Fortunately (or unfortunately?) losing her comfortable office job was the perfect opportunity to do exactly that. At 28 years old, single, unattached, and now unemployed, she took her 2015 Yamaha FZ-07 and built the nimble sport bike into a make-shift adventure motorcycle. She packed it full of camping gear, and set off on an adventure that she had always dreamed about. The problem? Tiffani had scarcely traveled outside her long-time home in Los Angeles, let alone with nothing but a tent and hope to keep her safe. Chronicles of a Motorcycle Gypsy is an inspiring tale of confronting fears, insecurities, and self doubts for the sake of following your heart, all while discovering the many wonders of the 49 continental United States. Tiffani encounters some of the best and worst of humanity, meets a friend that eventually makes her journey a little less lonely, and puts all of her riding skills to the test, struggling with everything from her first time riding a sport bike in deep sand to getting caught in a blizzard in the Colorado mountains. It's a big world outside the racetrack! Originally published as a Travelogue in Motorcyclist Magazine as Girl Meets World, this full length memoir contains the untold stories and the details that were a little too racy for the blog. If you loved Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman's Long Way Round and Ted Simon's Jupiter's Travels, you'll love Chronicles of a Motorcycle Gypsy!

     Aside from the bipolar hillbillies, unfriendly wild animals, run-ins with the law, a mental breakdown, a bad first date, and a near-death experience . . . things actually went pretty well. Taking plenty of detours along the way, Rob’s contagious and hilarious sense of wanderlust carries him on a whirlwind road trip from the Smoky Mountains in the East, to Yellowstone, the Tetons, and Colorado’s snow-covered peaks in the West. In a refreshing style that brings these incredible wild places to life like no travel guide ever could, on seemingly every page we’re reminded of the one universal truth of travel . . . the best parts of any journey are the adventures we least expect.

    Simon Winchester has also fashioned an enthralling and informative informative look at the tumultuous subterranean world that produces earthquakes, the planet's most sudden and destructive force.In the early morning hours of April 18, 1906, San Francisco and a string of towns to its north-northwest and the south-southeast were overcome by an enormous shaking that was compounded by the violent shocks of an earthquake, registering 8.25 on the Richter scale. The quake resulted from a rupture in a part of the San Andreas fault, which lies underneath the earth's surface along the northern coast of California. Lasting little more than a minute, the earthquake wrecked 490 blocks, toppled a total of 25,000 buildings, broke open gas mains, cut off electric power lines throughout the Bay area, and effectively destroyed the gold rush capital that had stood there for a half century.Perhaps more significant than the tremors and rumbling, which affected a swatch of California more than 200 miles long, were the fires that took over the city for three days, leaving chaos and horror in its wake. The human tragedy included the deaths of upwards of 700 people, with more than 250,000 left homeless. It was perhaps the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.Simon Winchester brings his inimitable storytelling abilities -- as well as his unique understanding of geology -- to this extraordinary event, exploring not only what happened in northern California in 1906 but what we have learned since about the geological underpinnings that caused the earthquake in the first place. But his achievement is even greater: he positions the quake's significance along the earth's geological timeline and shows the effect it had on the rest of twentieth-century California and American history.A Crack in the Edge of the World is the definitive account of the San Francisco earthquake. It is also a fascinating exploration of a legendary event that changed the way we look at the planet on which we live.

    Driving the car is Michael Paterniti, a young journalist from Maine. Sitting next to him is an eighty-four-year-old pathologist named Thomas Harvey who performed the autopsy on Einstein in 1955--and simply removed the brain and took it home. And kept it for over forty years.On a cold February day, the two men and the brain leave New Jersey and light out on I-70 for sunny California, where Einstein's perplexed granddaughter, Evelyn, awaits. And riding along as the imaginary fourth passenger is Einstein himself, an id-driven genius, the original galactic slacker with his head in the stars.Part travelogue, part memoir, part history, part biography, and part meditation, Driving Mr. Albert is one of the most unique road trips in modern literature. With the brain as both cargo and talisman, Paterniti perceives every motel, truck-stop diner, and roadside attraction as a weigh station for the American dream in the wake of the scientist's mind-blowing legacy. Finally, inspired by the man who gave a skeptical world a glimpse of its cosmic origins, this extraordinary writer weaves his own unified field theory of time, love, and the power to believe, once again, in eternity.

    With the author's own wonderful Alaska stories and information on wildlife, native culture, landmarks, historical sites, shopping, and more, you won t miss a thing. Upton's Handbook traces the route used by most Alaska cruises, with maps and text keyed to a route numbering/navigational system that is frequently announced onboard, allowing the passenger to easily follow his ship s progress from Mile One. The wonderful illustrated maps and color photography throughout keep you informed throughout your journey, making a wonderful souvenir when it ends.

    He found it on Blackfish Sound ("Blackfish" is the Kwakiutl Indian word for the killer whale) in the Inside Passage, the rugged coastline between Seattle and Alaska. Leaving his home in Aspen, which had become a false Shangri-La for him, Modzelewski settled on a desolate island in the Inside Passage, a place which "after seducing you with beauty would shake you with fear. An unpredictable place that kept you always prepared, honed to the keen edge of life." Here he lived alone for months on end. Inside Passage describes his experiences in this unspoiled setting, where the sky is his ceiling, mountains are his walls, and physical challenges test him down to the marrow. He also forms unusual friendships with passing yachters, salmon fishermen, Kwakiutl Indians, loners, and the owner of the house he is staying at, Will Malloff, a man of oversized personality -- a healer, builder, woodsman, and thinker. Modzelewski writes with a love for nature and gentle humor about his interactions with the native animals (eagles, whales, wolves), local animals (cats, dogs, "tame" wild boars), and other settlers. Inside Passage is the powerful story of one man learning the ways of self-reliance in a soul-filled search through the northern wilderness.

    In Walking on the Land, he returns to write about the Arctic for the first time in two decades. Using a seminal trip he took through the eastern Arctic as his starting point, Mowat interweaves the stories and the fate of the Barrenground Inuit who were his friends with stunning, lyrical description of the land that was their traditional homeland. With great beauty and terrible anguish, Mowat traces the history of the Barrenground Inuit, revealing how the decimation of the caribou herds in the early part of the century, unleashed a series of famines and epidemics that virtually wiped out their population and left them reliant on a far-away government that understood too little of their needs and circumstances. Through his continued friendship with the survivors, Mowat brings us into the present, showing how the remnant population has survived. No Mowat work is complete without a cast of larger-than-life characters and his trademark marvellous storytelling. Walking on the Land is no exception. Old-time Hudson`s Bay company men, eccentric priests, wild bush pilots and well-meaning interlopers people the pages, bringing to life one of Canada`s most haunted places.

    I’ve been camping since I was a Boy Scout and RVing for more than 40 years, 17 of those years fulltiming with my wife, Lynn, in our Bounder motorhome. A good portion of the time we spent boondocking – camping off the grid – enjoying the freedom away from crowded campgrounds, exploring America’s wild lands and National Parks, camping along our scenic byways, on the shores of mountain lakes and streams, in the depths of our national and state forests, and in the wide open spaces of the Southwestern deserts. In this ebook I hope to inspire you to take the road-less-traveled and find your own private campsites – and I show you step-by-step how to do it easily and painlessly. Happy Travels.

    Did nothing happen in between? Determined to find out, he embarks on a journey of rediscovery, following in the footsteps of the many Europeans who preceded the Pilgrims to America.An irresistible blend of history, myth, and misadventure, A Voyage Long and Strange captures the wonder and drama of first contact. Vikings, conquistadors, French voyageurs — these and many others roamed an unknown continent in quest of grapes, gold, converts, even a cure for syphilis. Though most failed, their remarkable exploits left an enduring mark on the land and people encountered by late-arriving English settlers.Tracing this legacy with his own epic trek — from Florida's Fountain of Youth to Plymouth's sacred Rock, from desert pueblos to subarctic sweat lodges, Tony Horwitz explores the revealing gap between what we enshrine and what we forget. Displaying his trademark talent for humor, narrative, and historical insight, A Voyage Long and Strange allows us to rediscover the New World for ourselves.

    In the distance an immense cliff loomed, apparently to the summit of the mountains. Written by the medical officer of the Mariposa Battalion (the first group of Euro-Americans to enter the valley), Discovery of the Yosemite, and the Indian war of 1851 is perhaps the single most important original source we have that focuses on the early history of Yosemite Valley. Out of print for many years, this wonderful source chronicles key historical events surrounding the discovery of Yosemite, including the 1851 conflict with the Yosemite native population, and the naming of various landmarks. What makes this source particularly valuable and rich is the first person perspective provided by Dr Bunnel’s narrative. Lafayette Houghton Bunnell, born in 1824 in Rochester, New York, was an American author, explorer, and physician. Inspired by the males in his family, Bunnell desired adventure in ‘the West’ from a young age. He is perhaps most well-known for his involvement in the Mariposa Battalion, and is often credited as the person who named Yosemite. He was also a soldier and surgeon I the American Civil War. Albion Press is an imprint of Endeavour Press, the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

    The result is an extraordinary and indelible portrait of the modern Southwest in which Preston retraces Coronado's route, wandering over much of the "real West", fast vanishing under the corrosive tide of modern progress. Maps.

    Describes the author's three month canoe adventure, which started at Duluth, Minnesota and ended at York Factory on the shores of Hudson Bay.

    A few years ago, Mark Adams made a strange discovery: Everything we know about the lost city of Atlantis comes from the work of one man, the Greek philosopher Plato. Then he made a second, stranger discovery: Amateur explorers are still actively searching for this sunken city all around the world, based entirely on the clues Plato left behind. Exposed to the Atlantis obsession, Adams decides to track down these people and determine why they believe it’s possible to find the world’s most famous lost city and whether any of their theories could prove or disprove its existence. He visits scientists who use cutting-edge technology to find legendary civilizations once thought to be fictional. He examines the numerical and musical codes hidden in Plato’s writings, and with the help of some charismatic sleuths traces their roots back to Pythagoras, the sixth-century BC mathematician. He learns how ancient societies transmitted accounts of cataclysmic events—and how one might dig out the “kernel of truth” in Plato’s original tale.Meet Me in Atlantis is Adams’s enthralling account of his quest to solve one of history’s greatest mysteries; a travelogue that takes readers to fascinating locations to meet irresistible characters; and a deep, often humorous look at the human longing to rediscover a lost world.

    It was Hugh's thoughts of revenge for this abandonment that fueled his recovery and eventual tracking down of the young Bridger. James Bridger, known as Jim Bridger (1804 – 1881), was among the foremost mountain men, trappers, scouts and guides who explored and trapped the Western United States during the decades of 1820–1850, as well as mediating between native tribes and encroaching whites. From inside the book: The western plains and mountains brought forth thousands of men noted for their valor, bravery, daring, sagacity, woodcraft, frontiersmanship and skill in guiding wagon trains and military expeditions across the trackless prairie and barren desert and through snow capped mountain fastnesses on the way to the land of gold beyond the setting sun, or in trailing and bringing to bay the savage hordes that sternly fought the advances of civilization; but among those dauntless spirits there was one who stood head and shoulders above all others as the greatest scout, trapper and guide, the most skilled frontiersman, and the quietest, most modest and unassuming prairie man in all the west. That person was James Bridger, Major Bridger, or, as he was more commonly and familiarly known, "old Jim Bridger," the "grand old man of the Rockies." No history of the American western frontier would be complete without a sketch of the life of this remarkable man.

    As he observes the slow but sure destruction of everything the Jarawa require for their survival, Harish is moved by a need to understand, to do something. His unlikely friend and partner on this quest is uncle Pame, a seventy-year-old Karen boatman whose father was brought to the islands from Burma by the British in the 1920s. The islands also bring him to Seema, a 'local born'-a descendant of the convicts who were lodged in the infamous cellular jail of port Blair. Seema has seen the world, but unlike most educated islanders of her generation, she has decided to return home. Harishs earnestness, his fascination and growing love for the islands, their shared attempt to understand the Jarawa and the loss of her own first love, all draw Seema closer to Harish. As many things seem to fall in place and parallel journeys converge, an unknown contender appears-the giant tsunami of December 2004. The last wave is a story of lost loves, but also of a culture, a community, an ecology poised on the sharp edge of time and history.