'Of all the places where I feel the translucency of things, places that are thin for me, bluebell woods are first among them.' Some travellers are driven by the need to scale a natural wonder, or to see a city's sights or a place of history. Others, like Alice Maddicott, travel in search of a particular scene, feeling or atmosphere, often inspired by music, literature and art. Taking us deep into our emotional and creative responses to place, this extraordinary book explores the author's relentless travelling, from the heat of Sicily to the mountains of Japan. With her uniquely lyrical approach to psycho-geography, Maddicott explores the relationship with landscape that is the very essence of human creativity. From seventeenth-century salons of Paris to the underground culture and crumbling balconies of modern Tbilisi, through writers as diverse as Italo Calvino and L. M. Montgomery and artists like Ana Mendieta and eighteenth-century girls embroidering their lives, Tender Maps is a beautifully evocative book of travel, culture and imagination that transports readers in time and place. 'A rich and beguiling work of literary travel memoir that nimbly tracks the wider contours of the world in terms of feeling, memory, introspection and the imagination.' - Travis Elborough, author of Atlas of Vanishing Places

8000 miles from home

1085 calories a day

3 months to write the novel that would make her name

At least that was the plan. But when Nell Stevens travelled to Bleaker Island in the Falklands (official population: two) she didn’t count on the isolation getting to her . . .

Hilarious and heartbreaking, this is a book about loneliness and creativity. It is about discovering who you are when there’s no one else around. And it’s about what to do when a plan doesn’t work: ultimately Nell may have failed to write a novel, but she succeeded in becoming a writer.

"The Island That Dared" is a passionate book from the pen of Dervla Murphy, which begins with a three-generational family holiday in Cuba. Led by their redoubtable hard-walking grandmother, the trio of young girls and their mother soon find themselves camping out on empty beaches beneath the stars with only crabs and mosquitoes for company. This pure Swallows and Amazons experience confirms Dervla in her quest to understand the unique society that has been created by the Cuban Revolution. She returns again and again to explore the island, investigating the experience of modern Cuba with her particular, candid curiosity. Through her own research and through conversations with Fidelistas and their critics alike, "The Island That Dared" builds a complex picture of a people struggling to retain their identity in the face of insistent hostility, and to stand against the all-but-overwhelming fire-power of capitalism. Whatever the fate of Cuba, "The Island That Dared" beautifully fulfils the role of a great travel book, 'to catch the moment on the wing, and stop it in Time' - Colin Thubron.

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.

The sea has been an endless source of fascination, at once both alluring and mysterious, a place of wonder and terror. The Sea Journal contains first-hand records by a great range of travellers of their encounters with strange creatures and new lands, full of dangers and delights, pleasures and perils. In this remarkable gathering of private journals, log books, letters and diaries, we follow the voyages of intrepid sailors, from the frozen polar wastes to South Seas paradise islands, as they set down their immediate impressions of all they saw. They capture their experiences while at sea, giving us a precious view of the oceans and the creatures that live in them as they were when they were scarcely known and right up to the present day. In a series of biographical portraits, we meet officers and ordinary sailors, cooks and whalers, surgeons and artists, explorers and adventurers. A handful of contemporary mariners provide their thoughts on how art remains integral to their voyaging lives. Often still bearing the traces of their nautical past, the intriguing and enchanting sketches and drawings in this book brilliantly capture the spirit of the oceans and the magic of the sea.

"Here H.V.Morton begins his wandering in the City, where Roman London began, and follows, westwards, the course of London's seventeenth and eighteenth-century expansion. He describes the London he has himself known, from the rich and arrogant city of his youth to the battered and shabby London of today. He gives vivid pictures of great Londoners of the past. He takes the reader with him about the famous streets and squares and buildings with an infallible eye for the odd, entertaining and interesting things to be found in the great city. In all, there are few aspects of London he does not touch upon. Here is a lasting memento for the overseas visitor, for Londoners in their thousands, and for all those readers for whom Mr. Morton has long been the perfect guide and the most entertaining companion." Contents Include: I Go in Search of London In Which I Go to the Tower of London I Go to London Bridge in the Early Morning Describes St. Paul's Cathedral and the Great Man Sir Christopher Wren, Who Built it A Walk Along the Strand from Temple Bar to Charing Cross I Turn on the Fountains in Trafalgar Square In Which I Go to Westminster Abbey I Visit the Houses of Parliament and See the New House of Commons I Go to St. James's Palace and Remember the Day When it Was a Refuge for Female Lepers How Piccadilly Became the Heart of the West End I See Regent's Park Visit the Zoo and Madame Tussaud's A Few Words About the Treasure Houses of South Kensington

This volume is not a guide of where to stay and what to do, rather it is a collection of writing that aims to invest the traveller with a cultural and historical background to Croatia, which will give life and meaning into the sights, sounds and tastes that the traveller will experience.

COLLECTIVE WINNER OF THE HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE AND SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 'This is the book that has been wanting to be written for decades: the ragged fringe of Britain as a laboratory for the human spirit' Adam Nicolson Over the course of a year, leading historian and nature writer David Gange kayaked the weather-ravaged coasts of Atlantic Britain and Ireland from north to south: every cove, sound, inlet, island. The idea was to travel slowly and close to the water: in touch with both the natural world and the histories of communities on Atlantic coastlines. The story of his journey is one of staggering adventure, range and beauty. For too long, Gange argues, the significance of coasts has been underestimated, and the potential of small boats as tools to make sense of these histories rarely explored. This book seeks to put that imbalance right. Paddling alone in sun and storms, among dozens of whales and countless seabirds, Gange and his kayak travelled through a Shetland summer, Scottish winter and Irish spring before reaching Wales and Cornwall. Sitting low in the water, as did millions in eras when coasts were the main arteries of trade and communication, Gange describes, in captivating prose and loving detail, the experiences of kayaking, coastal living and historical discovery. Drawing on the archives of islands and coastal towns, as well as their vast poetic literatures in many languages, he shows that the neglected histories of these stunning regions are of real importance in understanding both the past and future of the whole archipelago. It is a history of Britain and Ireland like no other.

'There are four roads leading to Santiago, which combine to form a single road'So begins The Pilgrim's Guide, the world's first guidebook. Written early in the twelfth century by Benedictine monks, it served travellers taking part in the great pilgrimage of the Middle Ages, to the tomb of the apostle St James, the cousin of Christ, at Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain. The four roads are all in France: from Paris in the north; from Vezelay in Burgundy; from Le Puy-en-Velay in the Massif Central; and from Arles in Provence - all threading their way across the country before joining as a single road in northern Spain. A step-by-step account of these four journeys through medieval France, the Guide's aim was to explain to pilgrims the religious sites they would see on their way to Santiago, but it also offered advice on where to stay, what to eat and drink, and how to avoid dishonest innkeepers and murderous boatmen.Edwin Mullins follows the same four roads as they exist today in the footsteps of those medieval travellers. He explores the magnificent churches, abbeys and works of art which are the proud legacy of the pilgrimage, as well as reconstructing a turbulent period of history that encompassed wars, crusades and the Reconquest of Spain. Many of the buildings and landmarks that sprang up along the pilgrim routes still stand there today, and The Four Roads to Heaven brings to life their historical, architectural and spiritual significance. From imposing Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals to humble pilgrims' hospices, this book looks at the living legacy of one of the great social phenomena of the Middle Ages - the pilgrimage to Santiago. Richly illustrated with Adam Woolfitt's colour photographs, The Four Roads to Heaven offers an invaluable guide - nine hundred years after its predecessor - to the paths still trodden by increasing numbers of pilgrims.

Join Joe Mack on his journey through ten countries as Europeans and fellow Americans talk about the events of 1968 that are worth remembering and sharing.

With a new introduction by the author

If you want to know about writing, about how to make others share the horror and intensity of an experience, try the first piece in this collection, Justice at Night. Martha Gellhorn wrote it as a 28-year-old, having just returned home to the States after four years in Europe, in 1936. What follows is a selection of fifty years of peacetime journalism, history caught at the moment of its unfolding, as it looked and felt to those who experienced it. It's about revolutions in the making, guilty acts of state terrorism, poverty, injustice and recovery. It vividly captures the range and intensity of Gellhorn's courageous work and is also a passionate call to arms, not only to remember the wronged and to bear witness to evil, but to stand your ground in the face of it.

Full of stunning photography, this travel pictorial and Philippines guidebook captures the soul of a tropical island nation. The Philippines: Islands of Enchantment captures all the marvels and excitement found throughout the 7000-island archipelago. Beautiful photographs by award-winning photographer George Tapan are paired with rich text by author Alfred A. Yuson to make this new paperback edition a must for those that have traveled to this island paradise or just spend their days dreaming about going. The Philippines: Islands of Enchantment is a fascinating exploration of the islands and her people including: sun-blessed beaches and pristine rainforests centuries-old churches and tribal rituals dynamic cities and a wealth of ethic and environmental diversity yearlong fiestas celebrated by Filipinos and more!

In 1973, the Afghans still had a King who ruled from a palace in Kabul with his own resident court of musicians when Veronica set up home in Herat. This Afghan city sat close to the Persian frontier and was fully cognizant of its glorious history as the capital of a once vast Central Asian Empire. Veronica was not a casual traveler but a young musician married to a scholar. She was determined to make use of her time in Afghanistan and break out of the charmed circle of the expatriate academic and make real friendships with local women. The tentative story, the growth in these very different friendships, takes the reader into a rare, deep, and privileged insight into the hidden world of Afghan female society. This is more than enough to make this book remarkable, but it has an afterlife of its own. For a Communist coup, then the Russian invasion, a long guerrilla war of Resistance is followed by Civil War and the rise of the Taliban. Veronica was separated from her friends: feared the worst, sought to assist but was also aware that contact from a westerner could be lethal to them. Then a fragile peace allowed her to meet them again and pick up their stories. It is a most exceptional work, which reads like a novel.