Publisher: Liveright
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 03/25/2013
ISBN-13: 9780871404169
ISBN-10: 0871404168

Growing up in Marsden, England, author and poet Simon Armitage regularly saw hikers walking the Pennine Way. The 256-mile path, called the country's backbone, reaches from Derbyshire to just past the Scottish border, takes approximately three weeks to hike, and covers land both beautiful and bleak. When 47-year-old Armitage decides to walk the path himself, he starts in Scotland (where most finish), so that he'll be heading home. Roaming like a troubadour of old, he describes his experiences on the trail and the people he meets as well as his stops each night to give poetry readings in different villages in return for a place to sleep. Readers who enjoyed Robert Macfarlane's The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot may also enjoy this "travel gem" (Booklist).

Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 04/16/2013
ISBN-13: 9781439160992
ISBN-10: 1439160996

Though the travel industry is relatively new, it's a trillion-dollar business, one of the largest in the world. What does this mean and what impact does it have? Having spent five years researching these questions, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Elizabeth Becker presents a sobering assessment of what one billion international sightseers per year means for the world economy, the environment, local cultures, historical sites, and individuals. Taking cruises, going on safari, and traveling everywhere from Costa Rica to France, she describes how shiny surfaces sometimes hide seedy underpinnings, such as corrupt governments and sex trafficking. This "meticulously reported and often disturbing exposé of the travel industry" (The New York Times Book Review) will provide food for thought...and may make armchair traveling even more appealing.

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Publisher: Motorbooks
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 03/01/2013
ISBN-13: 9781908526212
ISBN-10: 1908526211

English journalist Steve Boggan decided to learn about America in a fun and novel way. Going to Lebanon, Kansas -- which has been called the center of the continental United States -- Boggan gave a ten-dollar bill to a hunting lodge owner there, and then he followed the money...where ever it went. As it turns out, he spent a few days in small Lebanon, getting to know some of the town's welcoming folks, before following the bill to other places, including Missouri, Arkansas, Chicago, Illinois, and Detroit, Michigan. As he traveled, Boggan met many good-hearted people -- everyone from an 80-year-old newspaper reporter/editor/photographer to a young mother to a J.P. Morgan investment banker -- and most of them were eager and happy to help with his quirky project. If you'd like to hang out with some nice folks for a bit, pick up Follow the Money, "an engaging, positive portrait of the American Midwest" (Library Journal).

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Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/07/2013
ISBN-13: 9780618839339
ISBN-10: 061883933X

Veteran travel writer Paul Theroux writes about his final trip to Africa in his latest evocative, well-written travelogue. Beginning in South Africa (the same place where he ended the Eastern African journey chronicled in Dark Star Safari ten years earlier), he plans to go up the west coast of the continent he has loved since he was a 22-year-old Peace Corps volunteer close to 50 years ago. He visits slums in Cape Town and ponders how the city has changed, travels with Bush people in Namibia, checks out a safari in beautiful Botswana, and witnesses war-ravaged, poverty-stricken Angola, where he decides his ultimate African trip, a 2,500 journey, must end. This fascinating book offers "a deeper understanding of Africa and travel in general" (Kirkus Reviews) as well as a look at Theroux as an older traveler.

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Publisher: Lyons Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 10/01/2007
ISBN-13: 9780762745654
ISBN-10: 0762745657

If the idea of an amusing and lighthearted book about an exotic job in a wild locale appeals to you, add Whatever You Do, Don't Run to your must-read list. Author Peter Allison, an Australian-born safari guide who worked in Botswana for over a decade, relates numerous adventures, including ones about tourists who are more challenging to deal with than the amazing animals -- lions, monkeys, crocodiles, hippos, etc. -- that they've traveled to see. Run (as long as there aren't any wild animals about!) to the library and pick up this "fast and very entertaining read" (Booklist). Fans of Alexander McCall Smith's bestselling No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency novels who want to know more about the books' setting may be especially interested in this memoir.

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Publisher: Broadway Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/01/2001
ISBN-13: 9780767903868
ISBN-10: 0767903862

Popular and charmingly funny travel writer Bill Bryson takes readers on a wide-ranging tour of Australia, a trip that, naturally, goes far beyond packaged-tour routes. During his sometimes perilous journey, Bryson shares interesting facts about the Land Down Under, including details about its beginnings as a British prison, its various lethal animals (watch out for the seashells!), a prime minister's mysterious disappearance, and generally has a good time. He also visits the Outback and discusses Aborigines and their history. In a starred review, Library Journal says that thanks to "Bryson's lively storytelling" this book is "difficult to put down." Readers who want to know even more about Australia's early days can pick up Robert Hughes' well-reviewed The Fatal Shore.

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Publisher: Grove Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 07/01/2000
ISBN-13: 9780802137012
ISBN-10: 0802137016

For the essays in this book, well-known political humorist P.J. O'Rourke traveled the world, going to all sorts of places and events that not everyone can appreciate, such as war-torn Lebanon, student protests in South Korea, and Harvard's 350th anniversary celebration. Toss in trips to Disney World's Epcot Center, El Salvador, the Gaza Strip, and Jim Bakker's Heritage U.S.A among others, and you've got a grab-bag of amusing experiences. Originally published in 1988, Holidays in Hell became something of a satirical classic, which even though times have changed, fans can still appreciate. If you want even more O'Rourke, try his recent follow up to this book, Holidays in Heck. There, he collects travel pieces written throughout his post-retirement years, when he visited everywhere from Disneyland to Kyrgyzstan, often with his family in tow.

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Publisher: Broadway Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/01/2004
ISBN-13: 9780767915304
ISBN-10: 0767915305

When 26-year-old J. Maarten Troost's girlfriend accepted a temporary position in the tiny island nation of Kiribati, he decided to tag along, fully expecting to spend the next two years in a tropical paradise. Upon arrival, however, Troost quickly discovered the reality of life on the atoll: suffocating heat, polluted waters, exotic diseases, and a distinct lack of modern conveniences. As Troost entertainingly (some would say hilariously) recounts the difficulties of adjusting to life in Kiribati, he also reveals a growing appreciation for his new home and its people. Publishers Weekly calls The Sex Lives of Cannibals, Troost's first book, a "comic masterwork of travel writing." Readers who can't get enough Troost can pick up his Getting Stoned with Savages. Fans of TV's Globe Trekker should certainly check out Troost's work.

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