Travelogs of people who should get their heads examined
Top 10 Travelogs of people who should get their heads examined
: A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful, A House in the Sky, Unsavory Elements: Stories of Foreigners on the Loose in China, Queen of the Road: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus with a Will of Its Own, Honeymoon in Purdah: An Iranian Journey, I Should Have Stayed Home: The Worst Trips of Great Writers, The Cactus Eaters: How I Lost My Mind and Almost Found Myself on the Pacific Crest Trail, Somebody's Heart Is Burning: A Woman Wanderer in Africa, Bad Trips, Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure
| Author | Gideon Lewis-Kraus |
| ISBN | 1594487251 |
In medieval times, a pilgrimage gave the average Joe his only break from the daily grind. For Gideon Lewis-Kraus, it promises a different kind of escape. Determined to avoid the kind of constraint that kept his father, a gay rabbi, closeted until midlife, he has moved to anything-goes Berlin....
| Author | Amanda Lindhout |
| ISBN | 1451651694 |
The dramatic and redemptive memoir of a woman whose curiosity led her to the world’s most beautiful and remote places, its most imperiled and perilous countries, and then into fifteen months of harrowing captivity—an exquisitely written story of courage, resilience, and grace.
As...
Unsavory Elements: Stories of Foreigners on the Loose in China
| Author | Tom Carter |
| ISBN | 9881616409 |
Unsavory Elements is an unprecedented anthology of 28 new, original, true stories from some of the most celebrated foreign writers that have lived in modern China. Westerners are flocking to China in increasing numbers to chase their dreams even as Chinese emigrants seek their own dreams abroad,...
| Author | Doreen Orion |
| ISBN | 0767928539 |
A pampered Long Island princess hits the road in a converted bus with her wilderness-loving husband, travels the country for one year, and brings it all hilariously to life in this offbeat and romantic memoir.
Doreen and Tim are married psychiatrists with a twist: She's a self-proclaimed...
Honeymoon in Purdah: An Iranian Journey
| Author | Alison Wearing |
| ISBN | 0312263449 |
With a love of travel, Alison Wearing invites us to journey with her to Iran--a country that few Westerners have a chance to see. Traveling with a male friend, in the guise of a couple on their honeymoon, Wearing set out on her own at every available opportunity. She went looking for what lay beneath the...
| Author | Roger Rapoport |
| ISBN | 1571430148 |
In this hilarious anthology 50 top travel writers, novelists and journalists, including Isabel Allende, Jan Morris, Barbara Kingsolver, Paul Theroux, Mary Morris, Dominique Lapierre, Eric Hansen, Rick Steves, Tony Wheeler and Helen Gurley Brown, tell the stories of their greatest travel disasters....
| Author | Dan White |
| ISBN | 0061376930 |
The Pacific Crest Trail stretches from Mexico to Canada, a distance of 2,650 grueling, sun-scorched, bear-infested miles. When Dan White and his girlfriend announced their intention to hike it, Dan's parents—among others—thought they were nuts. How could two people who'd never even shared...
| Author | Tanya Shaffer |
| ISBN | 1400032598 |
“It's my life, and if I want to run from it I can,” quips Tanya Shaffer. An incorrigible wanderer, Shaffer has a habit of fleeing domesticity for the joys and rigors of the open road. This time her destination is Ghana, and what results is a transformative year spent roaming the African continent....
| Author | Keath Fraser |
| ISBN | 0394221516 |
As with any anthology, this collection of travel stories includes a range of quality. Some of these stories are quite good, transporting the reader to a specific place and time, immersing us in the writer’s experiences. Others are a bit more pedestrian, providing some interesting glimpses at other...
Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure
| Author | Sarah Macdonald |
| ISBN | 0767915747 |
In her twenties, journalist Sarah Macdonald backpacked around India and came away with a lasting impression of heat, pollution and poverty. So when an airport beggar read her palm and told her she would return to India—and for love—she screamed, “Never!” and gave the country, and him, the...
Travels with Charley: In Search of America
| Author | John Steinbeck |
| ISBN | 0142000701 |
A quest across America, from the northernmost tip of Maine to California’s Monterey Peninsula
To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the trees, to see the colors and the light—these were John Steinbeck's goals as he set out, at the age of fifty-eight, to rediscover...
Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam
| Author | Andrew X. Pham |
| ISBN | 0312267177 |
Catfish and Mandala is the story of an American odyssey—a solo bicycle voyage around the Pacific Rim to Vietnam—made by a young Vietnamese-American man in pursuit of both his adopted homeland and his forsaken fatherland.
Andrew X. Pham was born in Vietnam and raised in California. His...
Burmese Lessons: A true love story
| Author | Karen Connelly |
| ISBN | 0385528000 |
Orange Prize–winner Karen Connelly’s compelling memoir about her journey to Burma, where she fell in love with a leader of the Burmese rebel army.
When Karen Connelly goes to Burma in 1996 to gather information for a series of articles, she discovers a place of unexpected beauty and generosity....
In 1996, Tom Bissell went to Uzbekistan as a naive Peace Corps volunteer. Though he lasted only a few months before illness and personal crisis forced him home, Bissell found himself entranced by this remote land. Five years later he returned to explore the shrinking Aral Sea, destroyed by Soviet irrigation...
| Author | Rory Stewart |
| ISBN | 0156031566 |
In January 2002 Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan-surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day he passed through mountains covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by the Taliban, and communities thriving...
| Author | Stephanie Saldana |
| ISBN | 0385522002 |
A riveting memoir about one woman's journey into Syria under the Baathist regime and an unexpected love story between two strangers searching for meaning.
When Stephanie Saldana arrives in Damascus, she is running away from a broken heart and a haunted family history that she has crossed...
| Author | Bill Streever |
| ISBN | 0316042919 |
From avalanches to glaciers, from seals to snowflakes, and from Shackleton's expedition to "The Year Without Summer," Bill Streever journeys through history, myth, geography, and ecology in a year-long search for cold--real, icy, 40-below cold. In July he finds it while taking a dip in a 35-degree...
