She decided to pack up her life and head for the Yukon.Driving alone across the country from her home just north of Toronto, describing the land as it changes from Precambrian Shield to open prairie, Jill finds that solitude in the wilds is not what she expected. She is actively engaged by nature, her moods reflected in the changing landscape and weather. Camping in her tent as she travels, she begins to let go of the world she’s leaving and to enter the realm of the solitary traveller. There are many challenges in store. She has booked a place on a two-week sea-kayaking trip in the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia; though she owns a canoe, she has never been in a kayak. As the departure nears, she dreads it. Nor does it work any miracle charm on her, as she is isolated from her fellow travellers; yet the landscape and wild beauty of the old hunt camps gradually affects her. Halfway, as she begins to have energy left at the end of the day’s exertions, she notes: “This is as relaxed as I have ever been, as free from anxious future-thinking as I have ever managed.”From there she heads north, taking ferries up the Inside Passage and using her bicycle and tent to explore the wet, mountainous places along the way. Again, she feels self-conscious when alone in public, but once she strikes out into nature, the wilderness begins to work its magic on her, and she begins to feel a bond with the land and a kind of serenity. Moreover, she comes to realize that this self-reliance is an important step. Many travel narratives involve some kind of inner journey, a seeking of knowledge and of self. Set in the same part of the world, Jonathan Raban’s A Passage to Juneau ended up being “an exploration into the wilderness of the human heart.” Kevin Patterson used his months sailing from Vancouver to Tahiti to consider his life in The Water in Between, while the Bhutanese landscape worked a profound transformation on Jamie Zeppa in Beyond the Sky and the Earth. In This Cold Heaven, Gretel Ehrlich chose not to put herself into the story, but described the landscape with a similar hunger and intensity, while Sharon Butala has written deeply and personally about her physical and spiritual connection with the prairies in The Perfection of the Morning and other work.In Starting Out in the Afternoon, Frayne struggles to come to terms with her vulnerabilities and begins to find peace. In beautifully spare but potent language, she delivers an inspiring, contemplative memoir of the middle passage of a woman’s life and an eloquent meditation on the solace of living close to the wild land. Eventually what has begun as a three-month trip becomes a personal journey of several years, during which she is on the move and testing herself in the wilderness. She conquers her fears and begins a new relationship with nature, exuberant at becoming a competent outdoorswoman. “Despite a late start I expect to spend the rest of my life dashing off the highway, pursuing this know-how, plumbing the outdoors side of life.”

    During this unfathomably grueling expedition, they will face every manner of threat, from sharks, crocodiles, and bandits to stormy seas, malaria, and their own mortality all in search of a deeper connection to Mother Nature and the indigenous people who revere her most.This is a tale of adventure, sacrifice, and physical endurance that will leave you breathless with excitement, mourning for our heroes’ losses, and cheering their successes. The evocative, gripping narrative coupled with countless, award-worthy photographs makes this a must-read for those who love travel, outdoor adventure, and the exploration of other cultures. But most of all, it's for the dreamers who've been told they can't, and stubbornly refuse to listen.

    An hilarious account of a couple of wannabe mountain bikers as they race from Canada to Mexico.

    Some are adventurers seeking danger from the back of their horses. Others are travelers discovering the beauties of the countryside they slowly ride through. A few are searching for inner truths while cantering across desolate parts of the planet. Then there is Messanie Wilkins. She was acting on orders from the Lord! In 1954, at the age of 63, Wilkins had plenty to worry about. A destitute spinster in ill health, Wilkins had been told she had less than two years left to live, provided she spent them quietly. With no family ties, no money, and no future in her native Maine, Wilkins decided to take a daring step. Using the money she had made from selling homemade pickles, Wilkins bought a tired summer camp horse and made preparations to ride from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific Ocean. Yet before leaving she flipped a coin, asking God to direct her to go or not. When the coin came up heads several times in a row, one of America's most unlikely equestrian heroines set off. What followed was one of the twentieth century's most remarkable equestrian journeys. Accompanied by her faithful horse, Tarzan, Wilkins suffered through a host of obstacles including blistering deserts and freezing snow storms, yet never lost faith that she would complete her 7,000 mile odyssey. "Last of the Saddle Tramps" is thus the warm and humorous story of a humble American heroine bound for adventure and the Pacific Ocean. The classic tale is amply illustrated with photographs.

    One rainy, miserable Monday he resolves to grab life with both hands and embark on an adventure: the first entirely human-powered journey around the world. Although he had never been on an expedition of any kind and had no money, Stevie and his friend Jason dreamed up a voyage that would take them from England to Hawaii by bicycle, inline skates and ocean-going pedal boat. For 111 days, they pedalled 7,500 kilometers across the Atlantic, and then crossed the United States to take on the challenge of the Pacific. Pedalling to Hawaii is hilarious, entertaining and refreshingly non-heroic, packed with thrills and spills as the intrepid and sometimes blundering duo make their way around the world. It is also a meditative account of a search for simplicity and integrity.

    He wanted to do it in a four-wheel drive, taking his own camper-trailer with him, to live at the edge of deserts and at the rim of tropical jungles, to drive the highest roads, and the lowest, to be free to make his own choices. He found a nut who wanted to do it with him, a picture editor of a leading man's magazine in New York, and the Trans World Expedition was born. This is their incredible journey. The did it, and how they did it is their tale told in his exciting book.

    Weaving a treacherous path through the freezing Weddell Sea, they had come within eighty-five miles of their destination when their ship, Endurance, was trapped fast in the ice pack. Soon the ship was crushed like matchwood, leaving the crew stranded on the floes. Their ordeal would last for twenty months, and they would make two near-fatal attempts to escape by open boat before their final rescue.Drawing upon previously unavailable sources, Caroline Alexander gives us a riveting account of Shackleton's expedition--one of history's greatest epics of survival. And she presents the astonishing work of Frank Hurley, the Australian photographer whose visual record of the adventure has never before been published comprehensively. Together, text and image re-create the terrible beauty of Antarctica, the awful destruction of the ship, and the crew's heroic daily struggle to stay alive, a miracle achieved largely through Shackleton's inspiring leadership. The survival of Hurley's remarkable images is scarcely less miraculous: The original glass plate negatives, from which most of the book's illustrations are superbly reproduced, were stored in hermetically sealed cannisters that survived months on the ice floes, a week in an open boat on the polar seas, and several more months buried in the snows of a rocky outcrop called Elephant Island. Finally Hurley was forced to abandon his professional equipment; he captured some of the most unforgettable images of the struggle with a pocket camera and three rolls of Kodak film.Published in conjunction with the American Museum of Natural History's landmark exhibition on Shackleton's journey, The Endurance thrillingly recounts one of the last great adventures in the Heroic Age of exploration--perhaps the greatest of them all.

    Evie farewelled a nasty break-up, long hours in a demanding job, a hefty mortgage and snatched hours with her daughter for a new life lived outside the lines, spending every day with Emmie exploring the world beyond the suburbs.   They camped on the Great Wall of China, hung in train doorways in Sri Lanka, swam with mantas in Indonesia, donated much-needed blood in Cambodia, spotted wild orangutans and pygmy elephants in Malaysian Borneo, prayed in Buddhist temples in Taiwan and were chased by monkeys everywhere. In their journey toward happiness and self-acceptance, they learnt more about each other and the beautiful world around them than Evie ever expected.  Backyard to Backpack is the inspirational true story that will have you asking yourself, what might be if you took a chance, stepped off the path of expectation and created your own adventure?

    Some play ball. David Hays and Daniel Hays sailed 17,000 miles through the world's most feared and fabled waters in a little boat they built together. This is their story. Alone with nothing but the mammoth waves of the Southern Ocean, the unceasing wind, a compass, a sextant and a pet cat, they voyage down the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, past the Galapagos Islands, beyond Easter Island and around their destination--Cape Horn. Father and son narrate in alternating fashion, their voices weaving together an engrossing story of travel, exploration and difficult, dangerous sailing.But more than a tale of adventure, this is a touching account of a father and son's rite of passage as they assess their complex and evolving relationship. Daniel, out of college and unsure of what he wants in his life, sees his father getting older, more forgetful. David deals with unresolved issues he had with his own father, fearful that he'll make the same mistakes with his son, yet frustrated that Daniel treats him like an old man.Moving, often hilarious, often poignant, My Old Man and the Sea is a rich and profound chronicle of their voyage of discovery. Every reader will identify with this uplifting story of a father and son who go down to the sea and find each other.

    A breath-taking firsthand account of Wittmer's successful attempt to settle the island of Floreana. In 1932, Margaret Wittmer leaves Germany with her husband and step-son and travels to Floreana, a small, almost unpopulated island in the Galapagos chain, where they settle, clear land, and, after five months of living in old pirates' caves, move into the house they finish just in time for Margaret to have a baby. Over time, the Wittmers acquire a number of remarkable neighbors, including convicts, military personnel and a mysterious baroness who aspires to build a hotel for millionaires. They receive visits from people as diverse as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Thor Heyerdahl, who comes to investigate a reported "head" much like the ones on Easter Island, only to find it was carved by Margaret's husband. There are wild bulls and boars, a dog named Lump that serves as a babysitter, a distant war, a daughter who would rather have a machete or a hoe than a doll, years of settled life, and finally grandchildren. At times the entire situation borders on the unbelievable, but Margaret Wittmer provides equal measures of intrigue, fantasy, and common sense as she writes in her down-to-earth and often very humorous fashion about her years on Floreana.

    But now that she's in India, Rachel is going with the flow, or at least trying to...Rachel's visa is running out and it's time to decide whether her relationship with Seb is a holiday romance or built to last.The pair embark on a trip to Nepal for an Everest base camp trek, but will their relationship survive this gruelling expedition or is it time to part ways?

    As the voyage takes her farther and farther from her traditional support systems, her world becomes more and more defined by forces outside her control. Mary's travels through often uncharted island communities, provides a compelling metaphor for a journey of self-discovery.

    Based on Monk's journal entries written daily along the way, readers are afforded the up-close and intimate privilege of witnessing his very real trials and triumphs, and each incredible, beautiful moment as he experienced it. Anyone who has hiked, or plans on hiking the Appalachian Trail, lovers of nature, and those who know what it's like to accomplish a seemingly insurmountable feat will relish the uplifting story of Monk's successful, 2,189-mile trek. With every milestone achieved throughout his life-changing, unbelievably difficult journey, Monk paints a magnificent portrait of the outdoors, and what it's like to fully immerse oneself in nature's glorious, awe-inspiring-and challenging-beauty.

    Backpacking Washington details 70 routes, from the lush Hoh River Glacier Meadows to the open ridges of the Columbia Highlands and beyond. With an emphasis on weekend trips, routes range from overnight to weeklong treks and often include options for extending trips or choosing camp spots. Features: detailed route descriptions and trail maps mileage logs with campgrounds, water, and other trail elements icons for choosing family- and dog-friendly trips recommended nearby day hikes info on the state's three long-distance trails: Pacific Crest Trail, Pacific Northwest Trail, and Wonderland Trail**Mountaineers Books designates 1 percent of the sales of select guidebooks toward volunteer trail maintenance. For this book, our 1 percent of sales is going to Washington Trails Association (WTA). WTA hosts more than 750 work parties throughout Washington's Cascades and Olympics each year, with volunteers clearing downed logs after spring snowmelt, cutting away brush, retreading worn stretches of trail, and building bridges and turnpikes. Their efforts are essential to the land managers who maintain thousands of acres on shoestring budgets.