Showing titles in Travel Writing & Commentary

Feeling stuck in his work and home life, writer Jeff Gordinier happened into a fateful meeting with Danish chef René Redzepi, whose restaurant, Noma, has been called the best in the world. A restless perfectionist, Redzepi was at the top of his game but was looking to tear it all down, to shutter his restaurant and set out for new places, flavors, and recipes. This is the story of the subsequent four years of globe-trotting culinary adventure, with Gordinier joining Redzepi as his Sancho Panza.

What would happen if you were cycling to the office and just kept on pedalling? Needing a change, Mike Carter did just that. Following the Thames to the sea he embarked on an epic 5,000-mile ride around the entire British coastline—the equivalent of London to Calcutta. He encountered drunken priests, drag queens and gnome sanctuaries. He met fellow travellers and people building for a different type of future. He also found a spirit of unbelievable kindness and generosity that convinced him that Britain is anything but broken.

After serving as a US Marine during World War II and attending college on the GI Bill, Sam Keith decided to seek adventure in Alaska as a laborer on the Adak Navy base. There he befriended Dick Proenneke, whose shared love of the outdoors, hard work, and self-reliance quickly bonded an alliance between the two. Together they explored the wilds of South Central Alaska, while working on the Navy base, hunting and fishing with friends and breathing in the great outdoors.

There is the Cornwall Lamorna Ash knew as a child – the idyllic, folklore-rich place where she spent her summer holidays. Then there is the Cornwall she discovers when, feeling increasingly dislocated in London, she moves to Newlyn, a fishing town near Land’s End. This Cornwall is messier and harder; it doesn’t seem like a place that would welcome strangers. Before long, however, Lamorna finds herself on a week-long trawler trip with a crew of local fishermen, afforded a rare glimpse into their world, their warmth and their humour.

From morpho butterflies in the rain forest to the blue jay flitting past your window, vanishingly few living things are blue. Yet this hard-to-spot accent color in our surroundings looms large in our affections. Science journalist Kai Kupferschmidt has been fascinated by blue since childhood. His quest to find and understand his favorite color and its hallowed place in our culture takes him to a gene-splicing laboratory in Japan, a volcanic lake in Oregon, and to Brandenburg, Germany - home of the last Spix's macaws.

Donna Leon’s wildly popular novels starring Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti have often been praised for their insight into culture, politics, family life, and the history of Venice, one of the world’s most treasured cities and her home for over thirty years. My Venice and Other Essays collects over fifty of Leon’s funny, charming, and passionate essays on subjects that range from battles over garbage in the canals to troubles with rehabbing Venetian real estate.

Aan die begin van 2015 was bekroonde Weg!-joernalis Erns Grundling oorwerk, oorstuur, oorgewig, beseer - en pas gediagnoseer met slaapapnee. Vanselfsprekend was ál ding om te doen om die ellelange Camino-staptog in Spanje aan te pak - g’n selfoon, g’n makkers, net dapper en stapper. Kom stap saam!

Starting in November 2013 in a forest in Rwanda, where a modest spring spouts a trickle of clear, cold water, Levison Wood set forth on foot, aiming to become the first person to walk the entire length of the Nile. He followed the river for nine months, over 4,000 miles, through six nations - Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan, the Republic of Sudan, and Egypt - to the Mediterranean coast.

Five generations of Marnie O. Mamminga's family have been rejuvenated by times together in Wisconsin's Northwoods. In a series of evocative remembrances, Mamminga takes us to Wake Robin, the cabin her grandparents built in 1929 on Big Spider Lake near Hayward, on land adjacent to Moody's Camp. Along the way, she preserves the spirit and cultural heritage of a vanishing era, conveying the heart of a place and the community that once gathered there.

The Earth is trying to teach us to live better. To lead richer, happier lives. Will we continue down the limited path of the mechanical mind? Or will we tune into ultimate intelligence? The same intelligence that allows blood to flow through our veins, bees to pollinate flowers, birds to fly south, salmon to spawn, whales to migrate, caterpillars to become butterflies, the Earth to rotate, the moon to orbit, and the rest of nature to function perfectly of its own accord?

Interwoven with legends and lore, this story chronicles one man's adventure on Lake Superior, one of the world's most dangerous bodies of water.

Published just months before his death in 1768, A Sentimental Journey is Sterne's lightly fictionalised account of his own European travels; and being Sterne, it is more about digressions, misunderstandings and risqué jokes than the places he visits. Narrated by the (apparently) innocent Parson Yorick, who appeared in Sterne's other masterpiece, Tristram Shandy, it is full of anecdote and incident, and is far more about the people than the landscapes on the road from Calais.

Somerset Maugham set out on an extraordinary trip in September of 1922. He would remain abroad for nine months and end up traveling by canoe, riverboat, rickshaw and mule from Rangoon to Mandalay in Upper Burma, down through Thailand to Bangkok, then to Phnom Penh and across the jungle by river to Angkor Wat. From there he went down river to Saigon, then by ship to Hue and Haiphong. He ends the audiobook with an anecdotal story of his fellow passengers while on shipboard to Haiphong.

After graduating from college, Jennifer isn't sure what she wants to do with her life. She is drawn to the Appalachian Trail, a 2,175-mile footpath that stretches from Georgia to Maine. Though her friends and family think she's crazy, she sets out alone to hike the trail, hoping it will give her time to think about what she wants to do next. The next four months are the most physically and emotionally challenging of her life.

Swapping his native San Francisco for the City of Light, travel writer David Downie arrived in Paris in 1986 on a one-way ticket, his head full of romantic notions. Curiosity and the legs of a cross-country runner propelled him daily from an unheated, seventh-floor walk-up garret near the Champs-Élysées to the old Montmartre haunts of the doomed painter Modigliani, the tombs of Père-Lachaise cemetery, the luxuriant alleys of the Luxembourg Gardens, and the aristocratic Île Saint-Louis midstream in the Seine.

Untold Italy is a travel podcast full of practical tips and advice to help you plan your trip to Italy. Travel expert Katy Clarke interviews special guests and answers your questions to help you plan and uncover your own, as yet untold adventures in Italy.On our show we share highlights of the major destinations, off the beaten path secrets, best ways to get around, favorite food spots, cultural insights and much more. You’ll learn how to plan your Italy itinerary to include the places and experiences you’ve been dreaming of. And create memories to last a lifetime.Our goal is to help you ...

When Daily Telegraph correspondent Tim Butcher was sent to cover Africa in 2000, he quickly became obsessed with the idea of recreating H. M. Stanley's famous expedition - and travelling alone. Despite warnings that his plan was suicidal, Butcher set out for the Congo's eastern border with just a rucksack and a few thousand dollars hidden in his boots.

Great businesses don't always have great starts. In the summer of 2010, Green Beret Jason McCarthy was going through a divorce, separating from the military, and struggling with money issues. He used his new company, GORUCK, as an excuse to drive to all lower 48 states with his dog, Java, to meet people and get into adventures, while searching for how to rebuild in America.

Written in 1983, The Africans is a remarkable and very personal commentary on the people of this vast continent. It offers colorful, close-up views of presidents, peasants, guerilla leaders, and merchants while tracing a vivid history of one of the most varied populations on earth. Everyone interested in world cultures will find The Africans a fascinating experience.