Born in the French Indochina in 1925, Bernard Moitessier grew up astride two cultures--French and Vietnamese--in a turbulent era that moved dramatically from peace to war. Imprisoned during the Japanese occupation, he was later drafted to fight the Viet Minh in a French war that foreshadowed America's own Vietnam involvement two decades later. Tamata tells how the 25-year-old Moitessier left Vietnam to answer the call of the sea. He led the life of a sea-gypsy, wandering the Indian Ocean, the South Atlantic, and the Caribbean, learning the ways of boats and the sea and surviving two catastrophic shipwrecks. His greatest sailing adventures followed, the Tahiti-Alicante passage and his ten month round-the-world solo voyage in 1969 when he withdrew from the Golden Globe Race and sailed on to Tahiti. Moitessier then spent three years on a remote atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago. Called "Tamata" ("try it!") by his Tuamotu friends, he built a Polynesian-style house, planted coconut trees, and gradually transformed the sun-blasted coral into a speck of green in the middle of the South Pacific. After living in the United States, he spent the last years of his life in France. He is buried in a small fishing village in Brittany.

    Throughout his journeys he touches down in more than 20 countries in 6 continents, spanning 70,000 miles total, or the equivalent of almost three times around the equator. There is never a dull moment on this wild and irreverent adventure, whether Norm is evading armed carjackers in a high-speed chase in the barrios of Venezuela, exploring ancient wonders of the world like the pyramids, the Great Wall, and Machu Picchu, almost landing in Bolivian jail for mistakenly being accused of cocaine trafficking, or witnessing the holiest sites on earth in Jerusalem. Along the way, Norm encounters a broad spectrum of human existence and experiences a blossoming of consciousness and spiritual growth that he never anticipated. What started out as a wild, raucous party trip evolves into a man's quest for his life's purpose in the world. Pushups in the Prayer Room: A Year Backpacking around the World is an honest, no-holds-barred account of that year-long odyssey around the globe. Norm's writing, which is enlightening, gritty, filled with self-deprecating humor, yet always authentic, picks you up and carries you along on that crazy journey.

    Although containing vivid descriptions of the area's wildlife, Corbett concentrates on the visit of Princess Elizabeth to Tree Tops, where she learned of George VI's death.

    Over one hundred years later, his spirit reaches out to help his troubled great granddaughter. A dramatic three-act tale spanning a century in the life of a vigorous Italian family.

    After eight years of owning their barge, Hennie-Ha, eight years involving catastrophe and crisis, Val and her partner finally go 'faring' to France for the first time. This travelogue is about the places they visit and the people they meet along the canals on their route from the Netherlands, through Belgium and into northern France. It tells a gentle story about how they experience their life on board during the four weeks they spent cruising. Written as a journal, it follows them on their travels through rain and shine and reveals how day by day, Val learns to cast aside the stresses and demands of her job and to appreciate life's simplest of pleasures to the full. And why 'Faring to France on a Shoe'? Well, download a sample and then all will be clear, or just have a 'look inside'!

    It looked like something out of a movie--and, in a way, it was. The ship was the Bounty, a replica of a British merchant vessel of the same name whose crew famously mutinied in 1789. She had been built for a Marlon Brando film in the 1960s--and now she was sinking, her sixteen-person crew fleeing into the sea amid the splintered wood and torn canvas. Was the Bounty's sinking--which left her captain missing and one of her crew members dead--an unavoidable tragedy? Or was it the fault of a captain who was willing to risk everything to save the ship he loved? Drawing on exclusive interviews with Bounty survivors and Coast Guard rescuers, journalist Matthew Shaer reconstructs the ship's final voyage and the Coast Guard investigation into her sinking that followed, uncovering a riveting story of heroism and hubris in the eye of a hurricane. Praise for The Sinking of the Bounty:"Matthew Shaer masterfully recreates the last voyage and final doom of the Bounty, an iconic ship that collided with an historic storm off the Carolina coast. Shaer pulls you off the page and onto the Bounty itself--and then into the roiling sea--to relive a long night of terror, heroism and desperate quests for survival. The Sinking of the Bounty is a classic of the genre, beautifully told and riveting to read."—Sean Flynn, GQ correspondent and author of 3000 Degrees: The True Story of a Deadly Fire and the Men Who Fought It"Few images of Hurricane Sandy's destruction were as indelible, or as surreal, as the shattered wreck of the Bounty sinking beneath the waves of the 'Graveyard of the Atlantic.' Matthew Shaer's The Sinking of the Bounty is a powerful and riveting account of the disaster: the fateful decision to set sail before the storm, the crew's epic struggle to save the ship and then themselves, and the heroic rescue launched by the Coast Guard in the middle of the largest storm the Atlantic has ever seen. In the tradition of Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm, this is fast-paced and deeply reported storytelling."—Matthew Power, contributing editor, Harper's

    While preparing for my journey on the Appalachian Trail (AT), I often felt lost in a sea of information, usually overturning more questions than answers. The purpose of this guide is to help cut through the confusion, condense the information and present it in a straightforward and simple way. I want to leave you feeling more confident about your upcoming escapade, rather than intimidated by the thought of planning it. My first overnight backpacking trip was thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, so I hope my perspective can be appreciated by novice and seasoned hikers alike. Some of the topics included in this ebook are: -Physical & Mental Prep -Gear List -Picking a Pack -Backpacking Stoves -Shelter Selection -Hygiene on Trail -Financial Breakdown (of my hike) -Etiquette -Safety & Wildlife -Hiking With a Dog ...and more! Download a free sample!

    Get paid to travel and write about it.Only no one told Jules that it would mean eating oily seabirds, repeatedly falling off a husky sled, getting stranded on a Mediterranean island, and crash-landing in Iran.The exotic destinations come thick and fast – Hong Kong, Hawaii, Huddersfield – as Jules navigates what it means to be a travel writer in a world with endless surprises up its sleeve.Add in a cast of larger-than-life characters – Elvis, Captain Cook, his own travel-mad Dad – and an eye for the ridiculous, and this journey with Jules is one you won’t want to miss.

    With 75 million fans and its popularity soaring in every corner of the country, NASCAR is a 200-mile-an-hour traveling tent-and-revival show, a platinum-plated,multibillion-dollar V-8 hero machine -- a sports entertainment empire built at the very crossroads of pop culture, corporate commerce, and American mythology.Smart, funny, and profane, Sunday Money is the kaleidoscopic account of an entire season on the NASCAR circuit. Driving 48,000 miles in a tiny motorhome, writer Jeff MacGregor and his wife, an award-winning photographer, covered 36 races at 23 tracks in 18 states, from Daytona to Darlington, New Hampshire to California, from the Wal-Mart to the Waldorf, profiling the lives of superstar drivers like Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Stewart, their crews, and their fans, across the grinding reach of a 40-week season.But this is not just a behind-the-scenes chronicle of America's loudest pastime. It is the story of a hundred stories; of red states and blue, of splendid Rebel lizards and golden Yankee hotshoes, of mystic true believersand their holy roll of honored ghosts. In the tradition of On the Road, Travels with Charley, and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Sunday Money is a snapshot of American culture -- of race, religion, class, sex, money, politics, and fame -- taken from the window of a moving car, a brilliantly observed, keenly rendered, anddarkly comic portrait of America.

    As ordinary boomers, they simply wanted to experience “The Dream” – to live in Italy. They settled down in traditional Umbria, just east of Tuscany.Constrained by a strict budget, their experience took on challenges as diverse as getting accustomed to the vagaries of Italian appliances to gathering their own wood. Transportation was by train, bus, bicycle or footpath. What neither of them knew when they began was how the adventure would challenge their habits, upbringing, and outlook on life. Most surprising of all was how the experience would challenge their relationship to each other.A Footpath in Umbria is a celebration of the joys and revelations to be found by changing venues, whether it’s living in another country or simply venturing cross town.

    A 19th-century maritime classic brimming with courage, ingenuity, and daring.

    He catches a cargo ship across the Indian Ocean, risks a dicey gauntlet of terrorists and Chinese tanks, has beers with a naked ex-Soviet officer in Kazakhstan... And he wears flip-flops for the whole journey. Why? For no good reason — though it does mean saving money on socks.

    One bike. One tent. One hell of an adventure. Biking from Alaska to Mexico solo is hard enough. But when you throw in bad weather, flat tires, hair-raising roadways, and unpredictable grizzly bears, only a fool would keep going. Fortunately, Jerry Holl was just the fool for this particular two-wheeled odyssey. Coming off a lifetime of corporate positions, he wasn't exactly prepared--his most trusted companion on the trip was a bike he didn't know how to fix. But inexperience and lack of a concrete plan didn't stop him. For fifty-one days, Holl pedaled his way across two countries, encountering everything weird and wondrous North America had to offer. Downhills Don't Come Free takes you through the ups and downs (literal and figurative) of Holl's ride. By turns amusing and reflective, self-deprecating and self-assured, it chronicles every aspect of the journey, from the breathtaking vastness of the Alaskan-Canadian wilderness to the fortitude, generosity, and eccentricity of the people he met along the way.

    A man and a woman leave a normal lifestyle of home and office, similar to that of millions of others, and set off to sail around the world on a sailboat. They uncover distant lands, forgotten archipelagos, emotions, fears, and incredible landing places. Large and small adventures, compellingly told in simple language that will captivate right up to the final page.

    If your train is late, it is typical. If there are no seats on the upper deck of a bus, it is typical. If it starts to rain at five o'clock just before you leave work, it is typical.''The English do not like to be wished "Have a nice day", because to them it sounds like a command. They think, Who the hell do you think you are to order me to have a nice day?' Ten years ago, Angela Kiss arrived in the UK without a word of English. All she brought with her was a small bag, a sense of adventure, a desire to work and a copy of George Mikes' classic 1940s' humour book about the peculiarities of the British, How to be an Alien.Through every dodgy flat share, low-paid waitressing job, awkward date and office mishap, Angela held tight to George's wit and wisdom. With his help she began to understand how to live amongst the English - with their eccentricity, spirit and singing train drivers - and fell in love with a land rich in green spaces, pubs and puddings. A wry, often affectionate view on the English, and how to navigate our national personality.