Travel

Not another collection of checklists or tips on coupons or promotions, this practical guide teaches travelers — novice or seasoned — how to take advantage of travel opportunities by avoiding the typical tourist mentality. Author Tim Leffel shows readers how to bypass the traps that drive up expenses and find the best value, whether as a young backpacker or a wealthy retiree. Drawing on his own extensive experience (including three yearlong trips around the globe as well as his experience as an industry insider), the author also covers what steps to take and what resources to use to save money on travel and how to travel better — or more often — on a smaller budget. A dozen other notable travel writers and subject matter experts contribute sidebars on specific ways to save.

Our modern day, multimedia, information-obsessed culture has fundamentally altered much of what we do day-to-day. The way we shop and pay bills. The way we communicate. The way we research, study, and learn.

In the realm of travel we have more tools than ever telling us where to go, how to get there, what it will look like, what to do, and why we should go in the first place. This proliferation of constantly updated data has changed the way we go about our journeys. But how?

By tracing the evolution of the guidebook from pilgrim manuals and Baedeker’s books to Yelp reviews and Google Maps, David Bockino explores the effects this information growth has had on the state of travel and adventure. Inspired by some of the world’s greatest explorers, he sets out guidebook-less to a destination he knows little about, launching an experiment to determine just how the guidebook and its digital descendants have transformed the nature of travel.

The Guidebook Experiment is a call-to-action to conduct our own guidebook experiments, to disconnect from the ceaseless barrage of information in modern life and explore an unknown neighborhood or unfamiliar country and discover the joy of travel on our own.

Far more than one obsessed travel writer’s take on Walt Disney World, Mousejunkies! is a collection of amusing travelogues and savvy insider’s tips gleaned from a group of seemingly rational adults who find themselves inexplicably drawn to the Magic Kingdom. It covers all the essential topics — when to go, where to say, what to do, and where to eat — as well as experiences not found in other guides. Readers learn how to indulge in an all-day beer and football orgy at the resort, how to extract the family from Fantasmic with sanity intact, where to catch a mid-afternoon catnap, and how a Disney cruise can go very, very wrong. Packed with useful information, from touring plans to restroom reviews, these funny, affectionate personal accounts paint a vivid portrait of a creatively engineered world where unexpected surprises create lasting memories.

In this revised and updated edition of Food -- Silver Medal winner of the Lowell Thomas Award for Best Travel Book -- the world is revealed through the medium of cuisine. Join such top writers as M. F. K. Fisher, P. J. O’Rourke, Colin Thubron, Ginu Kamani, Simon Loftus, and Gary Paul Nabhanon on culinary quests of all kinds: dine with locals in Casablanca on a determined pilgrimage for an authentic meal; encounter a mysterious prankster in a garden in the South of France; and go crabbing under the stars on a romantic night in the Caribbean.

This best-selling, award-winning series presents the finest accounts of women who have traveled to the ends of the earth to discover new places, peoples — and themselves. The common threads connecting the stories are a woman’s perspective and lively storytelling to make the reader laugh, cry, wish she were there, or be glad she wasn’t. From breaking the gender barrier on a soccer field in Kenya to learning the art of French cooking in a damp cellar in the Loire Valley to hitchhiking through Mexico in the 1960s, the points of view and perspectives are global and the themes eclectic, including stories that encompass spiritual growth, hilarity and misadventure, high adventure, romance, solo journeys, stories of service to humanity, family travel, and encounters with exotic cuisine.

Begun as a grand adventure, Storm tells the story of a trip that quickly became a tumultuous test of endurance. When the Baltic States of the former Soviet Union opened up, Allen and his girlfriend Suzanne were drawn to the prospect of traveling together once again. Setting out on a motorcycle, the two seasoned travelers rode through Germany, Denmark, and Sweden to the Arctic Circle, then on to Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. Though they’d been together for seven years, and thought they knew what to expect from an extended road trip, they couldn’t foresee the unrelenting natural elements, shifts in once-shared dreams, or fissures in their relationship that lay ahead. Often darkly humorous, Storm reveals a couple’s love and the fragility of human connections as it recounts the journey that became a test of both riders’ physical and emotional endurance.

This is a must-have for any woman traveler, and a great gift for young women just heading out to see the world. It is packed with funny, instructive, and inspiring advice, including how to stay healthy, how to thwart unwelcome advances, how to avoid “travel budget killers,” and much more. This revised and expanded 4rd Edition incorporates numerous new anecdotes, tips, and wisdom on a variety of relevant topics, including: First Time Travel; Solo Travel; Women’s Online Travel Community; Health and Safety; Traveling with Children; Resources for older women travelers, and much more.

Erin Byrne captures the essence of France through unique and authentic experiences in Wings from Victory, her collection of stories about travel in one of the world's most alluring countries. Some or her experiences come through serendipity, others via good fortune, still others by accident. But each time, Erin takes the experience, digs deeper, and discovers meaning from it. Each story demonstrates in a different way this idea put forth by Joseph Campbell:

The passage of the mythological hero may be overground, incidentally; fundamentally it is inward—into the depths, where obscure resistances are overcome and long lost powers are revivified.

From Cézanne’s studio in Aix-en-Provence to a tiny village in the Jura Mountains, from a cozy bistro on the Left Bank of Paris to a plain high above the Normandy beaches, Erin travels through France collecting stories, characters, tastes, and secrets that act as ingredients for change. She learns to trust her intuition after listening to Henri Cartier-Bresson’s advice. After gazing at van Gogh’s self-portrait, Erin finds a way to be more honest.

This book is about the gifts we all glean from our travels, and will inspire readers to unwrap their own images and impressions in a new way.

In A Sense of Place, journalist/travel writer Michael Shapiro goes on a pilgrimage to visit the world's great travel writers on their home turf to get their views on their careers, the writer's craft, and most importantly, why they chose to live where they do and what that place means to them. The book chronicles a young writer’s conversations with his heroes, writers he's read for years who inspired him both to pack his bags to travel and to pick up a pen and write. Michael skillfully coaxes a collective portrait through his interviews, allowing the authors to speak intimately about the writer's life, and how place influences their work and perceptions.

In each chapter Michael sets the scene by describing the writer's surroundings, placing the reader squarely in the locale, whether it be Simon Winchester's Massachusetts, Redmond O'Hanlon's London, or Frances Mayes's Tuscany. He then lets the writer speak about life and the world, and through quiet probing draws out fascinating commentary from these remarkable people. For Michael it’s a dream come true, to meet his mentors; for readers, it's an engaging window onto the twin landscapes of great travel writers and the world in which they live.

Stand back! The tales in this raunchy round-the-world romp might get you dirty.

We've all had unspeakable experiences while traveling that we're ashamed to admit, but these often become our best stories in the retelling. The writers in this collection cast inhibition aside and reveal their weirdest and worst moments and how they made the best of them. And memorable moments in exotic destinations come in all shapes and sizes: insects as big as Pam Anderson’s left tit, regrettable sex, stink-eyed officials, horrible healers, Lady Gaga’s shoes and Madonna’s special meal, trigger-happy militants, and peeping Tom rock stars.

Adventure vicariously as:

Spud Hilton (not Monty Python) finds the Holy Grail by accident.
Meghan Ward squats, and then the toilet grunts back, in Goa.
Kasha Rigby proved how tough she is on National Geographic’s Ultimate Survival Alaska, but is she a match for a 90-year-old bone breaker in Guatemala?
Namibians stereotype Chinese men as Bruce Lee—Gerald Yeung wonders if attacking baboons will do the same.
Keph Senett (hoping not to follow in the footsteps of Pussy Riot) braves bombs, police and a Soviet-era sofa bed to play soccer at the LGBT games in Putin’s Russia.
Jabba-the-Turd versus Shannon Bradford in an epic showdown in Argentina.
And many more….

Since publishing the original edition of A Woman’s World in 1995, Travelers’ Tales has been the recognized national leader in women’s travel literature, and with the launch of the annual series The Best Travel Writing in 2004, the obvious next step was an annual collection of the best women’s travel writing of the year. This title is the tenth in that series—The Best Women’s Travel Writing—presenting stimulating, inspiring, and uplifting adventures from women who have traveled to the ends of the earth to discover new places, peoples, and facets of themselves. The common threads connecting these stories are a female perspective and fresh, compelling storytelling to make the reader laugh, weep, wish she were there, or be glad she wasn’t. The points of view and perspectives are global, and themes are as eclectic as in all of our books, including stories that encompass spiritual growth, hilarity and misadventure, high adventure, romance, solo journeys, stories of service to humanity, family travel, and encounters with exotic cuisine.

As a professional travel writer and editor for the past 40 years, Don George has been paid to explore the world. Through the decades, his articles have been published in magazines, newspapers, and websites around the globe and have won more awards than almost any other travel writer alive, yet his pieces have never been collected into one volume. The Way of Wanderlust: The Best Travel Writing of Don George fills this void with a moving and inspiring collection of tales and reflections from one of America’s most acclaimed and beloved travel writers.

From his high-spirited account of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro on a whim when he was 22 years old to his heart-plucking description of a home-stay in a muddy compound in Cambodia as a 61-year-old, this collection ranges widely. As renowned for his insightful observations as for his poetic prose, George always absorbs the essence of the places he’s visiting.

Other stories here include a moving encounter with Australia’s sacred red rock monolith, Uluru; an immersion in country kindness on the Japanese island of Shikoku; the trials and triumphs of ascending Yosemite’s Half Dome with his wife and children; and a magical morning at Machu Picchu.

Marco Polo Didn’t Go There is a collection of rollicking travel tales from a young writer USA Today has called “Jack Kerouac for the Internet Age.” For the past ten years, Rolf Potts has taken his keen postmodern travel sensibility into the far fringes of five continents for such prestigious publications as National Geographic Traveler, Salon.com, and The New York Times Magazine. This book documents his boldest, funniest, and most revealing journeys—from getting stranded without water in the Libyan desert, to crashing the set of a Leonardo DiCaprio movie in Thailand, to learning the secrets of Tantric sex in a dubious Indian ashram.

Marco Polo Didn’t Go There is more than just an entertaining journey into fascinating corners of the world. The book is a unique window into travel writing, with each chapter containing a “commentary track”—endnotes that reveal the ragged edges behind the experience and creation of each tale. Offbeat and insightful, this book is an engrossing read for students of travel writing as well as armchair wanderers.

A guidebook with a decidedly different approach, “Mousejunkies! 3rd Edition” is a collection of humorous travelogues and insider how-to secrets compiled after scores of trips to Walt Disney World. The book draws on the insights of a panel of Disney fanatics — The Mousejunkies — following dozens of personal vacations, trade shows and press trips in recent years. This third edition brings everything up to date with countless new tips, tricks, and tales.

“Mousejunkies!” provides tips and travel plans told through personal accounts – something that sets it apart from all the other guides.

All of the most important topics are covered: When to go, where to stay, what to do and where to eat. But readers will also learn Zen and the art of not melting down under the Florida sun, how to extract your family from Fantasmic with your sanity intact, where to catch a mid-afternoon catnap in the theme parks, and even how wrong things go when Epcrotch strikes.

“Mousejunkies!” is more than one travel writer’s experiences at one of the most popular vacation destinations in the world. The Mousejunkies are a group of seemingly well-adjusted adults who have found themselves inexplicably drawn to Walt Disney World, again and again. Each has taken his or her own path, finding their way separately. When the smoke cleared, the group found itself back in reality, staring at one another over a pile of discarded annual passes and a useless collection of novelty hats.

The stories - wry, humorous and told with an affection gained through years of Disney addiction - paint vivid portraits of a creatively engineered world, where unexpected surprises create lasting memories.

The tips – valuable information designed to help readers get more out of their vacations – are told with a sly wink and the desire to share the secrets that make trips to central Florida more memorable.

From touring plans to tongue-in-cheek reviews of the theme parks’ restrooms, “Mousejunkies!” provides readers with useful information couched in obsessively-detailed narrative with a humorous touch.

Leave the Lipstick, Take the Iguana is the 9th book in the bestselling Travelers' Tales humor series which began with There's No Toilet Paper on the Road Less Traveled followed by the now classic "underwear" women's humor series which began with top seller and still-selling Sand in My Bra.

Kin to the Wind is the memoir of Moro, a gifted virtuoso guitarist and composer, who first played (and wrote his first composition) when he was six and performed his first of many concerts when he was twelve. The book recounts his journeys as he traveled the world as a troubadour, using only his guitar performances as currency. This talented former member of the world-famous New Christy Minstrels played in over 50 countries—in royal palaces, African casbahs, and even on a British warship in trade for his passage across the Indian Ocean. Bedouin smugglers took him across the Arabian Desert in their camel caravan, listening to his music beneath desert stars. While he was in Bangkok giving a command performance for Their Majesties King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit of Thailand, the U.S. military invited him to play for the troops at their jungle camps. And he became the first entertainer to perform for American forces in the Vietnam conflict. He was also the first entertainer to appear at Paul Newman's famous 1960s exclusive Hollywood discotheque, THE FACTORY, where he played nightly. He followed that with an engagement at Howard Hughes' CABARET ROOM in Las Vegas where Mr. Hughes personally came to hear him. An Italian duchess who found him performing with a street-dancing flamenco troupe of gypsies in 1961 assisted him in obtaining a visa for Algeria where he then toured—during the violent Seven Years' War—and S.A.O. terrorists captured and held him. He played for them, literally for his life, whereupon they gave him money and let him go. Moro's memoir is an account of life's magic, suffused with an almost childlike innocence in his pursuit of dreams and his belief in the goodness of people the world over.

A guidebook with a decidedly different approach, the second edition of Mousejunkies is a collection of humorous travelogues and insider how-to secrets compiled after scores of trips to Walt Disney World. The book draws on the insights of a panel of Disney fanatics — The Mousejunkies — following dozens of personal vacations, trade shows and press trips in recent years. This second edition brings everything up to date with countless new tips, tricks, and tales.

Mousejunkies provides tips and travel plans told through personal accounts – something that sets it apart from all the other guides.

All of the most important topics are covered: When to go, where to stay, what to do and where to eat. But readers will also learn how to indulge in an all-day chicken wing and beer football orgy at Walt Disney World, how to extract your family from Fantasmic with your sanity intact, where to catch a mid-afternoon catnap in the theme park, and even how wrong a Disney cruise can go.

Mousejunkies is more than one travel writer’s experiences at one of the most popular vacation destinations in the world. The Mousejunkies are a group of seemingly well-adjusted adults who have found themselves inexplicably drawn to Walt Disney World, again and again. Each has taken his or her own path, finding their way separately. When the smoke cleared, the group found itself back in reality, staring at one another over a pile of discarded annual passes and a useless collection of novelty hats.

The stories - wry, humorous and told with an affection gained through years of Disney addiction - paint vivid portraits of a creatively engineered world, where unexpected surprises create lasting memories.

The tips – valuable information designed to help readers get more out of their vacations – are told with a sly wink and the desire to share the secrets that make trips to central Florida more memorable.

From touring plans to tongue-in-cheek reviews of the theme parks’ restrooms, Mousejunkies provides readers with useful information couched in obsessively-detailed narrative with a humorous touch.

"Someday, when I am rich, I am going to invite someone from my travels to visit me in America." Brad Newsham was only 22 when he scribbled this note in his journal with "only an immature sense of the staying power of ideas." Years later, this casual prophecy came true, and Newsham documents the events that led up to it in Take Me with You. This is the sweet story of his 100-day journey through the Philippines, India, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, as he seeks just the right person to bring to America. The book covers a wide geography not just of land, but also of spirit. "Brilliant, sharp, unswerving travel writing by a man skilled at letting the scales fall from his eyes; it is a memoir of travel seen through time and resolve - in short, a wonderful book." - Herbert Gold, author of Bohemia, Daughter Mine, and Best Nightmare on Earth

Two major trends have recently swept the travel world: the first, an overwhelming desire (thanks to Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestseller, Eat, Pray, Love) to write one’s own memoir; the second, an explosion of social media, blogs, twitter and texts, which allow travelers to document and share their experiences instantaneously. Thus, the act of chronicling one’s journey has never been more popular, nor the urge stronger.

Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler, will inspire budding memoirists and jetsetting scribes alike. But Writing Away doesn’t stop there—author Lavinia Spalding spins the romantic tradition of keeping a travelogue into a modern, witty adventure in awareness, introducing the traditional handwritten journal as a profoundly valuable tool for self-discovery, artistic expression, and spiritual growth.

Writing Away teaches you to embrace mishaps in order to enrich your travel experience, recognize in advance what you want to remember, tap into all your senses, and connect with the physical world in an increasingly technological age. It helps you overcome writer’s block and procrastination; tackle the discipline, routine, structure, and momentum that are crucial to the creative process; and it demonstrates how traveling—while keeping a journal along the way—is the world’s most valuable writing exercise.

A passionate journey of love, discovery, and serendipity radiating from a remote Fijian beach to the far reaches of the globe. Heartwarming, funny, and wise, Laurie Gough has written a profound testament to the invaluable lessons of the road.

Jeff Greenwald's classic travelogue follows his quest for the "perfect" Buddha statue. At turns hilarious and moving, his quest features a cast of amazing characters — from a passionate palmist to a flying lama — who provide unforgettable glimpses into the daily life and culture of the former kingdom (including a wild ride on Kathmandu’s very first escalator). Greenwald doesn't shy away from Shangri-la’s darker side. Along with colorful descriptions of Hindu and Buddhist mythology, the book tells of the rampant corruption, art smuggling, assassination attempts and human right abuses that would ignite Nepal’s violent "People Power" Revolution in April 1990.

A new afterword by the author recounts Nepal's tumultuous recent history — including the massacre of the royal family — in vivid detail. And a new preface introduces this 25th anniversary edition with some thoughts about how Nepal, and travel writing, have evolved since the book’s first publication. Shopping for Buddhas remains a must-read for anyone who has visited, or plans to visit, Nepal.

Every great city is a restless work in progress, but nowhere is the urban impulse more in flux than in Berlin, that sprawling metropolis located on the fault line of history. A short-lived fever-dream of modernity in the Roaring Twenties, redubbed Germania and primped up into the megalomaniac fantasy of a Thousand-Year Reichstadt in the Thirties, reduced in 1945 to a divided rubble heap, subsequently revived in a schizoid state of post-World War II duality, and reunited in 1989 when the wall came tumbling down — Berlin has since been reborn yet again as the hipster hub of the 21st century. This book is a hopscotch tour in time and space.

Part memoir, part travelogue, Ghost Dance in Berlin is an unlikely declaration of love, as much to a place as to a state of mind, by the American-born son of German-speaking Jewish refugees. Peter Wortsman imagines the parallel celebratory haunting of two sets of ghosts, those of the exiled erstwhile owners, a Jewish banker and his family, and those of the Führer’s Minister of Finance and his entourage, who took over title, while in another villa across the lake another gaggle of ghosts is busy planning the Final Solution.