Showing titles in Travel Writing & Commentary

A Waterstones Travel Book of the Year 2023 A funny, warm and timely meditation on identity and belonging, following the scenic route along the England–Wales border: Britain’s deepest faultline. There is a line on the map: to one side Wales, small, rugged and stubborn; on the other England...

Bloomsbury presents On This Holy Island written and read by Oliver Smith. *** A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST SUMMER TRAVEL BOOK OF 2024 *** “Excellent…immensely well-researched and playful. Smith has written something special.” — Patrick Galbraith, The Times "Imaginative and engaging" —...

Brought to you by Penguin. AS SEEN ON TV Professor Alice Roberts travels 1,300 miles by train across Italy, France and Spain in search of a greater understanding of the Roman Empire for Channel 4's popular TV series Roman Empire by Train with Alice Roberts. Visiting sites often off the beaten...

Ever since he can remember, Dom Joly has been fascinated by travel to odd places. In part this stems from a childhood spent in war-torn Lebanon, where instead of swapping marbles in the schoolyard, he had a shrapnel collection - the schoolboy currency of Beirut. Dom's upbringing was interspersed with terrifying days and nights spent hunkered in the family basement under Syrian rocket attack or coming across a pile of severed heads from a sectarian execution in the pine forests near his home. 

This audiobook includes unabridged recordings of Mark Twain's 5 most inventive and humorous travel monologues.

Do you yearn to connect with wildness and natural beauty more often? Could your neighbourhood become a source of wonder and discovery and change the way you see the world? Have you ever felt the call of adventure, only to realise that sometimes the most remarkable journeys unfold close to home? After years of challenging expeditions all over the world, adventurer Alastair Humphreys spends a year exploring the small map around his own home. Can this unassuming landscape, marked by the glow of city lights and the hum of busy roads, hold any surprises for the world traveller or satisfy his ...

Challenged by an expert who said it couldn’t be done, Joshua Slocum, a fearless New England sea captain, set out in April 1895 to prove that a man could sail alone around the world. A little over three years and forty-six thousand miles later, the proof was complete. This is Slocum’s own account of his remarkable adventures during the historic voyage of the Spray.

SHORTLISTED FOR TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE 2026 EDWARD STANFORD TRAVEL WRITING AWARDS SHORTLISTED FOR TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE 2026 INSPIRE GLOBAL MEDIA AWARDS A FINANCIAL TIMES READERS BOOK OF THE YEAR From the author of the smash-hit Around the World in 80 Trains comes a new...

After crossing the final mountain passes of Turkish Kurdistan, Ollivier sets foot in Iran, keen on locating vestiges of the silk trade as he passes through Persia's modern cities and traditional villages, including Tabriz, Tehran, Nishapur, and the holy city of Mashhad. Beyond urban areas lie deserts: first Iran's Great Salt Desert, then Turkmenistan's forbidding Karakum, whose relentless sun, snakes, and scorpions pose continuous challenges to Ollivier's goal of reaching Uzbekistan.

'The best non-fiction writer of her generation' THE TIMES 'When I read Flyn’s writing I would often exhale with a sense of wonder' GUARDIAN 'Fascinating and masterfully written' ALICE WINN A lyrical exploration of the world’s most forbiddingly remote places, the supposedly uninhabited...

Long overshadowed by Japan and China, South Korea is a small country that happens to be one of the great national success stories of the postwar period. From a failed state with no democratic tradition, ruined and partitioned by war, and sapped by a half-century of colonial rule, South Korea transformed itself in just 50 years into an economic powerhouse and a democracy that serves as a model for other countries. With no natural resources and a tradition of authoritarian rule, Korea managed to accomplish a second Asian miracle.

Yet familiar though the sea areas are by name, few people give much thought to where they are or what they contain. In Attention All Shipping, Charlie Connelly wittily explores the places behind the voice, those mysterious regions whose names seem often to bear no relation to conventional geography. Armchair travel will never be the same again.

Aside from love, few actvities seem to promise us as much happiness as going traveling: taking off for somewhere else, somewhere far from home, a place with more interesting weather, customs, and landscapes. But although we are inundated with advice on where to travel, few people seem to talk about why we should go and how we can become more fulfilled by doing so.

In To the Island of Tides, Alistair Moffat travels to - and through the history of - the fated island of Lindisfarne. Walking from his home in the Borders, through the historical landscape of Scotland and northern England, he takes us on a pilgrimage in the footsteps of saints and scholars, before arriving for a secular retreat on the Holy Isle. To the Island of Tides is a meditation on the power of place, but also a more personal journey - a chance for a personal stocktaking and a reflection on where life leads us.

For 20 years John Aitchison has been travelling the world to film wildlife for the BBC and other broadcasters, taking him to faraway places on every continent. The Shark and the Albatross is the story of these journeys of discovery, of his encounters with animals and occasional enterprising individuals in remote and sometimes dangerous places.

THE TIMES BIOGRAPHY OF THE DECADE WINNER OF THE 2013 SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION WINNER OF THE 2013 COSTA BOOK AWARDS BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR The story of Gabriele D’Annunzio, poet, daredevil – and Fascist. In September 1919 Gabriele D’Annunzio, successful poet and occasional...

All About Everest is the podcast that takes you to the roof of the world. Hosted by Pauline Reynolds-Nuttall, it explores the history, culture, and modern challenges of Mount Everest — from legendary expeditions and Sherpa stories to the 2025 cleanup efforts, climate change, and overcrowding. Each episode dives into triumphs, tragedies, and the human spirit that defines the world’s tallest mountain and interviews with some of the top mountaineers. Perfect for climbers, adventurers, or anyone fascinated by Everest’s enduring legacy. Subscribe for weekly stories and Everest news.

With superb skill and feeling, Graham Greene retraces the experiences and encounters of his extraordinary life. His restlessness is legendary; as if seeking out danger, Greene travelled to Haiti during the nightmare rule of Papa Doc, Vietnam in the last days of the French, Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion. With ironic delight he recalls his time in the British Secret Service in Africa and his brief involvement in Hollywood. He writes, as only he can, about people and places, faith, doubt, fear and not least, the trials and craft of writing.

Bryson brings his unique brand of humour to travel writing as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet and heads for Europe. Travelling with Stephen Katz—also his wonderful sidekick in A Walk in the Woods—he wanders from Hammerfest in the far north, to Istanbul on the cusp...

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.