Showing results for "The Others" in Travel Writing & Commentary

More than twenty years after teaching English to China's first boom generation at a small college in Sichuan Province, Peter Hessler returned to teach the next generation. At the same time, Hessler's twin daughters became the only Westerners in a student body of about two thousand in their local primary school. Through reconnecting with his previous students now in their forties—members of China's "Reform generation"—and teaching his current undergraduates, Hessler is able to tell an intimately unique story about China's incredible transformation over the past quarter-century.

My Family and Other Enemies is part travelogue, part memoir that dives into the hinterland of Croatia. Mary Novakovich explores her ongoing relationship with the region of Lika in central Croatia, where her parents were born..

Adam Rozenbachs decided he would take his father on the trip of a lifetime to Europe - a chance to repay his dad for everything he’d given him in life. After three weeks of travel, Adam decided not killing his dad was more than enough repayment. Frustration reached a whole new level as Adam discovered his dad didn’t like museums, galleries, landmarks, travelling or Paris. But amid the irritation of travelling with an adult toddler (an adoddler), Adam learned - through gritted teeth - more about his dad, his family and himself.

The Pacific Crest Trail is a 2,600-mile footpath from Mexico to Canada through the mountains of the West, and Rick sets out for the six-month trek looking forward to being immersed in nature. But once on the trail, he's surprised to find that his fellow humans, when observed and listened to at foot speed, are the more interesting and instructive creatures.

Spanning an extraordinary range of subjects and locations, these ten gripping essays show why Jon Krakauer is considered a standard-bearer of modern journalism.

Join John Rogers as he ventures out into an uncharted London like a redbrick Indiana Jones in search of the lost meaning of our metropolitan existence. Nursing two reluctant knees and a can of Stella, he perambulates through the seasons seeking adventure in our city's remote and forgotten reaches. When John Rogers packed away his rucksack to start a family in London he didn't stop travelling. But instead of canoeing up the Rejang River to find retired headhunters in Sarawak, he caught the ferry to Woolwich in search of the edge of the city at Crayford Marshes.

A born naturalist and a fearless traveler, Vladimir Dinets wrote travel guides, conducted field research, and lived a couple of lives before he was accepted into the PhD program in zoology at the University of Miami. He thought crocodiles were a dead-end research topic - survivors from the age of the dinosaurs but not much else - until he witnessed groups of up to seventy alligators performing mating choruses that included infrasound vibrations - a form of communication extremely rare in nature.

Steve Hoffman is a perfectly comfortable middle-aged Minnesotan man who has always been desperately, pretentiously in love with France, more specifically with the idea of France. To follow that love, he and his family move, nearly at random, to the small, rural, scratchy-hot village of Autignac in the south of the country, and he immediately thinks he’s made a terrible mistake.

Robert Twigger, poet, artist and travel author, is a lover of uninhabited islands. A lifelong passion for the Lake District led him to embark on a mission to visit all 36 islands of the region—some little more than rocks, some home only to wildlife, some the perfect spot for a night of wild-camping. Armed only with an inflatable canoe, and inspired by Arthur Ransome, Wainwright, Wordsworth and other writers of the region, he journeys beyond the tourists and the busy roads.

Elisabeth Luard, one of the food world's most entertaining and evocative writers, has travelled extensively throughout her life, meeting fascinating people, observing different cultures and uncovering extraordinary ingredients in unusual places. In this enchanting food memoir, she shares tales and dishes gathered from her global ramblings.

In September of 2005, the Peace Corps sent Michael Levy to teach English in the heart of China's heartland. His hosts in the city of Guiyang found additional uses for him: resident expert on Judaism, romantic adviser, and provincial basketball star, to name a few. His account of overcoming vast cultural differences to befriend his students and fellow teachers is by turns poignant and laugh-out-loud funny.

Twilit and sinister, oozing with ague, bad airs, boggarts and other spirits: in the mind’s eye marshes, bogs and swamps are dangerous, crepuscular—and only partly of this world. For centuries, wetlands, have been the object of our distrust: we’ve drained away their demons, encroached upon and denuded them, ripping away not only their fragile beauty, botany and birdlife but also the carefully calibrated lives of those that have come to understand and thrive in them. In Swamp Songs, Tom Blass takes us on a journey through these strange lands and waterscapes.

Sam savors every local culture he encounters much like Conan O’Brian and the late Anthony Bourdain—embracing the people, their food, and especially their curiosities. His humor and infatuation with humanity’s diversity fuel each story. Teaching in Korea and Vietnam since 2015, Sam uses his time out of the classroom to explore the rest of Asia. His five-book series, Itchy Feet Travel Tales in Asia, covers his adventures (and misadventures) in Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Russia, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Gretel le Maitre is an ordinary, curious lady who is about to lose her Mother. For the first time in her life Gretel feels such overwhelming Sadness and Dread that she wants to Talk. She’d like to do this with Bede, the venerable one. She certainly can’t do it alone and Bede, after all, means prayer. There is a BUT! Gretel loves the world and history, architecture, literature and people. And so is determined to walk this path with light footsteps and with humour and warmth. 🌞Please follow me on X @leshuguenots. 🌳“Gretel le Maitre is a podcaster and host of the series ...

In March 2019, the Viking Sky cruise ship was struck by a bomb cyclone in the North Atlantic. Rocked by 50-foot swells and 40-knot gales, the ship lost power and began to drift straight toward the notoriously dangerous Hustadvika coast in Norway. This is the suspenseful, harrowing, funny, touching story by one passenger who contemplated death aboard that ship.

If being a grown-up were as simple as holding down a job, buying a reliable car, finding the home of your dreams and living happily-ever-after, there’d be no need for this true story. But our mid-thirties author’s unorthodox approach and complete failure to accept the world as defined by adults was never going to make it quite so straightforward - especially when Brexit threw a spanner in the works.

On a transformational one-year journey around the world, author Kristina Liu found more than just spectacular scenery and exquisite food: she found herself. Join Kristina as she explores three continents and twelve cities, from her wine tasting in South Africa to finding beauty and history in Europe to romance and adventures in South America, culminating in her life-changing plant medicine retreat in the heart of the Amazon jungle.

Julia Cameron, best-selling author of The Artist's Way, has a terrible fear of flying. Each time she is faced with the prospect of air travel, her mind races and her heart cries out, “No, I can’t go”! In the wise and comforting volume, Safe Journey, Cameron shares the prayers, tools, and strategies she uses when traveling in order to overcome her fears and to enjoy the excitement that accompanies all of life’s great adventures.

More than 200 years later, the “voyage of discovery” — with its outsized characters, geographic marvels, and wondrous moments of adventure and mystery — continues to draw us along the Lewis and Clark Trail. Revisit the Lewis and Clark Trail and its famous people, landmarks, and events, exploring questions the expedition continues to raise, such as, What really motivated Thomas Jefferson to send out his agents of discovery? What “mutinous expressions” were uttered? What happened to the dog? Why did Meriwether Lewis end his own life?

This memoir presents one human story, crafted into art by the power of words. Elisha's carefully planned life collapses with the breakup of a relationship she had built her life around, sending her on a journey into the depths of the global sexy Tantra scene. Wild Thing in Captivity is Eat, Pray, Love for Tantra. It's a coming-of-middle-age tale for Generation X.