“Great Journeys…will have even the most dedicated ‘armchair’ travelers scrambling to get out on the road.” –USA Today
Lonely Planet's selection of the world's most spectacular journeys in a lush hardback edition. Expert content with stunning images, practical planning tips and inspiring background information. Thematic coverage including famous literary journeys, great walks, classic rail journeys and more.
In a time of economic anxiety, global terror and shaken confidence, Englishman Leon Logothetis, star of the hit series 'Amazing Adventures of a Nobody' (National Geographic Channels International, Fox Reality), shows us what is good about mankind: the simple calling people have to connect to others.
Tired of his disconnected life and uninspiring job, Leon Logothetis leaves it all behind—job, money, home even his cell phone—and hits the road with nothing but the clothes on his back and five dollars in his pocket.
His journey from Times Square to the Hollywood sign relying on the kindness of strangers and the serendipity of the open road, inspire a dramatic and life changing transformation.
Along the way, Leon offers up the intriguing and charming tales gathered along his one-of-a-kind journey: riding in trains, buses, big rigs and classic cars; sleeping on streets and couches and firehouses; meeting pimps and preachers, astronauts and single moms, celebrities and homeless families, veterans and communists. Each day of his journey, we catch sight of the invisible spiritual underpinning of society in these stories of companionship—and sheer adventure—that prove that the kind, good soul of mankind has not been lost.
Award-Winning Finalist in the "Travel: Essay" category of The USA "Best Books 2011" Awards!
"Mark has captured the essence of the Italian people."-Biba Caggiano, TV chef, cookbook author, and Sacramento restaurateur.
"Alabama and Italy--what a delightful and delicious combination."-Fannie Flagg, Best-selling author and actress.
"Mark understands and so beautifully conveys the transcendent nature of true cooking, cooking that comes from the heart and feeds not just the body but the soul. There is something universal about this that goes beyond culture, age, race, and gender--real food, real cooking, real sharing is something sacred and often under appreciated. His writing is smart, sensitive and wittily observed. Beyond the Pasta exemplifies how the act of cooking is intrinsically an act of sharing and affirmation, and has the potential to be an open expression of the heart."--Scott Peacock, chef and co-author with Edna Lewis of "The Gift of Southern Cooking: Recipes and Revelations from Two Great American Cooks."
The Unconquered tells the extraordinary tale of a journey into the deepest recesses of the Amazon to track one of the planet's last uncontacted indigenous tribes. In this gripping first-person account of adventure and survival, the author follows a 34-man team into the Amazon's uncharted depths, discovering the rainforest's secrets while moving ever closer to a possible encounter with the mysterious flecheiros - or "People of the Arrow" - a seldom-glimpsed tribe of deft archers known to defend their lands with showers of deadly arrows before melting back into the forest shadows.
While on assignment for National Geographic, author Scott Wallace joined the brooding and charismatic explorer Sydney Possuelo on a quixotic mission: penetrate the jungle redoubts of the Arrow People, gather crucial information about them, and return to civilization without contacting the tribe. As head of Brazil's Department of Isolated Indians, Possuelo seeks to protect the Arrow People and their rainforest homeland from the ravages of the advancing frontier. But the information he needs to safeguard them can only be gleaned by entering a world of darkness and danger beneath the forest canopy, to seek out the untamed tribesmen while at the same time trying to avoid them.
Drawing on lessons from anthropology and the Amazon's own convulsed history, Wallace uncovers clues as to who the Arrow People might be, how they have managed to endure as one of the last unconquered tribes, why they seem to want to have nothing to do with us, and why Possuelo fights so passionately to see that their wishes are respected. In this tale of high adventure and survival, we come to know the unforgettable Possuelo as he wages an uphill battle, risking his life to protect these mysterious people and the species-rich rainforests on which they - and all of us - depend.
The bestselling author of No Shortcuts to the Top and K2 chronicles his three attempts to climb the world's tenth-highest and statistically deadliest peak, Annapurna in the Himalaya, while exploring the dramatic and tragic history of others who have made -- or attempted – the ascent, and what these exploits teach us about facing life's greatest challenges.
As a high school student in the flatlands of Rockford, Illinois, where the highest objects on the horizon were water towers, Ed Viesturs read and was captivated by the French climber Maurice Herzog's famous and grisly account of the first ascent of Annapurna in 1950. When he began his own campaign to climb the world's 14 highest peaks in the late 1980s, Viesturs looked forward with trepidation to undertaking Annapurna himself. Two failures to summit in 2000 and 2002 made Annapurna his nemesis. His successful 2005 ascent was the triumphant capstone of his climbing quest. In The Will To Climb Viesturs brings the extraordinary challenges of Annapurna to vivid life through edge-of-your-seat accounts of the greatest climbs in the mountain’s history, and of his own failed attempts and eventual success. In the process he ponders what Annapurna reveals about some of our most fundamental moral and spiritual questions--questions, he believe, that we need to answer to lead our lives well.
The latest in the highly successful Journeys of a Lifetime series and the sequel to the original bestseller, Secret Journeys of a Lifetime offers in-depth site descriptions; dozens of fun, themed top ten lists; locator maps; illuminating sidebars; and oversized, lavish full-color images that bring to life 500 novel destinations that have managed to fly under the radar.
Divided into themed chapters, the book features the "World at Your Feet", "Last Wildernesses", "Island Getaways", "The Road Less Traveled", "Secret History", "Spiritual Havens", "Hidden Treasures", "Undiscovered Villages", and "City Secrets". This book will also feature numerous short sidebars by National Geographic contributors entitled "My Secret Journey" that will eloquently describe and personalize travel experiences for readers and will also provide insight on bonus excursions near the featured destinations.
Additional eclectic sidebars will highlight intriguing ancillary information, including entertaining snippets on the local culture or history as well as other sights to see while in the area.
As with other books in the series, each chapter contains two to five lists of "Top Tens," shorter features describing experiences in a wide variety of categories, from quirky museums and quiet city garden oases to atmospheric ghost towns and the best spots for amazing ocean views.
The world’s bestselling travel book is back in a more informative, more experiential, more budget-friendly full-color edition. A #1 New York Times bestseller, 1,000 Places reinvented the idea of travel book as both wish list and practical guide. As Newsweek wrote, it “tells you what’s beautiful, what’s fun, and what’s just unforgettable— everywhere on earth.” And now the best is better. There are more than 500 full-color photographs. Over 200 entirely new entries, including visits to 28 countries like Lebanon, Croatia, Estonia, and Nicaragua, that were not in the original edition. There is an emphasis on experiences: an entry covers not just Positano and Ravello, but the full 30-mile stretch along the Amalfi Coast; Chichen Itza and Tulum are now treated as one, La Ruta Maya.
Every entry from the original edition has been readdressed and made fuller, with more suggestions for places to stay, restaurants to visit, festivals to check out. And throughout, the book is more budget-conscious, recommending not only the Ritz, but also moderately priced gems that don’t compromise on atmosphere or charm.
Following the romance, comes the nuts and bolts: web addresses, phone numbers, costs, best times to visit. Of special interest are subject-specific indexes, making the 1,000-plus pages entirely user-friendly, no matter if you’re dreaming or going.
P.J. O'Rourke is one of today's most celebrated political humorists, and has been hailed as "the funniest writer in America" by both Time and The Wall Street Journal. Two decades ago he published the classic travelogue Holidays in Hell, in which he traversed the globe on a fun-finding mission to what were then some of the most desperate places on the planet, including Warsaw, Managua, and Belfast.
In Holidays in Heck, P.J. embarks on supposedly more comfortable and allegedly less dangerous travels--often with family in tow--which mostly leave him wishing he were under artillery fire again. The essays take O'Rourke on a whirlwind of adventures, beginning at the National Mall in Washington, which he describes as having been designed with the same amazing "greatest generation" aesthetic sensibility that informed his parents' living room. We follow him as he takes his family on a ski vacation (to the Aspen of the Midwest--Ohio--where the highest point of elevation is the six-food ski instructor that his wife thinks is cute). And later he experiences a harrowing horseback ride across the mountains of Kyrgyzstan.
The result is a hilarious and often moving portrait of life in the fast lane--only this time as a husband and father.
