperate need of a new beginning, she decided to quit her job and jet off to India. But her plans were dashed when she fell quickly and helplessly in love: with a motorcycle. Behind the handlebars, she felt alive and free—nimble enough to trace the narrowest paths, powerful enough to travel the longest of roads.

First, she set off toward the Pacific, through the jungles of Myanmar and Thailand, then into Malaysia. Rather than satisfy her appetite for the open road, this ride only piqued it. She shipped her bike to Oman, at the base of the Arabian Peninsula, and embarked on a journey through Iran, across Tajikistan along its border with Afghanistan, over the snowy peaks of Central Asia, and into Europe, all the way back home to the Netherlands. She covered remote and utterly unfamiliar territory, broke down on impossibly steep mountains, and pushed too many miles along empty roads, farther and farther from civilization. But through her travels, she discovered the true beauty of the world, the kindness of its people, the simplicity of its open spaces, and a new and unshakable belief in her capabilities.

Free Ride is an inspiring story of self-discovery and renewal. Filled with unforgettable figures, hilarious disasters, and powerful human connections, it shows you what happens when you open your heart and let the world in.

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.

How do the experiences of today's tourist compare with those of more than a century ago? Views of Old Europe demonstrates that there are interesting differences, and some surprising similarities, between the present day traveler and his early modern counterpart. It is a highly engaging and well-composed account of a two-year long journey in the 1840s, mostly on foot, through Britain, Ireland, Germany, Italy, France, Austria and Switzerland. The work was so popular, that the original edition was followed by many further printings in less than two years. This new edition, with a new preface and index, is based on a revised 1850 version. Although the book's talented young author, Bayard Taylor, went on to become a diplomat, essayist, and poet, his first employment afer leaving the family farm was as a printer's apprentice. The idealistic youth's cherished goal was to visit various European countries, to see first-hand the circumstances in which great culture and art arose. When Taylor's cousin asked him to be his companion on an extended journey through the Old World, Taylor, although without much money, found the opportunity too tempting to pass up. This memoir is multi-faceted. A multitude of perceptive observations about European society are set against the background of the journey narrative, which keeps moving at a deliberate but very pleasant pace. In these observations, Taylor strikes just the right balance between panorama and detail. The communities of that time, in all their charm, ebullience, traditional customs, and protectiveness, are brought into clear focus, facilitated by the copious notes kept by the author. Over the long course, a variety of beauties both natural and man-made were encountered: mountains, rivers, lakes and woods, as well as galleries, museums, churches, mansions, and cathedrals. But the tour had its share of challenges, including fatiguing hikes on back-roads, inadequate funds, and avoiding robbers. There was also a dearth of facilities conducive to material comfort and convenience, such as hotels, restaurants and shelters. Still, for Taylor, the advantages greatly outweighed the hardships, and fond reminiscences are evinced in his lovely prose.

'I am already planning the next adventure. The wanderlust that infected me has no cure.' It all started in Fishguard in the mid-1970s when, aged fifteen, Martyn Howe and a friend set off on the Pembrokeshire Coast Path armed with big rucksacks, borrowed boots, a Primus stove and a pint of paraffin, and a thirst for adventure. After repeating the route almost thirty years later, Martyn was inspired to walk every National Trail in England and Wales, plus the four Long-Distance Routes (now among the Great Trails) in Scotland. His 3,000-mile journey included treks along the South West Coast Path, the Pennine Way, the Cotswold Way and the West Highland Way. He finally achieved his ambition in 2016 when he arrived in Cromer in Norfolk, only to set a new goal of walking the England and Wales Coast Paths and the Scottish National Trail. In Tales from the Big Trails, Martyn vividly describes the diverse landscapes, wildlife, culture and heritage he encounters around the British Isles, and the physical and mental health benefits he derives from walking. He also celebrates the people who enrich his travels, including fellow long-distance hikers, tourists discovering Britain's charm, farmers working the land, and the friendly and eccentric owners of hostels, campsites and B&Bs. And when he is asked 'Why do you do it?', the answer is as simple as placing one foot in front of the other: 'It makes me happy.'

This volume prints for the first time the 'perambulation' of Cumberland compiled by the lawyer, Thomas Denton, for Sir John Lowther of Lowther in 1687-8. Denton's manuscript provides the most detailed surviving description of the county in the seventeenth century. Taking the methods of earlier antiquaries as a framework, and incorporating much of the text of the history of Cumberland written c.1603 by John Denton, the perambulation includes a wealth of contemporary detail for almost every parish and township in the county, including particulars of land tenure, valuations of estates, population estimates, descriptions of buildings and the histories of landed families. Appended to the description of Cumberland, are a perambulation of Westmorland, and the texts of two important tracts, the genealogy of the Clifford family and a treatise on customary tenantright. The volume is rounded off by descriptions of the Isle of Man and Ireland, taken in part from Camden's Britannia but including detailed topographical accounts of Man and Dublin, based on Denton's own observations. ANGUS J.L. WINCHESTER is Senior Lecturer in History, Lancaster University.

The long history of transatlantic movement in the Spanish-speaking world has had a significant impact on present-day concepts of Mexico and the implications of representing Mexico and Latin America more generally in Spain, Europe, and the world. In addition to analyzing texts that have received little to no critical attention, the book examines the connections between contemporary travel, including the local dynamics of encounters and the global circulation of information, and the significant influence of the history of exchange between Spain and Mexico in the construction of existing ideas of place. To frame the analysis of contemporary travel writing, the book examines key moments in the history of Mexican-Spanish relations, including the origins of narratives regarding Spaniards' sense of Mexico's similarity to and difference from Spain. This history underpins the discussion of the role of Spanish travelers in their encounters with Mexican peoples and places and their reflection on their own role as communicators of cultural meaning and participants in the tourist economy with its impact-both negative and positive-on places.

In 1951 the Australian writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston left grey, post-war London for Greece. Settling first on the tiny island of Kalymnos, then Hydra, their plan was to live simply and focus on their writing, away from the noise of the big city. The result is two of Charmian Clift's best known and most loved books, the memoirs Mermaid Singing and Peel Me a Lotus. Mermaid Singing relays the culture shock and the sheer delight of their first year on the tiny sponge-fishing island of Kalymnos. Clift paints an evocative picture of the characters and sun-drenched rhythms of traditional life, long before backpackers and mass tourism descended. On Hydra, featured in the companion volume, Peel Me a Lotus, Clift and Johnston became the centre of an informal community of artists and writers including the then unknown Leonard Cohen who lodged with them, and his future girlfriend Marianne Ihlen.

Chris Stewart's Driving Over Lemons (9780956003805) told the story of his move to a remote mountain farm in Las Alpujarras - an oddball region of Spain, south of Granada. Funny, insightful and real, the book became an international bestseller. A Parrot in the Pepper Tree, the sequel to Lemons, follows the lives of Chris, Ana and their daughter, Chloe, as they get to grips with a misanthropic parrot who joins their home, Spanish school life, neighbours in love, their amazement at Chris appearing on the bestseller lists . . and their shock at discovering that their beloved valley is once more under threat of a dam. A Parrot in the Pepper Tree also looks back on Chris Stewart's former life - the hard times shearing in midwinter Sweden (and driving across the frozen sea to reach island farms); his first taste of Spain, learning flamenco guitar as a 20-year old; and his illustrious music career, drumming for his school band Genesis (sacked at 17, he never quite became Phil Collins), and then for a circus.

"Plans are usually only good for one thing - laughing at in hindsight. So, armed with rudimentary Spanish, dangerous levels of curiosity and a record of poor judgement, I set off to tackle whatever South America could throw at me." On his nineteenth birthday, Peter Allison flipped a coin. One side would take him to Africa and the other to South America. He recounted his time spent as a safari guide in Africa to much acclaim in Don't Run, Whatever You do and Don't Look Behind You. Sixteen years later he makes his way to Chile, ready to seek out the continent's best, weirdest and wildest adventures - and to chase the elusive jaguar. From learning to walk a puma (or rather be bitten and dragged along by it) in Bolivia, to finding love in Patagonia and hunting naked with the remote Huaorani people in Ecuador, How to Walk a Puma is Peter's fascinating and often hilarious account of misadventures in South America. Ever the gifted storyteller and cultural observer, Allison makes many observations about life in humid climes, the nature of nomadism, and exactly what it is like to be nearly blasted off a mountain by the famous Patagonia wind. His self-deprecating humour is as delightful as his crazy stunts, and his love for animals - even when they bite - is infectious.

A STAFF OFFICERS SCRAP-BOOK DURING THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR by SIR IAN HAMILTON, K. C. B. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS AND PLANS. Originally published in 1906. PREFACE: IT is difficult to convey to the peaceable citizens of Greater Britain a true picture of that glorious and impressive survival from heroic times, a nation in arms. The difficulty is enhanced by the fact that military history must be always to some extent misleading. If facts are hurriedly issued, fresh from the mint of battle, they cannot be expected to supply an account which is either well balanced or exhaustive. On the other hand, it is equally certain that, when once the fight has been fairly lost or won, it is the tendency of all ranks to combine and recast the story of their achievement into a shape which shall satisfy the susceptibilities of national and regimental vain glory. It is then already too late for the painstaking historian to set to work. He may record the orders given and the movements which ensued, and lie may build up thereon any ingenious theories which occur to him but to the hopes and fears which dictated those orders, and to the spirit and method in which those movements were executed, he has for ever lost the clue. On the actual da r of battle naked truths may be picked up for the asking by the following morning they have already begun to get into their uniforms. If the impressions here recorded possess any value, it will be because they do faithfully represent the facts as they appeared to the First Japanese Army while the wounded still lay bleeding upon the stricken field. Further than this they do not profess to go. The time has hardly yet come for a full and critical account by an ex-attache of awar round which so many conflicting national ambitions have revolved. Meanwhile these scraps, snap-shots, by-products, or whatever they may be called, are offered to the public in the hope that they may interest, without hurting the feelings of either of the great armies concerned. If this hope should be realised, I shall be encouraged to advance with Kuroki through conflicts fiercer and bloodier far than any I have here attempted to set down. My special thanks are due to Captain Vincent for the help he has given me, and for the maps, sketches and photographs with which the volume is illustrated. It is hardly necessary for rne here to acknowledge my indebtedness to my kind hosts, or to other British attaches, for this will become patent to the reader as he reads. TAX HAMILTON. Contents include: CHAPTER 1 . PAGE I. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE JAPANESE ARMY ... 1 II. SOME NEW ACQUAINTANCES 1 J III. THREE PLEASING TRAITS 36 IV. FROM TOKIO TO THE YALU 44 V. FENGHUANGCIIENG 64 VI. THE POSITION ON THE YAH . .... 73 VII. THE BATTLE OF THE YALU 97 VIII. THE ATTACHES ARE ENTERTAINED . ... 140 IX. THE CHINESE GENERAL PAYS A VISIT . . 161 X. GENERAL FUJII TALKS 180 XI. THE FEAST OF THE DEAD 193 XII. ON THE MARCH AT LAST 210 XIII. AN AFFAIR OF OUTPOSTS 230 XIV. THE BATTLE OF THE HKAVEN-REACHJNG PASS, . 253 XV. CHAOTAO 280 XVI. A PAUSE BEFORE THE ADVANCE 302 XVII. THE BATTLE OF YUSHIKEI. i315 KVI11. THE DISASTROUS RETREAT FKOM PENLIN . . . 330 ILLUSTRATIONS MAPS AND SKETCHES I. General Map of Korea and Manchuria . .... At end II. Map of the Battle of the Yalu To face page 134 III. Map of the Fight at Hamaton, , 126 IV. Panorama of the Battle of the Yalu from Wiju . 90 V. Panorama of Fenghuangcheng 174VI. View of the Motienling Range from a Mountain above Lienshankuan 234 VII. The First Russian Attack on the Motienling, July 4th, 1904 23 x ILLUSTRATIONS VIII. View of the Motienling from the Old Temple, in con nection with the Second Russian Attack on July 17th, 1904 To face page 274 IX. Plan of the Battle of Motienling, July 17th, 1904 . . 276 X. Plan of the Fight of the 16th Regiment on July 17th, 1904 ..., , 278 XI...

In 1807 Robert Southey published a pseudonymous account of a journey made through England by a fictitious Spanish tourist, 'Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella'. Letters from England (1807) relates Espriella's travels. On his journey Espriella comments on every aspect of British society, from fashions and manners, to political and religious beliefs.

"The art of travelling is only a branch of the art of thinking," Mary Wollstonecraft wrote in 1790 in a review of a travel narrative set in Ireland. A Short Residence was her own travel memoir, and became the work that Wollstonecraft most admired in her own lifetime. The text narrates Wollstonecraft's journey through Scandinavia, accompanied by her young daughter; the letters are addressed to an unnamed lover. Passionate and personal, the letters also explore the comparative political and social systems of Europe. The result is a travel book that is both as much a work of political thought as Wollstonecraft's more well-known treatises, and an innovative and influential work in the genre. This Broadview Edition provides a helpful introduction and extensive appendices that contextualise this remarkable text in relation to a number of key political and aesthetic debates.

"As well as being physical journeys, they were explorations and reworkings, through travel, of the writers' own sense of Italian and Fascist identity. Indeed, one of the most interesting suggestions of this original and important book is that the identity of Fascist Italy was built out of comparisons with other places...a fascinating book on Italian travel writing of the Fascist period." . Times Literary Supplement

..".this is a highly recommended book for those wishing to expand their knowledge of the cultural and political roles of travel writing, as well as the perceptions, ambitions, inconsistencies, contradictions and areas of ambiguity prevailing among Italian elites under Fascism." . Journal of Contemporary European Studies

" a]smoothly written, thoughtful study" . H-Net

..".a sophisticated and very well researched study that] makes a significant contribution to the growing corpus of studies of fascist culture and of the often subtle and varied ways in which the regime's goals and messages were transmitted to the general public. It is well organized and well written and is intelligently structured." . Christopher Duggan, University of Reading

During the twenty years of Mussolini's rule a huge number of travel texts were written of journeys made during the interwar period to the sacred sites of Fascist Italy, Mussolini's newly conquered African empire, Spain during the Civil War, Nazi Germany, Communist Russia and the America of the New Deal. Examining these observations by writers and journalists, the author throws new light on the evolving ideology of Fascism, how it was experienced and propagated by prominent figures of the time; how the regime created a utopian vision of the Roman past and the imperial future; and how it interpreted the attractions and dangers of other totalitarian cultures.

The book helps gain a better understanding of the evolving concepts of imperialism, which were at the heart of Italian Fascism, and thus shows that travel writing can offer an important contribution to historical analysis.

Charles Burdett, Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies, specializes on Italian culture under Fascism. He is the author of Vincenzo Cardarelli and his Contemporaries (Oxford University Press, 1999). He is the editor with Claire Gorrara and Helmut Peitsch of European Memories of the Second World War (Berghahn Books, 1999) and with Derek Duncan, of Cultural Encounters: European Travel Writing of the 1930s (Berghahn Books, 2002)."

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.