"White, and more white, in every imaginable shade. Each and every second in this whiteness became an ordeal: being this close to the magnetic South Pole made the needle of my compass spin like the hands of a crazy watch. I didn't know where I was heading. I was a blind man in the middle of Antarctica ... "

South African-born explorer Mike Horn achieved his childhood dream of crossing Antarctica in February 2017. Journeying alone across this immense, white desert on foot and by kite-ski, he followed an unexplored path: 5 100 kilometres over crevasses, ice fields and some of the highest summits of the South Pole.

Dream of a Lifetime: Crossing Antarctica tells the story of the authorʼs deeply personal quest, which followed the loss of his wife. It is the narrative of an individual testing his limits and overcoming adversity through willpower, with the support of family and friends.

After exploring more than twenty other African nations using only public transport, Sihle Khumalo this time roams within the borders of his own country. The familiarity of his own car is a luxury, but what he finds on his journey through South Africa ranges from the puzzling to the downright bizarre.

Voyaging from the northernmost part of South Africa right to the south, the author noses his car down freeways and back roads into small towns, townships, and villages, some of which you’ll have trouble finding on a map.

But this is no clichéd description of beautiful landscapes and blue skies. Khumalo is out to investigate the state of the nation, from its highest successes to its most depressing failures. Whether or not he’s baffled, surprised, or sometimes plain angry, Sihle Khumalo will always find warmth in his fellow South Africans: security guards, religious visionaries, drunks, political activists and the many other colourful personalities that come alive in his riveting account.

In May 2015 Weg/Go journalist Erns Grundling was disillusioned with love, life and himself. Then he decided to embark on a life-changing journey, undertaking a solo walk along the Camino, the famous Spanish pilgrimage – despite being illprepared, overweight, unfit and nursing an injury.

Walk it Off recounts Erns’s 1 025 kilometre journey, completed in 40 days without cell phone, camera or watch, so that he could rediscover what it means to truly live in the moment.

He falls in love (three and a half times), meets a fellow pilgrim who’s his doppelganger, experiences numerous adventures and comes across a series of colourful characters. In the process he sheds 10 kilograms and undergoes an inner transformation.

Walk it Off is something out of the ordinary – a travelogue and memoir, and a life-affirming adventure story that will inspire readers to put on their walking shoes and dare to venture where they haven’t gone before.

Told with the immediacy of a diary, which is where the book began, Patrick takes us on a journey to the highest mountain in the world, where one of the greatest tragedies in climbing history was about to unfold. Filled with photographs and sketches from his notebooks we become part of the Radio 702 team sent to cover the South African Everest Expedition of 1996. It would turn out to be the deadliest climbing seasons in the peak’s history.

Twenty years later the controversy around what truly happened on the mountain continues to rage. Conroy kept a meticulous diary and recorded many hours of radio communications between the climbers. Now, two decades later, his memoirs reveal a remarkable and untold story of what happened on the mountain that fateful year. Everest Untold includes hidden insights and never before revealed transcripts that shed new light on the 1996 disaster, including the mysterious disappearance of one of the South African team members in the death zone.

Conroy’s hidden story reopens the debate on the risks of high-altitude mountaineering and what it meant to a young democratic South Africa unaware of the dangers that lay ahead.

Tom David and Warren Handley are two South Africans who at 24 years-of-age took the first steps of a life-changing journey.

This is the honest, gripping account of climbing the highest mountain in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro, and walking 6 000km through six countries on US$2 a day in aid of early childhood development.

In a story of extreme pain and even greater kindness, overcoming challenges and lessons learned, they have a message to share.

South Africa is a country rich in pathways, tracks and roads – both tar and gravel. It is also a country of wonderful stories, blessed with a varied, colourful and contested history.

For more than a year veteran journalist Luke Alfred walked South Africa’s roads through cities, countryside and everything in between.

Early One Sunday Morning I Decided to Step Out and Find South Africa tells the stories of some of the country’s most interesting and sometimes forgotten places.

What’s your cat up to when you’re not around? Do dragons exist? Are clouds alive? Why did three men risk their lives for a single penguin egg?

These are just a few of the questions and stories puzzled over by award-winning travel writer and naturalist Don Pinnock. Assembled from years of wandering around Africa, this is a funny, entertaining and thought-provoking book.

Azille Coetzee gaan studeer in Nederland, kry ’n Nederlandse lover en besluit om in Europa aan te bly. Maar iets voel nie reg nie … Daar is tog altyd die vraag: Watter herkoms hou die styfste vas, Afrika of Europa? Dié is ’n uiters leesbare verhaal van identiteit, reis en liefde: intiem, eerlik en slim.

Africa is falling. Africa is succeeding. Africa is betraying its citizens. Africa is a place of starvation, corruption, disease. African economies are soaring faster than any on earth. Africa is squandering its bountiful resources. Africa is a roadmap for global development. Africa is turbulent. Africa is stabilising. Africa is doomed. Africa is the future.

All of these pronouncements prove equally true and false, as South African journalists Richard Poplak and Kevin Bloom discover on their 9-year roadtrip through the paradoxical continent they call home. From pillaged mines in Zimbabwe to the creation of an economic marketplace in Ethiopia; from Namibia’s middle class to the technological challenges facing Nollywood in the 21st Century; from China’s investment in Botswana to the rush for resources in the Congo; and from the birth of Africa’s newest country, South Sudan, to the worsening conflict in CAR, here are eight adventures on the trail of a new Africa.

Part detective story, part report from this economic frontier, Continental Shift follows the money as it flows through Chinese coffers to international conglomerates, to heads of state, to ordinary African citizens, all of whom are intent on defining a metamorphosing continent.

“Sometime in November 2007 while working as an entertainment and lifestyle journalist, a job that had seen me party and hang out with local and international stars, including John Legend, I realised that I was over my life in South Africa. My job was fab and my life should have been great but it wasn’t because who cares if you get to pose with Beyoncé? I had had enough of writing about people living their wildest dreams. It was time to see what the story of my life would be. I had always had wanderlust, especially for Africa. And so I made the decision to leave South Africa, an urgent need that consumed me and almost drove me to a point of insanity. I planned to spend three months in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Togo and Benin.”

When Lerato Mogoathle left South Africa for a planned three-month break to West Africa little did she know that those three months would turn into five years.

Vagabond is her hilarious and honest account of her five years of living as a drifter in Africa. In between the borders, foreign architecture and interesting new ways of life, Mogoatlhe found passion, love, laughter and heartbreak. On these pages you will find capsules of time spent in 21 countries in five regions of Africa. You will be regaled by the tales of how she tries to worm herself into hotels when she has no money because of unpaid invoices back home. You will be mortified and proud of how she navigates herself out of difficult situations like being misread by a man who tries to force himself on her.

Mogoatlhe’s book is a travel memoir driven by the belief that whatever else Africa is, it is first and foremost a home. It is punctuated with a deep urge to know the continent differently.

Blacks Do Caravan tells the story of a young South African family’s caravan journey, and the everlasting memories created along the way included amazing adventures and wonderful experiences. The book aims to inspire South Africans to take time out of their busy schedules and spend that valuable time with their families to discover the beauty of our country.

Fikile’s trip began on 15 September 2014 and during the journey she came to the realisation that South Africa is still a divided nation. Over twenty years into democracy, boundaries still divide us. Fikile aims to break those boundaries created by the past regime and contribute to the unity that is needed for all South Africans to move forward and experience this country equally. What better way to do it than caravanning?

Fikile and her family visited over 60 caravan parks and extended their travels to the Kingdom of Swaziland, which became an eye opening, mind changing trip of a lifetime.

Steve and I clutched hands - his right in my left - and then we simultaneously pushed down with our feet. Cogs clicked, wheels turned, and we were on our way. We left Nordkapp within minutes. Cape Town was only 18,000 kilometres away.

Deciding to break away from his comfortable lifestyle in London, Reza and his friend Steven set off from the most northerly point on mainland Europe to cycle the 11,000 miles to the other end of the planet, completely unsupported. Their expedition becomes a race against the clock, as they attempt to complete the trip in a world record of just 100 days. Battling punishing terrain and primitive roads, harsh and debilitating climates, malaria, food poisoning and heat stroke, their thrilling journey brings them face to face with some of the world's most stunning, memorable and volatile regions.

This is the intensely personal story of one man's mission to create a more positive, purposeful life, and the compelling account of the epic journey he took to get there.

In 2018, kort op die hakke van sy topverkoper-memoires oor die Camino, Elders, en die kykNET-reeks Elders: Die Camino, reis Erns Grundling met ’n TV-span na Japan om ’n nuwe Elders-reeks te gaan verfilm oor die land waar die Rugbywêreldbeker 2019 sal plaasvind. Sushi en shosholoza is sy verslag van die reis. Kom stap weer saam met Erns, dié keer op die plek waar talle Suid-Afrikaners laat in 2019 die Bokke sal gaan ondersteun. Konnichiwa, Japan!

It is the driest, flattest, hottest, most desiccated, infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents and still Australia teems with life - a large portion of it quite deadly. In fact, Australia has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way than anywhere else. Ignoring such dangers - and yet curiously obsessed by them - Bill Bryson journeyed to Australia and promptly fell in love with the country. And who can blame him? The people are cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted and unfailingly obliging: their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water; the food is excellent; the beer is cold and the sun nearly always shines. Life doesn't get much better than this...

Small in stature but very big on charm, Britain's tiniest treasures have always been worth celebrating, but it takes a trained eye to track them down throughout the length and breadth of the country. Step forward Dixe Wills, champion of all things tiny. Taking us on a miniature odyssey traversing the smallest counties in the land, jumping aboard the tiniest ferry and crossing the shortest river, he seeks out these Lilliputian treasures, examines their best features under the magnifying glass and bigs them up for our benefit. Undaunted in his search for the diminutive and bold in his quest for the bijou, he presents his findings here - the tiniest bits of Britain writ large, for all to see.

'Part travelogue, part memoir and wholly engaging' Daily Mail Bestselling author and hugely popular commentator David 'Bumble' Lloyd takes the reader on an unmissable and hilarious tour of the cricketing world as he searches for the perfect pint. After more than 50 years involved with cricket as a player, international, umpire, coach and now commentator, David Lloyd has travelled the world. It's all a long way from his childhood, growing up in a terraced house in post-war Accrington, Lancashire. But cricket has taken him all over the globe, and he has experienced everything from excruciating agony Down Under to the Bollywood glamour of the IPL - he's even risked it all to cross the Pennines into Yorkshire. In Around the World in 80 Pints, Bumble relives some of the most exciting and remarkable periods in his life, showing how his travels have opened up new and exciting avenues for him. The book is packed full of brilliant stories from famous Ashes matches and Roses clashes, sharing the commentary box with Ian Botham and Shane Warne, and much else besides - all told in his idiosyncratic style that has won him so many fans the world over. His previous autobiography, Last in the Tin Bath, was a huge bestseller, and this one is sure to appeal to anyone who shares Bumble's unquenchable love for cricket - and life!

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2017 SHORTLISTED FOR THE LONDON HELLENIC PRIZE 2017 WINNER OF THE PRIX MEDITERRANEE 2018 From the award-winning, best-selling writer: a deeply moving tale of a father and son's transformative journey in reading - and reliving - Homer's epic masterpiece. When eighty-one-year-old retired scientist Jay unexpectedly enrols in his estranged classicist son Daniel's course on the Odyssey, the journey of a lifetime commences. Professor and student glean life lessons from the page over a semester and, that summer, son and father take to the sea to follow Odysseus's epic trail. Reading Homer becomes their chance to understand each other before it's too late. Theirs is a moving and erudite story of filial love and the importance of the classics. Rich with literary and emotional insight and weaving themes of deception and recognition, marriage and children, the pleasures of travel and the meaning of home, this is memoir writing at its finest.

`An entertaining book, written with Fort's characteristic conversational style... A real pleasure to read' - BBC Countryfile `A wide-ranging, intelligent and bracingly enjoyable book' - The Literary Review `Meticulously researched and seasoned with wry humour, this is a perceptive and richly rewarding read' - Mail on Sunday We have lived in villages a long time. The village was the first model for communal living. Towns came much later, then cities. Later still came suburbs, neighbourhoods, townships, communes, kibbutzes. But the village has endured. Across England, modernity creeps up to the boundaries of many, breaking the connection the village has with the land. With others, they can be as quiet as the graveyard as their housing is bought up by city `weekenders', or commuters. The ideal chocolate box image many holidaying to our Sceptred Isle have in their minds eye may be true in some cases, but across the country the heartbeat of the real English village is still beating strongly - if you can find it. To this mission our intrepid historian and travel writer Tom Fort willingly gets on his trusty bicycle and covers the length and breadth of England to discover the essence of village life. His journeys will travel over six thousand years of communal existence for the peoples that eventually became the English. Littered between the historical analysis, are personal memories from Tom of the village life he remembers and enjoys today in rural Oxfordshire.

'A nostalgic experience, informative, humorous, charming, but pervaded by the bitter-sweet scent of regret' Daily Mail 'Fort has an eye for the quirky, the absurd, the pompous and a style that, like the road, is always on the move' Sunday Telegraph 'A lovely book...At last someone has celebrated the romance of the British road' Guardian The A303 is more than a road. It is a story. One of the essential routes of English motoring and the road of choice to the West Country for thousands of holidaymakers, the A303 recalls a time when the journey was an adventure and not simply about getting there. In this fully revised and updated edition, Tom Fort gives voice to the stories this road has to tell, from the bluestones of Stonehenge, Roman roads and drovers paths to turnpike tollhouses, mad vicars, wicked Earls and solstice seekers, the history, geography and culture of this road tells a story of an English way of life.

They say that being a good doctor boils down to just four things: Shut up, listen, know something, care. The same could be said for life on the road, too. When Stephen Fabes left his job as a junior doctor and set out to cycle around the world, frontline medicine quickly faded from his mind. Of more pressing concern were the daily challenges of life as an unfit rider on an overloaded bike, helplessly in thrall to pastries. But leaving medicine behind is not as easy as it seems. As he roves continents, he finds people whose health has suffered through exile, stigma or circumstance, and others, whose lives have been saved through kindness and community. After encountering a frozen body of a monk in the Himalayas, he is drawn ever more to healthcare at the margins of the world, to crumbling sanitoriums and refugee camps, to city dumps and war-torn hospital wards. And as he learns the value of listening to lives - not just solving diagnostic puzzles - Stephen challenges us to see care for the sick as a duty born of our humanity, and our compassion.

'This important, disturbing and frequently heartbreaking book should be read by every politician in Westminster.' Adrian Tempany, Observer 'In a few weeks' time, it would be thirty-five years to the day since those men and women had walked 340 miles to try to save their communities and their culture, and thirty-five years since I had turned down Pete's invitation to join them. I called work and booked some time off. Then I bought a one-way train ticket to Liverpool.' In 1981, Mike Carter's dad, Pete, organised the People's March for Jobs, which saw 300 people walk from Liverpool to London to protest as the Thatcher government's policies devastated industrial Britain and sent unemployment skyrocketing. Just before the 2016 EU referendum, Mike set off to walk the same route in a quest to better understand his dad and his country. As he walked, Mike found many echoes of the early eighties: a working class overlooked and ignored by Westminster politicans; communities hollowed out but fiercely resistant; anger and despair co-existing with hope and determination for change. And he also found that he and Pete shared more in common than he might have thought. All Together Now? maps the intricate, overlapping path of one man's journey and that of an entire country. It is a book about belonging, about whether to stay or go, and about the need to write new stories for our communities and ourselves.

In Afskeid van Europa lewer Karel Schoeman verslag van sy laaste twee besoeke aan Nederland, Duitsland en Oostenryk gedurende die herfs van 2011 en 2013. Dit is veral die stede Amsterdam, Berlyn, Dresden, Salzburg en Wene wat aandag kry en ook met Schoeman se vermoe om mense en plekke wat hy waarneem, in woorde tot gestalte te bring. By dit alles is daar ’n ondertoon van heimwee en gelatenheid omdat die skrywer voortdurend bewus is daarvan dat dit werklik sy laaste besoeke is en hy dikwels aan sy ouderdom herinner word: “‘Elderly,’ lees ek op my vliegkaartjie, ‘can’t walk long distance can sit gate close 15 minutes prior to departure.’ Dit is ek.” Maar afgesien van die element van afskeid, is dit Schoeman se belesenheid en sy vermoe om hede en verlede te skakel wat opval en hierdie boek ’n ryk leeservaring maak. Nie alleen die politieke geskiedenis nie, maar ook die verhale van die gewone mens soos dit in die letterkunde uitgebeeld is, word in verband gebring met die strate, parke, kerke en paleise van die groot stede wat hy besoek. Onvermydelik skryf hy oor die twee wereldoorloe se impak op mens en omgewing, maar ook die vasberade inisiatiewe om te restoureer en te herstel in stede soos Berlyn en Dresden. Die hede met sy massatoerisme, die gewonde daaglikse gang van sake en veral ook die tipiese geregte van die plekke wat hy besoek, verseker dat die boek vir eietydse reisigers ook relevant is.

Iets heerliks gebeur. Dis asof ek nie meer Lanie-op-’n-fiets op ’n mission is nie, maar een word met die natuur om my; of ek nog van altyd af hier was, hier hoort. Asof die lewe nog altyd eenvoudig was. Ek klim af en gaan lê op my rug en kyk deur die herfsblare wat goud aan die bome hang tot by die ysblou lug ver bo. Ek wil iets gee, iets sê…

Net mooi fine is die opvolg van Lanie van Reenen se suksesvolle boek C’est la Vie. Hierin beskryf sy wat gebeur het sedert haar hotelprojek in Frankryk gefaal het; hoe sy die nuwe realiteite van haar eie gestroopte lewe te bowe moet kom terwyl sy ook die verwerende château moet probeer red of verkoop.

Op haar pad na heling onderneem Lanie vele avonture: soms alleen per fiets, soos wanneer sy die Camino Portuguese voltooi; maar ook te voet, soos die tog na die berg Everest se basiskamp wat sy ter wille van liefdadigheid onderneem.

In hierdie ontroerende omstandighede ontstaan die vraag: Wat is die somtotaal van verlies? En hoe groot is die wins wat verlies tot gevolg kan hê as jy bewustelik daarmee omgaan, sodat ʼn mens ten slotte kan sê: “Eintlik is alles net mooi fine”?

Die "ver paaie" in hierdie teks (wat in 1949 vir die eerste keer verskyn het) verwys na 'n reis wat die vertellende P.J. Schoeman deur die Kaokoveld in Suidwes-Afrika onderneem het. Deur die soektog na 'n wilde perd ontwikkel die reis egter in 'n verkenning van die gees en word die uiterlike gebeure met die romantiese verlange en die strewe na 'n onvervulde droom verbind.

What leads us to believe in monsters? What happens when we meet the brutal creatures of our nightmares? Tales of the yeti, the 'Abominable Snowman' of the Himalayas, have been recorded for centuries. This huge, ape-like, hairy creature has tantalised explorers, mountaineers and locals with curious footprints and elusive appearances. But until recently, no one has been able to identify what this mythical creature might be, or even determine if it is real. On an expedition to the remote Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, Graham Hoyland found and filmed footprints of the mythical yeti in a part of the country that has never before been visited by Western explorers. In a lost valley near the unclimbed mountain Gangkar Punsum, Hoyland believes he was stalked by the mysterious yeti, a beast so unspeakably powerful that locals say it can kill a yak with one savage blow of its fist. As he delves into the fascinating history of this ancient legend, Hoyland hears tales of the yeti from Sherpas who have tried and failed to track it. He explores the literary hinterland behind the legend and searches for the yeti's American cousin Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster and her African relative Mokele-Mbembe. From the dubious, mystical pseudo-science of the Nazis in the 1930s to our current era of 'post-truth' and 'fake news', Hoyland examines the age-old cultural phenomena that have shaped our collective consciousness and fuelled a belief in the existence of these monstrous creatures.