Showing titles in Travel Writing & Commentary

Mark Steel is back with two more series of his award-winning show, in which he explores nine weird and wonderful places around the UK and beyond. After thoroughly researching each town's history, people and idiosyncrasies, he goes on to write and perform a tailor-made evening of stand-up for the residents.

Billy Connolly, music-lover, biker, and scourge of the beige and bland the world over, has dreamed about taking a trip on the legendary Route 66 since he first heard Chuck Berry belting out one of the greatest rock 'n' roll records of all time. And now he's finally had the chance to do it, heading out on his custom-made trike in search of the real America that can still be found beyond the nation's freeways.

Here is William Dalrymple's highly praised and greatly entertaining account of his 1986 trip made while a student at Cambridge, which retraced Marco Polo's route across land from Jerusalem to Xanadu. With him, he took a phial of Holy Oil, 600 pounds and Laura until Lahore, and Louisa from there to Xanadu.

Read by the author, Kate Barron 'A truly inspiring story of courage, resilience and the call of the wild. Wilderness Mum is a testament to the extraordinary things we are capable of' - Tim Peake Most people believe the wild years end when motherhood begins. For me, that’s when they truly...

Shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Book of the Year 2025 A Financial Times best summer travel book of 2024 Travel Book of the Year at the Inspire Global Media Awards 'A powerfully delicate book of love, loss and discovery, along paths of emotional understanding and physical wonder.'...

A beautifully illustrated travelogue, chronicling the life and work of one of the world greatest poets. Du Fu (712-70) is one of China’s greatest poets. His career coincided with periods of famine, war and huge upheaval, yet his secular philosophical vision, combined with his empathy for the...

Daniel Gray is about to turn thirty. Like any sane person, his response is to travel to Luton, Crewe, and Hinckley. After a decade's exile in Scotland, he sets out to reacquaint himself with England via what he considers its greatest asset: football. Watching teams from the Championship (or Division Two as any right-minded person calls it) to the South West Peninsula Premier, and aimlessly walking around towns from Carlisle to Newquay, Gray paints a curious landscape forgotten by many.

Arabian Sands is Wilfred Thesiger’s stunning account of five years spent crossing the Arabian Peninsula by foot and on camels, with nomadic Bedouin tribesmen as guides. Travelling between 1945 and 1950, the British explorer treks through Yemen, the Empty Quarter, Oman, and parts of the then Trucial States, crossing and re-crossing around 250,000 miles of this most inhospitable terrain. He was the first European ever to set eyes on the dunes and wadis of these deserts.

In this thrilling road trip from "Peking to Paris", a woman tries to save her car, her marriage, and her confidence from breaking down. In May 2007, leaving China’s Great Wall is Car 84, one of 128 antique autos racing in the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge. It’s guided by one Dina Bennett, the world’s least likely navigator: a daydreamer prone to carsickness, riddled with self-doubt, and married to a thrill-seeking perfectionist who is half-human, half-racecar. What could possibly go wrong?

Delhi exists in a kind of quantum state: In Delhi, all things are true at once. When the Big Apple no longer felt big enough, Dave and Jenny moved to a city of 16 million people and, seemingly, twice that many horns honking at once. Delirious Delhi depicts India's capital as the two experienced it, from office life in the rising tech hubs to the traffic jam philosophy that keeps people sane in the gridlock leading to them. With only their sense of humour as their guide, Dave and Jenny set out to explore a city in which ancient stone monuments compete with glass-clad shopping malls to define the landscape.

In 1934, the painter Christiane Ritter leaves her comfortable life in Austria and travels to the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen, to spend a year there with her husband. She thinks it will be a relaxing trip, a chance to "read thick books in the remote quiet and, not least, sleep to my heart's content," but when Christiane arrives she is shocked to realize that they are to live in a tiny ramshackle hut on the shores of a lonely fjord, hundreds of miles from the nearest settlement, battling the elements every day, just to survive.

Unlock the hidden side of Japan that guidebooks won't tell you. This isn't just a sightseeing guide; it's a survival kit for the smart traveler. We reveal practical "Urawaza" (secret tricks) to hack your trip: ・Crowd Evasion: How to enjoy Kyoto and Shibuya without drowning in a sea of tourists. ・Impossible Reservations: Insider methods to book high-end sushi and yakitori restaurants that usually reject foreigners. ・Transport Truths: The real math behind the JR Pass vs. Suica/Pasmo cards (and where to actually buy them). ・Tax-Free Secrets: How to shop smarter at Don Quijote and ...

THIS GRIPPING AND TRIUMPHANT MEMOIR FOLLOWS A LIVING LEGEND OF EXTREME MOUNTAINEERING AS HE MAKES HIS ASSAULT ON HISTORY, ONE 8,000-METER SUMMIT AT A TIME. For eighteen years Ed Viesturs pursued climbing’s holy grail: to stand atop the world’s fourteen 8,000-meter peaks, without the aid of...

Stranded at Schiphol airport, Ben Coates called up a friendly Dutch girl he'd met some months earlier. He stayed for dinner. Actually, he stayed for good. In the first audiobook to consider the hidden heart and history of the Netherlands from a modern perspective, the author explores the length and breadth of his adopted homeland and discovers why one of the world's smallest countries is also so significant and so fascinating. 

Brought to you by Penguin. A broken heart and a moment of drunken bravado inspires middle-aged, and typically rather cautious, journalist Mike Carter to take off on a life-changing six month motorcycle trip around Europe. Never mind that he hadn't been on two wheels since an inglorious...

Whatever You Do, Don't Run is a hilarious collection of true tales from top ­safari guide Peter Allison. In a place where the wrong behavior could get you eaten, Allison has survived face-to-face encounters with big cats, angry ­elephants, and the world's most unpredictable animals: herds of untamed tourists and foolhardy guides whose outrageous antics sometimes make them even more dangerous than a pride of hungry lions!

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD is a journey as satisfying for the armchair traveller as the long-distance cyclist. Enriched with history, humour and insight, it’s a tribute to Britain and the endless appeal of the open road.

When Rachel Cusk decides to travel to Italy for a summer with her husband and two young children, she has no idea of the trials and wonders that lie in store. Their journey leads them to both the expected and the surprising, all seen through Cusk's sharp and humane perspective.

When dark, sinister clouds loom, Victoria and Joe find themselves facing life-changing decisions. Happily, silver linings also abound in this, the fifth Old Fools chronicle. A fresh new face joins the cast of familiar characters but the return of a bad penny may be more than some can handle. What does the future hold for the Spanish village of El Hoyo and the two old fools?

Three years after the epic adventure described in Around the World in 80 Days, Michael Palin was off again. Not circumnavigating the globe, but journeying from one end to the other: the North Pole to the South Pole. Following the 30 degree east line of longitude and using aircraft only as a last resort, Palin and his team endured extremes of heat and cold as they crossed 17 countries on trains, trucks, ships, rafts, ski-doos, buses, barges, bicycles, and balloons.