Book picks similar to
The Railway to Heaven: From the U.K. to Tibet on the longest and highest railways in the world by Matthew Woodward
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Quest and Crew
David Beaupre - 2014
‘Quest and Crew’ is the first book of a four book series. It begins twenty-four hours before a Category 5 hurricane devastates the south shore of Grenada. It’s a story about the many twists and turns that life can take. The sailboat Quest begins her new life with a full retrofit in North Carolina, followed by Quest’s launch in North Florida two years later. The job of becoming real sailors begins in North Palm Beach. On a clear starry night, we left South Florida on a hope enveloped by a dream. Finding ourselves only at the beginning of a new adventure, we set sail and anchored one island at a time through the Bahamas. The Caribbean is a few books away. Here is a glimpse into the powerful attraction of sailboats and sapphire water. ‘Quest and Crew’ is all about the joy of success as well as what it takes to overcome the occasional disaster. From beginning to end, the book is about transforming a rookie crew and beautiful old boat into a sailing adventure. Come for the hurricane, stay for the story.
The Secret DJ
The Secret DJ - 2018
The life of an international DJ playing at the most exotic destinations worldwide, in the most precarious of psychic circumstances, is rich to the point of toxicity. A globally-known DJ choosing to keep his identity secret takes us on a journey into the heart of life lived in the hedonistic fast lane of club culture for 30 years. Whether playing to 10,000 fans in Ibiza or in a local pub function room, this is a cautionary tale for the rave generation whose days of pills, thrills, and bellyaches are behind them. It may, as well, contain advice: though we cannot advise that it is always followed.This book is not an instruction manual - more a cautionary tale that may illuminate anyone who has harboured ambition to pack a dancefloor...
Tents and Tent Stability: A Month-Long Camping Adventure In Germany - In a Rather Dodgy Tent!
Chris Lown - 2012
His mission: to explore Germany’s rustic countryside and historical towns, meet the local people, eat their cheese and drink their beer. Whether riding a draisine in the Uckermark National Park, witnessing the spectacle of rabbit showjumping in Jena or bathtub racing on the Edersee, Lown takes in the sights and dissects the culture as he zigzags his way around all sixteen of Germany’s states. But his tent doesn’t fare quite so well. After it survived an act of wanton vandalism, battled against inclement weather and was torn to shreds by a fox with a rapacious appetite and a penchant for Knackwurst, Lown is finally forced to concede that buying a cheap tent wasn’t the wisest of decisions.
Janapar: Love, on a Bike
Tom Allen - 2013
But the hours spent poring over maps could never have prepared them for the experience of life on the road: the petty squabbles, the extreme hospitality, the unexpected joys and dangers.And then Tom meets Tenny, a feisty Iranian-Armenian girl with dreams of her own, and hits a crossroad. Should he give up his grand plan for the girl he loves, or cycle off and risk missing out on the greatest adventure of them all?
Unholy Pilgrims: How One Man Thought Walking 800 Kilometres Across Spain Would Sort Out His Life
Tom Trumble - 2011
So he takes up an offer to go on a seriously long walk – the ancient Christian pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, the domain of the devout.Despite his good intentions, Tom's route takes him into every bar along the way while crossing paths with the loopy and the wise, the pious and the distinctly ungodly. He finds himself contending with song-happy evangelists, unlikely scholars and enlightened globetrotters, and randy backpackers out to bed every pilgrim they meet. Not to mention his own very restless demons, some of which lead him to confront troubles he thought he'd left at home.Unholy Pilgrims is an irreverent and engaging take on figuring out what the hell to do with your life.
I'm Just Sitting on a Fence
Dax Flame - 2014
But that may be misleading; there’s more to it than that.
The Saddest Pleasure: A Journey on Two Rivers
Moritz Thomsen - 1990
Offers a personal look at the people, poverty, beauty, and passion of South America by an expatriate American who left his farm in Ecuador at the age of sixty-three to embark on a journey through Brazil on the Amazon River.
Chasing the Horizon
Cap'n Fatty Goodlander - 1991
It is an outrageously funny, often touching, and continuously shocking tale of a modern sea gypsy. Cap'n Fatty's story is too bizarre to be fiction. Father wears floral skirts; mother is a tad vague. Sister Carole isn't interested in her millionaire suitor; she's too busy smooching with the kid in the cesspool truck. Their strange live-aboard boat caravan includes Mort the Mortician, Backwards Bernie, Ruby Red the Conman, Barefoot Benny, Geeper Creeper, Para the Paranoid, Lusty Laura, Xlax, Shark Boy, the Pawtucket Pirate, Bait Broad, Colonel Crispy, Scupper Lips, Bob the Broker, the Pirate Queen, Otto the Owner, the Twin Slaves of Green Slime-and even a terribly long-winded fellow named (Hurricane) Hugo. All seem hell-bent on avoiding the cops, the creeps, each other, and especially the Dreaded Dream Crushers. Dive in!
The Box Wine Sailors: Misadventures of a Broke Young Couple at Sea
Amy McCullough - 2015
Their experience included reading a few books, watching a couple of instructional videos, and sailing once a week for a year. They were land-lubberly, middle-class twentysomethings, audacious and in love. All they wanted was to be together and do something extraordinary. They quit their jobs, bought a boat that was categorically considered "too small" for ocean sailing, and left Portland, Oregon for the Sea of Cortez.The Box Wine Sailors tells the true story of a couple's ramshackle trip down the coast, with all the exulting highs and terrifying lows of sailing a small boat on the Pacific. From nearly being rammed by a pair of whales on Thanksgiving morning and the terrifying experience of rounding Punta Gorda—hanging on to the mast for dear life and looking about at what seemed like the apocalypse—to having their tiller snap off while accidentally surfing coastal breakers and finding ultimate joy in a $5 Little Caesar's pizza. It also tells the story of two very normal people doing what most people only dream of, settling the argument that if you want something bad enough you can make it happen.
Cycling the Earth: A Life-changing Race Around the World
Sean Conway - 2016
He was immediately inspired – but it was a huge undertaking and he’d hardly been on a bike in years. Could he really cycle all the way round the world, solo and unsupported?Six months later, after completing a punishing training schedule and packing up everything he owned into boxes, Sean was in Greenwich Park on the start line of the adventure of a lifetime. Soon he was way ahead of schedule, averaging 180 miles per day, and on course to break the round the world cycling record. But then disaster struck, and Sean was forced to confront the possibility that he may not be able to complete the race...In the course of his 16,000-mile journey, Sean travelled the famous pan-American highway across the Atacama Desert, outran tornados, relied on fellow travellers to ferry water across the Australian outback, and inadvertently joined a cycle club in Mumbai. He learnt things about himself he didn’t know and rediscovered a spirit of adventure that changed everything. This is a book about an amazing and sometimes incredibly difficult journey, but it’s also a book about never giving up when there’s an opportunity to follow your dreams.
Surf Mama - One Woman's Search for Love, Happiness and the Perfect Wave
Wilma Johnson - 2011
The plan hits troubled waters as she arrives in France with her marriage on the rocks and three children who speak no French. Her first attempts at surfing are disastrous; resulting in bruises, broken bones and a damaged ego, but when she experiences the euphoric feeling of catching her first wave and sets up the Mamas Surf Club, it's all worth it.
Three Men in a Float: Across England at 15 mph
Dan Kieran - 2008
After planning the entire trip on the back of a beer mat, buying a 1958 decommissioned milk float on eBay, and charging its tired batteries, the team set off from Lowestoft to Lands End. On the way, they discovered that their float needs to charge for eight hours for every two hours it spends on the road. Relying on the milk of human kindness, they were at the mercy of strangers every night, sometimes even using other people's cookers just to keep the show on the road. En route, they were treated to tea and rock cakes by the Vice President of the Women's Institutes, succeeded in blacking out a Cornish campsite while charging their float (now dubbed The Mighty One), stayed with the monks at Buckfast Abbey where they undertook a vow of silence, and drove 500 miles to Tintagel, the birth place of King Arthur, only to find it had closed—all in the name of discovering lost England. You may be thinking: why on earth don't these men drive a car like normal people? But this is no ordinary journey. This is an eccentric odyssey through the English countryside. Three Men in a Float is about all things English and the pleasure to be had if you are prepared to slow down, get out of your car, and go off the beaten track.
The Shipping Forecast: A Miscellany
Nic Compton - 2016
It has inspired songs, poetry and imaginations across the globe – as well as providing a very real service for the nation’s seafarers who might fall prey to storms and gales. In 1995, a plan to move the late-night broadcast by just 12 minutes caused a national outcry and was ultimately scrapped.Published with Radio 4 and the Met Office, The Shipping Forecast is the official miscellany for seafarers and armchair travellers alike. From the places themselves – how they got their names, what’s happened there through the ages – to the poems and parodies that it’s inspired, this is a beautifully evocative tribute to one of Britain's – and Radio 4's – best-loved broadcasts.
The Distance Between: A Travel Memoir
Mike McIntyre - 2014
Luckily, something remarkable happens wherever he roams. With his keen eye and original voice, he portrays evocative travel moments both big and small. In Sarajevo, he skis with soldiers at the height of the Bosnian War. Outside a Mexican bullring, two boys mistake him for their idol, a professional wrestler. And returning to a tropical paradise, he’s assigned the same hotel room where an older woman broke his heart five years earlier.Along the way, he challenges a rival to a goat race in Saudi Arabia, searches for his missing shoes with barefooted villagers in Honduras, plunges through the Himalayas in aviation’s most terrifying final approach, and joins the U.S. Navy—for one week, anyway. To top it off, he reveals his favorite travel tip gleaned from forty years of globetrotting.By turns hilarious, wistful, and dramatic, The Distance Between draws a captivating self-portrait of a lifelong vagabond and a writer critics call “a reader’s dream” (San Diego Union-Tribune).
The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost: A Memoir of Three Continents, Two Friends, and One Unexpected Adventure
Rachel Friedman - 2011
There she forms an unlikely bond with a free-spirited Australian girl, a born adventurer who spurs Rachel on to a yearlong odyssey that takes her to three continents, fills her life with newfound friends, and gives birth to a previously unrealized passion for adventure. As her journey takes her to Australia and South America, Rachel discovers and embraces her love of travel and unlocks more truths about herself than she ever realized she was seeking. Along the way, the erstwhile good girl finally learns to do something she’s never done before: simply live for the moment.