Located in a maze of donkey-trod alleyways, the house - a traditional riad - was beautiful but in desperate need of repair. Walls were in danger of collapse, the plumbing non-existent. While neither Suzanna nor her husband spoke Arabic, and had only a smattering of French, they were determined to restore the building to its original splendour, using only traditional craftsmen and handmade materials. But they soon found that trying to do business in Fez was like being transported back several centuries in time and so began the remarkable experience that veered between frustration, hilarity and moments of pure exhilaration. But restoring the riad was only part of their immersion in the rich and colourful life of this ancient city. A House in Fez is a journey into Moroccan culture, revealing its day-to-day rhythms, its customs and festivals; its history, Islam, and Sufi rituals; the lore of djinns and spirits; the vibrant life-filled market places and the irresistible Moroccan cuisine. And above all, into the lives of the people - warm, friendly, and hospitable.Beautifully descriptive and infused with an extraordinary sense of place, this is a compelling account of one couple's adventures in ancient Morocco.

    He did not return to Morocco for another 29 years, traveling instead through more than 40 countries on the modern map, covering 75,000 miles and getting as far north as the Volga, as far east as China, and as far south as Tanzania. He wrote of his travels, and comes across as a superb ethnographer, biographer, anecdotal historian, and occasional botanist and gastronome. With this edition by Mackintosh-Smith, Battuta's Travels takes its place alongside other indestructible masterpieces of the travel-writing genre.

    He traveled on foot across Africa from the Skeleton Coast on the southwest tip of the African continent through Namibia, Zambia, Malawi, and Tanzania, until he reached the Indian Ocean. Traversa is the fascinating account of the hardships and hilarity that he experienced during his epic solo journey. Sandham describes his brushes with lions and snakes, land mines and bandits, his two-month battle with a syphilitic donkey, malaria, cockroaches the size of mice, and the other everyday troubles that arise when walking across Africa. Underpinned with the stories of his forerunners--David Livingstone, Sir H. M. Stanley, and Sir Francis Galton, among others--Traversa is the enthralling account of a real-life modern-day adventure against the elements.

    Pedalling along curvaceous country lanes or freewheeling through valleys and vineyards – earning your supper in this sleepy corner of France is nothing short of a privilege.Tony and Ludmilla have landed a job with a specialist cycling and walking holiday company in the South of France … but that’s not something we can hold against them for too long!They head off to the mediaeval marvel of Cordes-sur-Ciel in the Tarn – a region so achingly beautiful and laden with history and mystery they have to pinch themselves to be sure such a place really does exist.When their cyclists turn up for a week’s pedal-powered adventure they will need a reliable back-up service when they puncture a tyre or come face to jowl with a ‘devil dog’ intent on devouring their panniers. And when their walkers take the wrong trail and find themselves humming Bonnie Tyler’s ’70s hit ‘Lost in France’, they too will need a timely rescue. Well, that’s the theory …

    Miriam and Peter left New Zealand to explore other wild places. They walked 2000 km through the forests of Europe and along the coast of Turkey, mostly camping under trees and cooking by fire. They lived on the edge, embracing insecurity, and found the unexpected: sometimes it was pure bliss, sometimes it was terrifying. But when they moved on to the Australian desert, they met with disaster. This gripping story is about life and death, courage and the power of love.

    In this age of globalism and high-speed travel, Seth Stevenson, the witty, thoughtful Slate columnist, takes us back to a time when travel meant putting one foot in front of the other, racing to make connections between trains and buses in remote transit stations, and wading through the chaos that most long-haul travelers float 35,000 feet above. Stevenson winds his way around the world by biking, walking, hiking, riding in rickshaws, freight ships, cruise ships, ancient ferries, buses, and the Trans-Siberian Railway-but never gets on an airplane.He finds that from the ground, one sees the world anew-with a deeper understanding of time, distance, and the vastness of the earth. In this sensational travelogue, each step of the journey is an adventure, full of unexpected revelations in every new port, at every bend in the railroad tracks, and around every street corner.

    194 days and 17 hours previously, he had set off from Paris in an attempt to circumnavigate the world in record time. Mark smashed the Guinness World Record by an astonishing 81 days. He had travelled more than 18,000 miles on his own through some of the harshest conditions one man and his bicycle can endure, camping wild at night and suffering from constant ailments.The Man Who Cycled the World is the story not just of that amazing achievement, but of the events that turned Mark Beaumont into the man he is today. From the early years of his free-spirited childhood in the Scottish countryside, he had been determined to break records, cycling across Scotland and then from John O'Groats to Land's End by the age of fifteen, raising thousands of pounds for charity. After leaving university, he had been equally determined not to settle for an average existence, but to break free and see the world from a saddle, to follow his dreams.This is the tale not just of one of the last great circumnavigation world records, and of the incredible endurance it took to accomplish it, but an insight into many of the world's cultures from a unique perspective. From Paris to Istanbul, through Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India and south-east Asia to Singapore, then across Australia, New Zealand and the United States before the final legs in Europe, all at hundred miles a day, this is the story of a quite remarkable adventure, by a quite remarkable man.

    But when a terrible rafting accident separates him from his partner, Yossi is forced to survive for weeks alone against one of the wildest backdrops on the planet. Stranded without a knife, map, or survival training, he must improvise shelter and forage for wild fruit to survive. As his feet begin to rot during raging storms, as he loses all sense of direction, and as he begins to lose all hope, he wonders whether he will make it out of the jungle alive.The basis of an upcoming motion picture, Jungle is the story of friendship and the teachings of nature, and a terrifying true account that you won’t be able to put down.

    Peter Allison gives us the guide’s-eye view of living in the bush, confronting the world’s fiercest terrain of wild animals and, most challenging of all, managing herds of gaping tourists. Passionate for the animals of the Kalahari, Allison works as a top safari guide in the wildlife-rich Okavango Delta. As he serves the whims of his wealthy clients, he often has to stop the impulse to run as far away from them as he can, as these tourists are sometimes more dangerous than a pride of lions. No one could make up these outrageous-but-true tales: the young woman who rejected the recommended safari-friendly khaki to wear a more “fashionable” hot pink ensemble; the lost tourist who happened to be drunk, half-naked, and a member of the British royal family; establishing a real friendship with the continent’s most vicious animal; the Japanese tourist who requested a repeat performance of Allison’s being charged by a lion so he could videotape it; and spending a crazy night in the wild after blowing a tire on a tour bus, revealing that Allison has as much good-natured scorn for himself. The author’s humor is exceeded only by his love and respect for the animals, and his goal is to limit any negative exposure to humans by planning trips that are minimally invasive—unfortunately it doesn’t always work out that way! Peter Allison is originally from Sydney, Australia. His safaris have been featured in National Geographic, Conde Nast Traveler, and on television programs such as Jack Hanna's Animal Adventures. He travels frequently to speaking appearances, and splits most of his time between Botswana, Sydney, and San Francisco.

    - An exciting new anthology of travel literature - Features international authors, including Alexander McCall Smith, Joyce Carol Oates and DBC Pierre - Brings to life the idea that travel can inspire, entertain, enlighten and change lives

    With the same intelligence and insouciant charm he brought to How Proust Can Save Your Life, de Botton considers the pleasures of anticipation; the allure of the exotic, and the value of noticing everything from a seascape in Barbados to the takeoffs at Heathrow. Even as de Botton takes the reader along on his own peregrinations, he also cites such distinguished fellow-travelers as Baudelaire, Wordsworth, Van Gogh, the biologist Alexander von Humboldt, and the 18th-century eccentric Xavier de Maistre, who catalogued the wonders of his bedroom. The Art of Travel is a wise and utterly original book. Don’t leave home without it.

    Through dense forests, daunting mountains, and pristine beaches, the trio makes its way — in a drug-induced haze. Soon the drugs become an all-consuming addiction that changes the lives of Mann and his friends forever. This is an engaging travelogue and frank memoir evokes the magical realism of South American literature. “Darkly comic, ultimately shocking, and packed with astute observations.” — Geographical

    So with little more than a change of clothes and two bars of soap, Ma takes off to immerse himself in the remotest parts of China. His journey would last three years and take him through smog-choked cities and mountain villages, from scenes of barbarity to havens of tranquility. Remarkably written and subtly moving, the result is an insight into the teeming contradictions of China that only a man who was both insider and outsider in his own country could have written.

    Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the youngest member of Scott's team and one of three men to make and survive the notorious Winter Journey, draws on his firsthand experiences as well as the diaries of his compatriots to create a stirring and detailed account of Scott's legendary expedition. Cherry himself would be among the search party that discovered the corpses of Scott and his men, who had long since perished from starvation and brutal cold. It is through Cherry's insightful narrative and keen descriptions that Scott and the other members of the expedition are fully memorialized.

    By day he passed through mountains covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by the Taliban, and communities thriving amid the remains of medieval civilizations. By night he slept on villagers' floors, shared their meals, and listened to their stories of the recent and ancient past. Along the way Stewart met heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers. He was also adopted by an unexpected companion-a retired fighting mastiff he named Babur in honor of Afghanistan's first Mughal emperor, in whose footsteps the pair was following. Through these encounters--by turns touching, confounding, surprising, and funny--Stewart makes tangible the forces of tradition, ideology, and allegiance that shape life in the map's countless places in between.