Based on her own explorations of many countries, states, and regions, and on interviews with travelers, award-winning author Stephanie Elizondo Griest highlights 100 special destinations and challenging activities — from diving for pearls in Bahrain to racing a camel, yak, or pony across Mongolia; to dancing with voodoo priestesses in Benin and urban cowboys in Texas; to taking a mud bath in a volcano off the coast of Colombia. Divided into such sections as “Places Where Women Made History,” “Places of Indulgence,” and “Places of Adventure,” this guidebook includes timely contact information, resources, and recommended reading. “Ten Tips For Wandering Women” features safety precautions plus pointers on haggling, packing, and staying parasite-free. Vivid portraits of free spirits like Frida Kahlo (“A tequila-slamming, dirty joke-telling smoker, this famous artist was bisexual and beautiful”) help travelers expand their experience.

    But what began then as an apprenticeship at La Varenne École de Cuisine evolved into a lifelong immersion in French cuisine and culture, culminating in permanent residency in 1994. On Rue Tatin chronicles her journey to an ancient little street in Louviers, one of Normandy’s most picturesque towns. With lyrical prose and wry candor, Loomis recalls the miraculous restoration that she and her husband performed on the dilapidated convent they chose for their new residence. As its ochre and azure floor tiles emerged, challenges outside the dwelling mounted. From squatters to a surly priest next door, along with a close-knit community wary of outsiders, Loomis tackled the social challenges head-on, through persistent dialogue–and baking. On Rue Tatin includes delicious recipes that evoke the essence of this region, such as Apple and Thyme Tart, Duck Breast with Cider, and Braised Chicken in White Wine and Mustard. Transporting readers to a world where tradition is cherished, On Rue Tatin provides a touching glimpse of the camaraderie, exquisite food, and simple pleasures of daily life in a truly glorious corner of Normandy.

    But the town he's sent to is an isolated outpost of mud huts, surrounded by landmines; the hospital, for which he's to be the only doctor, is filled with malnourished children and conditions he's never seen; and the health workers—Angolan war veterans twice his age who speak no English—walk out on him following an altercation on his first shift. In the months that follow, Damien confronts these challenges all the while dealing with the social absurdities of living with only three other volunteers for company. The medical calamities pile up—including a leopard attack, a landmine explosion, and having to perform surgery using tools cleaned on the fire—but it's through Damien's evolving friendships with the local people that his passion for the work grows. This heartbreaking and honest account of life on the medical front line in Angola, Mozambique, and South Sudan is a moving testimony of the work done by medical humanitarian groups and the extraordinary and sometimes eccentric people who work for them.

    At this charged moment, Giles Tremlett embarked on a journey around the country and through its history to discover why some of Europe’s most voluble people have kept silent so long.  Ghosts of Spain is the fascinating result of that journey. In elegant and passionate prose, Tremlett unveils the tinderbox of disagreements that mark the country today. Delving  into such emotional questions as who caused the Civil War, why Basque terrorists kill, why Catalans hate Madrid, and whether the Islamist bombers who killed 190 people in 2004 dreamed of a return to Spain’s Moorish past, Tremlett finds the ghosts of the past everywhere. At the same time, he offers trenchant observations on more quotidian aspects of Spanish life today: the reasons, for example, Spaniards dislike authority figures, but are cowed by a doctor’s white coat, and how women have embraced feminism without men noticing.  Drawing on the author’s twenty years of experience living in Spain, Ghosts of Spain is a revelatory book about one of Europe’s most exciting countries.

    The summer before she turned sixteen, she returned to Tokyo, making a solo journey to get reacquainted with her birthplace. Through illustrations, photos, and musings, Inzer documented her journey. In Diary of a Tokyo Teen, Inzer explores the cutting-edge fashions of Tokyo's trendy Harajuku district, eats the best sushi of her life at the renowned Tsukiji fish market, and hunts down geisha in the ancient city of Kyoto. As she shares the trials and pleasures of travel from one end of a trip to the other, Inzer introduces the host of interesting characters she meets and offers a unique—and often hilarious—look at a fascinating country and an engaging tale of one girl rediscovering her roots. **Listed as a 2016 Great Graphic Novel for Teens by the Young Adult Library Services Association**

    Angus is involved in a romantic liaison, which takes the edge off his customary cynicism, and for the first time in their adult lives, a positive fraternal bond exists between them.Inevitably, reality comes calling. Angus’s love affair ends and he copes poorly, Hugh becomes stratospherically arrogant on the back of a promotion and Julia, the MacNaughtons’ sister, starts dating Angus’s nemesis – Alistair ‘The Legend’ Jones. Then there are a series of further ‘hiccups’, from demanding lodge guests and marauding monkeys, to a labour protest, a run-in with a blind-drunk head chef, a winter drought, a rogue elephant that puts staff and guests in danger and the resignation of the sterling head ranger.You are guaranteed to be entertained by the hilarious antics and hard knocks as well as the fierce beauty of the African landscape in Back to the Bush: Another Year in the Wild. ‘A Year in the Wild is a delight to read [and a] hugely entertaining novel. Don’t miss it. If there’s a sequel, and I hope there is, I will be first in line to read it.’ – BRIAN JOSS, Bolander

    And while the country runs with clockwork precision, the cultural life of the inhabitants is transformed with the changing of the seasons, a testament to the enduring power of nature's rhythms.With each page alive with facts, history and inspiration, Be More Japan unlocks the secrets behind modern Japanese living - whether you're eating sushi in London or enjoying the cherry blossoms in San Francisco. And if you're dreaming of a future trip to Japan, this book will get you closer to your destination before you've even departed.

    Growing up in a small town in northern England, Graham Holliday wasn’t keen on travel. But in his early twenties, a picture of Hanoi sparked a curiosity that propelled him halfway across the globe. Graham didn’t want to be a tourist in an alien land, though; he was determined to live it. An ordinary guy who liked trying interesting food, he moved to the capital city and embarked on a quest to find real Vietnamese food. In Eating Viet Nam, he chronicles his odyssey in this strange, enticing land infused with sublime smells and tastes.Traveling through the back alleys and across the boulevards of Hanoi—where home cooks set up grills and stripped-down stands serving sumptuous fare on blue plastic furniture—he risked dysentery, giardia, and diarrhea to discover a culinary treasure-load that was truly foreign and unique. Holliday shares every bite of the extraordinary fresh dishes, pungent and bursting with flavor, which he came to love in Hanoi, Saigon, and the countryside. Here, too, are the remarkable people who became a part of his new life, including his wife, Sophie.A feast for the senses, funny, charming, and always delicious, Eating Viet Nam will inspire armchair travelers, curious palates, and everyone itching for a taste of adventure.

    Norman Lewis traveled in Indo-China during the precarious last years of the French colonial regime. Much of the charm and grandeur of the ancient native civilizations survived until the devastation of the Vietnam War. Lewis could still meet a King of Cambodia and an Emperor of Vietnam; in the hills he could stay in the spectacular longhouses of the highlanders; on the plains he could be enchanted by a people whom he found "gentle, tolerant and dedicated to the pleasures and satisfactions of a discriminating kind."

    As he wondered how to escape his career, he rediscovered a list of goals he had scrawled out years before, the last of which said: Go everywhere, eat everything. With that, he had found his mission -- a yearlong search for the delicious, and curious, and the curiously delicious, which he names "Eat My Globe" and memorably chronicles in these pages.In Majumdar's world, food is everything. Like every member of his family, he has a savant's memory for meals, with instant recall of dishes eaten decades before. Simon's unstoppable wit and passion for all things edible (especially those things that once had eyes, and a face, and a mom and a pop) makes this an armchair traveler's and foodie's delight -- Majumdar does all the heavy lifting, eats the heavy foods (and suffers the weighty consequences), so you don't have to. He jets to thirty countries in just over twelve months, diving mouth-first into local cuisines and cultures as different as those of Japan and Iceland. His journey takes him from China, where he consumes one of his "Top Ten Worst Eats," stir-fried rat, to the United States, where he glories in our greatest sandwiches: the delectable treasures of Katz's Delicatessen in Manhattan, BBQ in Kansas and Texas, the still-rich po' boys of post-Katrina New Orleans.The meat of the story -- besides the peerless ham in Spain, the celebrated steaks of Argentina, the best of Munich's wursts as well as their descendants, the famous hot dogs of Chicago -- is the friends that Simon makes as he eats. They are as passionate about food as he is and are eager to welcome him to their homes and tables, share their choicest meals, and reveal their local secrets. Also a poignant memoir, "Eat My Globe" is a life told through food and spiced with Majumdar's remembrances of foods past, including those from his colorful childhood. (Raised in Northern England, he is the son of a fiery Welsh nurse and a distinguished Bengali surgeon.) A captivating look at one man's passion for food, family, and unique life experiences, Eat My Globe will make you laugh -- while it makes you hungry. It is sure to satiate any gastronome obsessed with globetrotting -- for now.

    The diary is very scant, almost impersonal, but it is exactly this impersonality which pushes the narrator to re-examine the personal relationship he had with his father. The father, who the son knew only as a cripple after he had been injured in a motorcycle accident, had always tried to convince those around him that he was tough enough to withstand all hardship, and had tried to bring up his son in his mould. The narrator revisits his fathers past, as well as his own, to look for cracks in this facade, to find signs of weakness and displays of emotion. This turns out to be an opportunity to also look back at his own upbringing and especially at the way he had been educated to become a man. Episodes from the past are recalled and examined for any light they can shed on the matter. The narrator is not only older, which makes him attach new meanings to old events, but he has also changed in two other ways, which both influence the way he now sees things: he has just himself become a father, and he has become a scholar. He has read things that his working-class father would never understand, let alone know that they would be used to understand him.

    Here, for the first time in English, the best of Costa Rica's writers conjure the country's allure and vitality, its coffee fields and palm groves, cicadas and songbirds, shrouded mountains and blazing savannas, while telling stories unique to Costa Rican life. Contributors include Alfredo Aguilar, Fernando Durán Ayanegui, Alfonso Chase, Quince Duncan, Fabián Dobles, Louis Ducoudray, Carlos Luis Fallas, Mario Gonzáles Feo, Joaquín Gutiérrez, Carlos Salazar Herrera, Max Jiménez, Carmen Lyra, Carmen Naranjo, Yolanda Oreamuno, Abel Pacheco, Julieta Pinto, Uriel Quesada, Samuel Rovinski, José León Sánchez, and Rima de Vallbona.

    Take a scenic drive on the sinuous road to Sa Calobra, visit the isolated Platja des Coll Baix, or gaze in wonder at the Palma Cathedral; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Mallorca and begin your journey now! Inside Lonely Planet's Mallorca Travel Guide: Colour maps and images throughout Highlights and itineraries help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, prices Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss Cultural insights give you a richer, more rewarding travel experience - history, landscapes, wildlife, architecture, arts, crafts, cuisine. Over 30 maps Covers Palma, Valldemossa, Deia, Soller, Fornalutx, Biniaraix, Pollenca, Alcudia, Inca, Arta, Cala Ratjada, Platja des Coll Baix, Cap de Formentor, Illa de Cabrera and more eBook Features: (Best viewed on tablet devices and smartphones) Downloadable PDF and offline maps prevent roaming and data charges Effortlessly navigate and jump between maps and reviews Add notes to personalise your guidebook experience Seamlessly flip between pages Bookmarks and speedy search capabilities get you to key pages in a flash Embedded links to recommendations' websites Zoom-in maps and images Inbuilt dictionary for quick referencing The Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet Mallorca, our most comprehensive guide to Mallorca, is perfect for both exploring top sights and taking roads less travelled. Looking for more coverage? Check out Lonely Planet's Spain guide for a comprehensive look at what the whole country has to offer. About Lonely Planet: Since 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel media company with guidebooks to every destination, an award-winning website, mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travellers to get off beaten paths to understand more of the culture of the places in which they find themselves.

    Recounts how the author, an Austrian, escaped from an English internment camp in India in 1943 and spent the next seven years in Tibet, observing its social practices, religion, politics, and people.

    Yet a world of extraordinary wildlife persists in these harsh conditions, including leopard seals, giant squid, 50-foot algae, sea spiders, coral, multicolored sea stars, and giant predatory worms. Now, as temperatures rise, this fragile ecosystem is under attack. In this closely observed account, one of the world's foremost experts on Antarctica gives us a highly original and distinctive look at a world that we're losing.