Best Travelogues & Travel Essays

NatGeo takes you on a photographic tour of the world’s most spectacular destinations, inspiring tangible ideas for your next trip. That early experience instilled in him a reverence for the classic, timeless feel of a wonderful photograph, a reverence that he continues to feel even with his job as Director of Photography for National Geographic Travel.

Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. Digging deeply, he takes an inherently compelling mystery and unravels the larger riddles it holds: the profound pull of the American wilderness on our imagination; the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind; the complex, charged bond between fathers and sons. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity , and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding--and not an ounce of sentimentality. Anyone who ever fancied wandering off to face nature on its own harsh terms should give a look. "Engrossing...with a telling eye for detail, Krakauer has captured the sad saga of a stubborn, idealistic young man."

The Appalachian Trail trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America–majestic mountains, silent forests, sparking lakes. “Bill Bryson could write an essay about dryer lint or fever reducers and still make us laugh out loud.” – Chicago Sun-Times.

The 10th anniversary edition of one of the most iconic, beloved, and bestselling books of our time. Sustaining a chatty, conspiratorial tone, Gilbert fully engages readers in the year's cultural and emotional tapestry - conveying rapture with infectious brio, recalling anguish with touching candor - as she details her exotic tableau with history, anecdote and impression. Three years later, after a protracted divorce, she embarked on a yearlong trip of recovery, with three main stops: Rome, for pleasure (mostly gustatory, with a special emphasis on gelato); an ashram outside of Mumbai, for spiritual searching; and Bali, for "balancing."

Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection: This special eBook edition of Cheryl Strayed’s national best seller, Wild ,features exclusive content, including Oprah’s personal notes highlighted within the text, and a reading group guide. Amazon Best Books of the Month, March 2012: At age 26, following the death of her mother, divorce, and a run of reckless behavior, Cheryl Strayed found herself alone near the foot of the Pacific Crest Trail--inexperienced, over-equipped, and desperate to reclaim her life. While readers looking for adventure or a naturalist's perspective may be distracted by the emotional odyssey at the core of the story, Wild vividly describes the grueling life of the long-distance hiker, the ubiquitous perils of the PCT, and its peculiar community of wanderers. But Strayed doesn't want sympathy, and her confident prose stands on its own, deftly pulling both threads into a story that inhabits a unique riparian zone between wilderness tale and personal-redemption memoir. Two months before Wild was published I stood on a Mexican beach at sunset with my family assisting dozens of baby turtles on their stumbling journey across the sand, then watching as they disappeared into the sea. Echoing the ever-popular search for wilderness salvation by Chris McCandless (Back to the Wild, 2011) and every other modern-day disciple of Thoreau, Strayed tells the story of her emotional devastation after the death of her mother and the weeks she spent hiking the 1,100-mile Pacific Crest Trail. As her family, marriage, and sanity go to pieces, Strayed drifts into spontaneous encounters with other men, to the consternation of her confused husband, and eventually hits rock bottom while shooting up heroin with a new boyfriend. Woefully unprepared (she fails to read about the trail, buy boots that fit, or pack practically), she relies on the kindness and assistance of those she meets along the way, much as McCandless did.

In Bitter Lemons, Durrell tells the perceptive, often humorous, story of his experiences on Cyprus between 1953 and 1956-first as a visitor, then as a householder and teacher, and finally as Press Advisor to a government coping with armed rebellion.

The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2018 explains how Walt Disney World works and how to use that knowledge to make every minute and every dollar of your vacation count. And because they've found that "spontaneity and self-discovery work about as well at Walt Disney World as they do on your tax return," The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World is packed full of essential advice for anyone braving the frontiers of the mother of all theme parks.

Freedom, adventure, fun, stress-free, and relaxing are words RV owners frequently use to describe why they enjoy the RV lifestyle. You may find that retiring and living the RV lifestyle is just what you want to do. After all, the RV lifestyle is the most enjoyable and least expensive way to retire.

Border is a scintillating, immersive travel narrative that is also a shadow history of the Cold War, a sideways look at the migration crisis troubling Europe, and a deep, witchy descent into interior and exterior geographies. But she also possesses a gift that’s bestowed on only the best of travel writers: an ability to zero in on characters who illuminate the condition of a place in time.” ― The New York Times Book Review. Kassabova’s gifts as a poet shine when she describes the mystical, powerful landscape, the book’s true protagonist.” ― Newsday. “Rich with a profound sense of the region’s political and cultural history, this travelogue moves at an often meandering pace, its narrative broken up by condensed musings on personal conflict, historical ephemera or folklore. Kassabova devotes herself to intimate vignettes that sparkle with the dark charm of fairy tales and mystical fables. Kassabova’s gifts as a poet shine when she describes the mystical, powerful landscape, the book’s true protagonist. “An ethereal siren’s song woven from the myths, legends, and languages that converge in the borderland. The result is a portrait of a place out of time, separate from the countries the speakers inhabit―a distinctive space that the reader can enter too after falling under Kassabova’s spell. Reading Border is a dizzying reminder of the common humanity found on either side of any border.” ― The Christian Century. Kassabova proves to be a penetrating and contemplative guide through rough terrain.” ― Publishers Weekly , starred review. Border offers a dark look at a world of smugglers and spies, where the past maintains its hold even as people struggle to reach a brighter future." “A dreamlike account that subtly draws readers into the author’s ambivalent experience of a homeland that has changed almost beyond recognition.” ― Kirkus Reviews. “This is an exceptional book, a tale of travelling and listening closely, and it brings something altogether new to the mounting literature on the story of modern migration. [At a moment] when asylum-seekers are adrift from one end of the world to the other, Border makes for timely reading.” ― New Statesman (UK) “Riveting, beautifully written. Kassabova, a poet and novelist as well as an essayist, is ideally placed to take us on a journey to a corner of Europe that even today seems exotic and little known. In this region nearly everyone is at only one or two generational removes from exile and displacement, scattered among three alphabets and several nations; and along the way Kassabova meets treasure-hunters, refugees, retired spies, smugglers, hunters, botanists, healers, artists, Gypsies (Roma), forest rangers and -border guards. This is travel writing with lexical precision (“transhumance”, “karst”) and a sense of adventure, but with a distinctively female slant. With the best of travel writers, Kapka Kassabova is an explorer, viewing everything with the eyes of discovery, even as she uncovers strata of history and legend. She makes us long to peer closely at the map, and see these wondrous places for ourselves.” ― The Times Literary Supplement (UK).

The Prophet’s Camel Bell is both a fascinating account of Somali culture and British colonial characters, and a lyrical description of life in the desert. Margaret Laurence (1926–1987) was a well-known Canadian author of short stories and novels, including The Stone Angel , A Jest of God , The Diviners , and The Fire Dwellers .

Discover details on how and why the domestic and international parks have changed over time, and enjoy six decades worth of skillful creativity. Kevin Neary has coauthored The Hidden Mickeys of Walt Disney World (2016) with his wife Susan and four Disney trivia books (1992 2000) with Dave Smith for The Walt Disney Company as well as two baseball books ( Major League Dads: Baseball's Best Players Reflect on the Fathers Who Inspired Them to Love the Game , 2012, and Closer: Major League Players Reveal the Inside Pitch on Saving the Game , 2013) with Leigh A. Tobin for Running Press.

Part memoir and part travelogue, this unique cookbook that the story of Beata Zatorska's childhood in rural Poland, mixing stories of her youth and her grandmother’s handwritten recipes with stunning photos of Poland in summer. “From fold-out endpapers featuring colorful, folksy textiles, to the lace overprint on the front cover, the textures are so rich they almost render the experience three dimensional. "In addition to being a serious cookbook with more than 50 Polish recipes (from pierogi to poppy-seed cake) taken from Beata's grandmother's handwritten notes, as miraculously preserved as preserves, Rose Petal Jam is also part memoir and part travelogue, the story of Beata's idyllic childhood in the rural Karkonosze Mountains and her later day adventurous travels with Simon in Poland today.

A SONG OF AFRICA: and the Roots of Boko Haram Thrill and Learn Fortune seeking engineer, Paul Jeffries, out to make millions on a state of the art telecommunications project in Nigeria reluctantly agrees to reach out to the idealistic American ambassador’s daughter who has fled into the besieged rebel enclave of Biafra to help refugees there in the mid 1960’s. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + To understand how the terrorist group Boko Haram has risen in Nigeria in recent years, one must be familiar with the history of that troubled nation, home to every fourth person on the African Continent. For example, it is intriguing how in an article in the Wall Street Journal, Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s mini bio of Abubakar Shekau, leader of the terrorist group Boko Haram, resembles the strategy of Uthman dan Fodio who led the first Jihad in Nigeria at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Would the air over the plain quiver with a colour that I had on, or the children invent a new game in which my name was, or the full moon cast a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or would the eagles of Ngong look out for me?” Isak Dinneson “Out of Africa” "This country is filled with foreign spies." Ronald Brian Wheatley depicts his setting as forcefully as his characters, from the idyllic plateau region Paul (Jeffries) calls home to the perilous mangrove infested tributaries in the South. Congratulations to Ron Wheatley for his independent presentation of a missionary perspective, affirming in advance that to which Benedict exhorts us - The message, the mystery, the value of human life, and the conditions in which it is lived."

Instead of jaunting off to honeymoon on a posh Pacific island, the newlyweds hitched up their trusty Ford diesel truck (nicknamed “SEEMORE”) and started exploring America. Their “long long honeymoon” journey stretched over 60,000 miles, ranging from Key West (the southernmost point in the United States) all the way up to Banff, Alberta (that’s in Canada, eh?). LONG LONG HONEYMOON - LIVING LARGE IN A SMALL TIN CAN combines the best of Sean's blog entries with original never-before-published anecdotes of the trip.

The 10th anniversary edition of one of the most iconic, beloved, and bestselling books of our time. Sustaining a chatty, conspiratorial tone, Gilbert fully engages readers in the year's cultural and emotional tapestry - conveying rapture with infectious brio, recalling anguish with touching candor - as she details her exotic tableau with history, anecdote and impression. Three years later, after a protracted divorce, she embarked on a yearlong trip of recovery, with three main stops: Rome, for pleasure (mostly gustatory, with a special emphasis on gelato); an ashram outside of Mumbai, for spiritual searching; and Bali, for "balancing."

Fodor’s correspondents highlight the best of Africa, including Kenya's Masai Mara, South Africa's Kruger National Park, and Botswana's Kwando Reserve. Check out Fodor's travel guide to South Africa. “Fodor’s is pitched a few notches higher….aimed at a fairly discerning traveler with an appetite for background and the occasional surprise.” – New York Times.