As a teenager, Kate Harris realized that the career she craved--to be an explorer, equal parts swashbuckler and metaphysician--had gone extinct. From what she could tell of the world from small-town Ontario, the likes of Marco Polo and Magellan had mapped the whole earth; there was nothing left to be discovered. Looking beyond this planet, she decided to become a scientist and go to Mars. In between studying at Oxford and MIT, Harris set off by bicycle...

In the 1970s, the ultimate trip for any backpacker was the storied “Hippie Trail” from Istanbul to Kathmandu. A 23-year old Rick Steves made the trek, and like a travel writer in training, he documented everything along the way: jumping off a moving train, making friends in Tehran, getting lost in Lahore, getting high for the first time in Herat, battling leeches in Pokhara, and much more. The experience ignited his love of travel and forever...

When Jose Saramago decided some twenty years ago to write a book about Portugal, his only desire was that it be unlike any other book on the subject, and in this he certainly has succeeded. Recording the events and observations of a journey across the length and breadth of the country he loves dearly, Saramago brings Portugal to life as only a writer of his brilliance can. Forfeiting sources of information such as tourist guides and road maps, he...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The classic chronicle of a “terribly misguided and terribly funny” (The Washington Post) hike of the Appalachian Trail, from the author of A Short History of Nearly Everything and The Body
 
“The best way of escaping into nature.”—The New York Times 
 
Back in America after...

Beginning in New Zealand and coming to shore in Hawaii, the author explores fifty-one islands along the way in a collapsible kayak.

Shadow of the Silk Road records a journey along the greatest land route on earth. Out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran and into Kurdish Turkey, Colin Thubron covers some seven thousand miles in eight months. Making his way by local bus, truck, car, donkey cart and camel, he travels from the tomb of the Yellow Emperor, the mythic progenitor of the Chinese people, to the ancient...

In 1995, Iowa native Bill Bryson took a motoring trip around Britain to explore that green and pleasant land. The uproarious book that resulted, Notes from a Small Island, is one of the most acute portrayals of the United Kingdom ever written. Two decades later, Bryson--now a British citizen--set out again to rediscover his adopted country. In these pages, he follows a straight line through the island--from Bognor Regis to Cape Wrath--and shows us...

"Legendary travel writer Paul Theroux fearlessly drives the entire length of the US-Mexico border, then goes deep into the hinterland, on the back roads of Chiapas and Oaxaca, to uncover the rich, layered world behind today's brutal headlines."--Provided by publisher.

Like many others, around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned 30, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis. Although she had everything an educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want, including a husband, a home, and a successful career as a magazine writer, she was consumed with panic, grief, and confusion. The celebrated author of The Last American creates an irrestible, candid, and eloquent account of her yearlong worldwide pursuit...

International Bestseller: The famed travel writer and author of In Patagonia traverses Australia, exploring Aboriginal culture and song-and humanity's origins. Long ago, the creators wandered Australia and sang the landscape into being, naming every rock, tree, and watering hole in the great desert. Those songs were passed down to the Aboriginals, and for centuries they have served not only as a shared heritage but as a living map. Sing the right...