One woman, one bike and one richly entertaining, perception-altering journey of discovery. In 2015, as the Syrian War raged and the refugee crisis reached its peak, Rebecca Lowe set off on her bicycle across the Middle East. Driven by a desire to learn more about this troubled region and its relationship with the West, Lowe's 11,000-kilometre journey took her through Europe to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, the Gulf and finally to Iran. It was an odyssey through landscapes and history that captured her heart, but also a deeply challenging cycle across mountains, deserts and repressive police states that nearly defeated her. Plagued by punctures and battling temperatures ranging from -6 to 48C, Lowe was rescued frequently by farmers and refugees, villagers and urbanites alike, and relied almost entirely on the kindness and hospitality of locals to complete this living portrait of the modern Middle East. This is her evocative, deeply researched and often very funny account of her travels - and the people, politics and culture she encountered. 'Terrifically compelling ... bursting with humour, adventure and insight into the rich landscapes and history of the Middle East. Lowe recounts the beauty, kindnesses and complexities of the lands she travels through with an illuminating insight. A wonderful new travel writer.' Sir Ranulph Fiennes

Lose yourself in this classic prize-winning memoir of life in 1950s Cyprus on the brink of revolution by the legendary king of travel writing and real-life family member of The Durrells in Corfu. 'Stunning.' Andre Aciman 'Masterly ... Casts a spell.' Jan Morris 'Invades the reader's every sense ... Remarkable.' Victoria Hislop 'These days I am admiring and re-admiring Lawrence Durrell.' Elif Shafak 'Our last great garlicky master of the vanishing Mediterranean.' Richard Holmes 'Exceptional ... Revelatory ... A master.' Observer 'He writes as an artist, as well as a poet . Profoundly beautiful.' New Statesman Cyprus, 1953. As the island fights for independence from British colonial rule, ancient conflicts between Turkish and Greek Cypriots trouble the glittering Mediterranean waters. Into the brewing political storm enters Lawrence Durrell, yearning for the idyllic island lifestyle of his youth in Corfu. He settles into a dilapidated villa, and with his poet's eye for beauty - and passable Greek - vividly captures the moods and atmospheres of island life in a changing world. Whether collecting folklore or wild flowers, describing the brewing revolution or eccentric local characters, Durrell is a magician with words: and the result is not only a classic travel memoir, but an intimate portrait of a community lost forever. WINNER OF THE DUFF COOPER MEMORIAL PRIZE 'Brilliant ... Never for a moment does Durrell lose the poet's touch.' New York Times

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.

Now updated with a new predface that examines dramatic changes in his favourite hiking and camping area, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, this classic adventure chronicle, which first appeared in 1996, launched the outdoor writing career of Johnny Molloy. The author of over sixty invaluable hiking, camping, and paddling guides to natural destinations all over the country, Molloy has turned irresistible enthusiasm for the great outdoors, evident in this book, into a profound career, dedicated to honouring and celebrating our greatest wild places-and helping others enjoy them as much as he has. In fourteen lively personal essays, Johnny Molloy describes the adventures by which he came of age as a backpacker. Born a "flatlander" in Memphis, he first visited the Smokies while attending the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in the 1980s. Initially, he treated the park as a personal playground-a place to cut loose, break rules, and act irresponsibly. After many hiking excursions, however, he gained a more profound appreciation of the mountains, becoming an avid park volunteer intent on the protection and improvement of the area. He grew, as he puts it, both as an outdoor adventurer and as a human being. Interwoven throughout these pieces is a wealth of Smoky Mountains lore and history along with dozens of tips for novice backpackers. Molloy's stories encompass backpacking during all four seasons as well as accounts of solo hiking, off-trail hiking, and whitewater canoeing. Whether describing the hazards of crossing a stream in winter or what to do-and not to do-when one encounters a bear or a rattlesnake, Molloy writes with an infectious enthusiasm that will delight any lover of the outdoors.

"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

* 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.

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.

This book places Bird's visit to Japan in the context of her worldwide life of travel and gives an introduction to the woman herself. Supported by detailed maps, it also offers a highly illuminating view of Japan and its people in the early years of the 'New Japan' following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, as well as providing a valuable new critique on what is often considered as Bird's most important work. The central focus of the book is a detailed exploration of Bird's journeys and the careful planning that went into them with the support of the British Minister, Sir Harry Parkes, seen as the prime mover, who facilitated her extensive travels through his negotiations with the Japanese authorities. Furthermore, the author dismisses the widely-held notion that Bird ventured into the field on her own, revealing instead the crucial part played by Ito, her young servant-interpreter, without whose constant presence she would have achieved nothing. Written by Japan's leading scholar on Isabella Bird, the book also addresses the vexed question of the hitherto universally-held view that her travels in Japan in 1878 only involved the northern part of Honshu and Hokkaido. This mistaken impression, the author argues, derives from the fact that the abridged editions of Unbeaten Tracks in Japan that appeared after the 1880 two-volume original work entirely omit her visit to the Kansai, which took in Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe and the Ise Shrines. Bird herself tells us that she wrote her book in the form of letters to her sister Henrietta but here the author proposes the intriguing theory that these letters were never actually sent. Many well-known figures, Japanese and foreign, are introduced as having influenced Bird's journey indirectly, and this forms a fascinating sub-text.

The story of both a dramatic journey retracing the historic voyage of France's greatest 19th-century explorer up the mysterious Mekong river, and a portrait of the river and its peoples today. Any notion of sailing up the Mekong in homage to Francis Garnier has been unthinkable until now. From its delta in Vietnam up through Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma and on into China, the Mekong has been a no-go river, its turbulent waters fouled by ideological barriers as formidable as its natural obstacles. But recently the political obstacles have begun to be dismantled - river traffic is reviving. John Keay describes the world of the Mekong as it is today, rehabilitating a traumatised geography while recreating the thrilling and historic voyage of Garnier in 1866. The French expedition was intended to investigate the 'back door' into China by outflanking the British and American conduits of commerce at Hong Kong and Shanghai. Two naval gunboats headed upriver into the green unknown, bearing crack troops, naturalists, geologists and artists. The two-year expedition's failures and successes, and the tragedy and acrimony that marked it, make riveting reading.

In recent decades, private jets have become status symbols for the world's wealthiest, while quick and easy flights have brought far-flung destinations within the reach of everyone. But at what cost to the environment? Around the world, flying emits around 860 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, and until the outbreak of Covid-19, the aviation industry was one of the planet's fastest-growing polluters. Now is the perfect time to pause and take stock of our toxic relationship with flying. Part climate-change investigation, part travel memoir, Zero Altitude follows Helen Coffey as she journeys as far as she can in the course of her job as a top travel journalist - all without getting on a single flight. Between trips by train, car, boat and bike, she meets climate experts and activists at the forefront of the burgeoning flight-free movement. Over the course of her travels, she discovers that keeping both feet on the ground is not only possible but that it can be an exhilarating opportunity for adventure. Her book is brimming with tips and ideas for swapping the middle seat for the open road.

A collection of the greatest women's travel writing selected by journalist and presenter Mariella Frostrup. From Constantinople to Crimea; from Antarctica to the Andes. Throughout history adventurous women have made epic, record-breaking journeys under perilous circumstances. Whether escaping constricted societies back home or propelled by a desire for independence, footloose females have ventured to the four corners of the earth and recorded their exploits for posterity. For too long their triumphs have been overshadowed by those of their male counterparts, whose honourable failures make bigger news. In curating this collection of first-hand accounts, broadcaster, writer and traveller Mariella Frostrup puts female explorers back on the map. Her selection includes explorers from the 1700s to the present day, from iconic heroines to lesser-known eccentrics, celebrating 300 years of wild women and their amazing adventures over land, sea and air. Reviews for Wild Women: 'A stirring whistle-stop tour, led by women who often risked disapproval in leaving home to roam the world' Vanity Fair 'Like any good travel book, Wild Women succeeds in casting the reader's mind off on journeys of its own, inspiring fresh plans and what the Germans call Fernweh, or a longing for faraway places' TLS 'Required reading for anyone who assumed that 'the road less travelled' was a solely masculine preserve' Sunday Independent

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.

This is an adventure-filled and thought-provoking travelogue along Hunter S. Thompson's forgotten journey through South America. In 1963, twenty-five-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, who would become America's bestselling 'gonzo journalist, ' completed a year-long journey across South America, filing a series of dispatches for a now-defunct paper called the National Observer. With the gritty humour and keen political observations for which he later became known, correspondent Thompson reflected on topics that continue to make headlines today: the rise of leftist populism, struggles over resource extraction, the marginalization of indigenous peoples

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.

"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.