Too much stress and not enough time with her family left her feeling that her priorities were all wrong. So she and her husband quit their jobs, pulled their six-year-old daughter out of school, and moved into an old camper van.They planned to take a year off to drive south in search of a simpler life. What followed were three and a half years of heart-warming personal encounters, breath-taking wilderness campsites, and occasionally terrifying situations…...In Mexico, an angry mob surrounded them on a remote road and threatened them with rocks, but just a few hours later, a local family welcomed them into their home, sharing everything they had....While barreling down the highway in Colombia, their van’s battery exploded, filling their home-on-wheels with noxious fumes. Then the engine died entirely while parked in no-man’s-land between Ecuador and Peru, leaving them stranded for a month in a tiny border town. ...They learned first-hand about South American politics when they got caught among thousands of Venezuelan refugees trying to cross the Colombian border, and again when a revolution erupted around them in Bolivia and trapped them in the capital city among protests and road blocks....And they got caught in one of the world's strictest COVID quarantines in Argentina, living for over a year in a small mountain town there.Join them on these and other adventures in this feel-good read about a family trying to find their place in the world.

    

    This is a tale of India’s states, of why they build schools but do not staff them with teachers; favour a handful of companies so much that others slip into losses; wage water wars with their neighbours while allowing rampant sand mining and groundwater extraction; harness citizens’ right to vote but brutally crack down on their right to dissent. Reporting from six states over thirty-three months, award-winning investigative journalist M. Rajshekhar delivers a necessary account of a deep crisis that has gone largely unexamined.

    Julian Berrendero's victory in the 1941 Vuelta a Espana was an extraordinary exercise in sporting redemption: the Spanish cyclist had just spent 18 months in Franco's concentration camps, punishment for expressing Republican sympathies during the civil war. Seventy nine years later, perennially over-ambitious cyclo-adventurer Tim Moore developed a fascination with Berrendero's story, and having borrowed an old road bike with the great man's name plastered all over it, set off to retrace the 4,409km route of his 1941 triumph - in the midst of a global pandemic. What follows is a tale of brutal heat and lonely roads, of glory, humiliation, and then a bit more humiliation. Along the way Tim recounts the civil war's still-vivid tragedies, and finds the gregarious but impressively responsible locals torn between welcoming their nation's only foreign visitor, and bundling him and his filthy bike into a vat of antiviral gel.'Bill Bryson on two wheels' Independent

    Richly detailed, immaculately written and full of insights and encounters that bring a complex corner of the world to life' Michael Palin *As serialised on BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week***A FINANCIAL TIMES, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH AND SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR** **ONE OF THE DAILY TELEGRAPH 'S BEST 75 BOOKS OF 2021** A dramatic and ambitious new journey from our greatest travel writer. The Amur River is almost unknown. Yet it is the tenth longest river in the world, rising in the Mongolian mountains and flowing through Siberia to the Pacific to form the tense, highly fortified border between Russia and China. In his eightieth year, Colin Thubron takes a dramatic 3,000-mile long journey from the Amur's secret source to its giant mouth. Harassed by injury and by arrest from the local police, he makes his way along both the Russian and Chinese shores on horseback, on foot, by boat and via the Trans-Siberian Railway, talking to everyone he meets. By the time he reaches the river's desolate end, where Russia's nineteenth-century imperial dream petered out, a whole, pivotal world has come alive. The Amur River is a shining masterpiece by the acknowledged laureate of travel writing, an urgent lesson in history and the culmination of an astonishing career. 'Magnificent... Colin Thubron's observations on the relationship between Russia and China are full of insight, from which the world can benefit as it faces the challenges of the twenty-first century' Jung Chang

    Another glass made him think it really was quite a good plan, and by the third glass he had a full itinerary worked up.If only he'd checked the advance weather forecast, he would have seen that Europe in general, and central Europe in particular, was just about to be engulfed in the mother of all heatwaves. Relentless travel across Europe, jumping from one tin can on rails to another, was going to be decidedly not cool. But Jules lives in England where a heatwave is what they call it when you have to take your jumper off in July, so it honestly never occurred to him that it would be so hot. That bit’s all on Jules. Definitely his fault.Everything else that happened? Well, that’s up to you to decide.Oh, one more thing. Jules made this trip before Brexit and Covid and – depending on how far in the future you’re reading – while the planet still had its ice-caps and own water supply. So if any of its reads oddly – like, why hasn’t he got a mask on, how come they let him into Germany, what’s oxygen, that sort of thing – that’s why.Just roll with it. Like all the best stories, you need to suspend your disbelief.

    You’d think.Jules learns about travel the hard way, whether it’s setting out on his first European hitch-hiking adventure, writing about offbeat destinations for Rough Guides, or braving the shouty waiters of Naples on the hunt for the world’s best pizza.Not everything goes according to plan – what happened in Bali stays in Bali – but during a life in travel, Jules has racked up enough useful tips to fill a book. Just not this book.Hit the road with Jules – from Scotland to the South Pacific – and you’re guaranteed a great story, a good laugh and an occasional heartfelt sob. As long as you don’t listen to his advice, you’ll be absolutely fine.

    Curious about the places mentioned in the Ramayana, they set off on a journey of their own, following Rama's route from Ayodhya to the Dandakaranya forest and Panchavati (near Nashik) and on to Kishkindhya (close to Hampi), Rameshwaram and Sri Lanka.Along the way they would discover how closely the narrative of the Ramayana is linked to local folklore, and how the stories of the Ramayana and the moral framework that binds them together still speaks to the people who live in the land across which Rama, Sita and Lakshman made their journey.For the armchair traveller as well as the enthusiast for epic tales, this is a wonderful book with which to revisit the world of the Ramayana.

    These places include the poisonous caves in Mexico, full of deadly hydrogen sulphide, where the toughest fish in the world manage to survive; the magnificent Roman sunken palace that was lost beneath the streets of Constantinople for centuries; the ‘Door to Hell’ that was accidentally created by Soviet gas explorers in the 1970s and has been on fire for nearly half a century; and the drug-smuggling tunnels between Mexico and the USA.   Lavishly illustrated and packed with maps and photographs of little-explored locations, Subterranea is the unique, untold, and utterly unforgettable story of our planet from the inside.

    More like pockets of Africa, Asia, the Poles or North America, they make our own continent seem larger, stranger and more filled with secrets. Against the rapid climate breakdown of deserts, steppes and primeval jungles across the world, this book discovers the outlandish environments so much closer to home — along with their abundant wildlife: reindeer; bison; ibex; wolves and herds of wild horses.Blending sublime travel writing, nature writing and history — by way of Paleolithic cave art, reindeer nomads, desert wanderers, shamans, Slavic forest gods, European bison, Wild West fantasists, eco-activists, horseback archers, Big Grey Men and other unlikely spirits of place — these desolate and rich environments show us that the strange has always been near.

    A month later, her best friend, Terry, proposes marriage—by mail—throwing all their lives into turmoil.Jack offers the military life Ann grew up with. Terry, a conscientious objector, will leave for the Peace Corps at summer’s end, unless the draft board intervenes and sends him to jail. Her dilemma: she loves them both.Caught between the old mores and winds of change, Ann must make an agonizing choice. In alternating voices, A Rendezvous to Remember presents firsthand accounts by the two who eventually married, enriched by letters from the rival, whose path led him elsewhere. Provocative and delightfully uncensored, this coming-of-age memoir is a tribute to the enduring power of love and family.

    The last passage from Japan (Shimoda) to Canada (Victoria) took 51 days, and it was the hardest thing we've ever done. We decided to keep a physical logbook of daily happenings onboard.Upon our arrival, we transcribed the handwritten pages, so we could publish them online. Weeks later, we decided to expand on it, to release it as a digital book. We revised most of the text, expanded on specific logs, and added:- 51 new drawings- 16 new sections - Seasickness, Kuroshio, Sailing at night, Heaving-to, Squalls, Food, Self- steering, Food storage, Water, Birds and nature, Computers, The burden of electronics, Thrift and care, Catching rain, Coping with stress, Foul- weather gear and Pino's Japanese pantry.- 19 recipesBusy Doing Nothing is 218 pages long, written in English, and formatted for e-readers. The first version is still available to read online, but doesn't include the newer content an revised text. Buying this book is a way to support our work, we put a lot of work into it, and we hope you like it.