'A memorable, oddly beautiful book' Wall Street Journal'A marvellous glimpse of the Japan that rarely peeks through the country's public image' Washington PostOne sunny spring morning in the 1970s, an unlikely Englishman set out on a pilgrimage that would take him across the entire length of Japan.
The Saga of the Greenlanders and Eirik the Red s Saga contain the first ever descriptions of North America, a bountiful land of grapes and vines, discovered by Vikings five centuries before Christopher Columbus.
From the author of Another Kyoto and Lost Japan, a rich, personal exploration of the culture and history of Bangkok, and an essential guide for anyone visiting the cityAlex Kerr has spent over thirty years of his life living in Bangkok.
'Out of the sea, as if Homer himself had arranged it for me, the islands bobbed up, lonely, deserted, mysterious in the fading light'Enraptured by a young woman's account of the landscapes of Greece, Henry Miller set off to explore the Grecian countryside with his friend Lawrence Durrell in 1939.
In Consolations of the Forest, Sylvain Tesson explains how he found a radical solution to his need for freedom, one as ancient as the experiences of the hermits of old Russia: he decided to lock himself alone in a cabin in the middle taiga, on the shores of Baikal, for six months.
A great, innovative and restless thinker, the young Humboldt (1769-1859) went on his epochal journey to the New World during a time of revolutionary ferment across Europe.
Often, at the hour of day when the savannah grass is streaked with silver, and pale gold rims the silhouettes of the hills, I drive with my dogs up to the Mukutan, to watch the sun setting behind the lake, and the evening shadows settle over the valleys and plains of the Laikipia plateau.
'In the gloom it came along the branches towards me, its round, hypnotic eyes blazing, its spoon-like ears turning to and fro independently like radar dishes .
Written by a Greek traveller in the second century ad for a principally Roman audience, Pausanias' Guide to Greece is a comprehensive, extraordinarily literate and well-informed guidebook for tourists of the age.
'A book about London; in other words, a book about everything' Peter Ackroyd, The TimesWalking the streets of London, Iain Sinclair traces nine routes across the territory of the capital.
'A peculiar genius with no modern equivalent, except possibly Kafka' - Jonathan MillerRegarded as a central part of Kapuscinski's work, these vivid portraits of life in the depths of Poland embody the young writer's mastery of literary reportageWhen the great Ryszard Kapuscinski was a young journalist in the early 1960s, he was sent to the farthest reaches of his native Poland between foreign assignments.
Written in the second century AD by a Greek traveller for a predominantly Roman audience, Pausanias' Guide to Greece is an extraordinarily literate and well-informed guidebook.
Dampier's (1651-1715) adventures and writing inspired both Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels, but in his own right he was a remarkable, observant and enjoyable writer - whether on a woefully mishandled pirate raid in Spanish America or on a desperate journey to Sumatra in an open boat or on the habits of manatees or bats.
Contemptuous of Europe's 'civilising mission' in Africa, Mary Kingsley's (1862-1900) extraordinary journeys through tropical west Africa are a remarkable record, both of a world which has vanished and of a writer and explorer of immense bravery, wit and humanity.
Disguised as a Persian dervish, Sir Richard Burton (1821-1890) set out to become the first Christian to penetrate the Muslim shrines of Medina and Mecca - a reckless stunt that would have resulted in his being executed if discovered.
One of the most impressive of all Victorian scientists but also a marvellous writer, Bates' (1825-1892) account of his years in the upper reaches of the Amazon is almost too good to be true - a great monument to human inquisitiveness as he battles great hoards of malevolent reptiles and insects in his quest for ever more obscure specimens on ever more narrow and creeper-choked tributaries.
Travelling through the wartorn Balkans with her husband on what proved to be a wholly useless diplomatic mission to Constantinople, Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) left a vivid, informative, clever account of her adventures in the mysterious, sophisticated culture of Ottoman palaces, bathing places and courts which - even as her husband's career was falling apart - she could not have enjoyed more.
Racked with fever, virtually broke and earning a precarious living through sending back to London the plumes of beautiful birds, Wallace (1823-1913) ultimately became one of the most heroic and admirable of all scientist-explorers.
One of the great derisive monuments to the imbecilities of the tourist experience, Mark Twain's (1835-1910) account of his tour with a group of fellow Americans around the sights of Europe is both hilarious and touching, Twain's exasperation and dismay at the phoney and exploitative being matched by his excitement and pleasure in the genuinely beautiful.
Endlessly restless and endlessly curious, Isabella Bird (1831-1904) travelled the world looking for new experiences, but never more delightfully than in her pony-bound adventures in the Colorado Territory at a time when it was only notionally under the control of the American authorities.
As Marco Polo (1254-1324) returned home across the Indian Ocean, after years in the service of Genghis Khan, he picked up a fabulous array of stories from sailors and merchants, about the peoples of the region, some reliable, some wholly implausible, but all fascinating.
When Fanny Trollope set sail for America in 1827 with hopes of joining a Utopian community of emancipated slaves, she took with her three of her children and a young French artist, leaving behind her son Anthony, growing debts and a husband going slowly mad from mercury poisoning.
Welcomed with open arms, derided as a pig-ignorant tourist and occasionally mocked mercilessly for his trouble, Ben Fogle visited the last flag-flying outposts of the British Empire.
Two centuries ago, the Russians pushed out of the cold north towards the Caucasus Mountains, the range that blocked their access to Georgia, Turkey, Persia and India.
Alone - though he was just married - and on foot, Nicholas Crane embarked on an extraordinary adventure: a seventeen-month journey along the chain of mountains which stretches across Europe from Cape Finisterre to Istanbul.
Inspired by a temple astrologer (who had accurately predicted his marriage and the birth of his two daughters), the writer and broadcaster Michael Wood travelled on a magical journey through south-east India.
The bestselling, much-loved classic account of an English couple escaping to enjoy the fruits of French rural summer living - an irresistible feast of humour and heart.
For six centuries the Republic of Venice was a maritime empire, its sovereign power extending throughout much of the eastern Mediterranean an empire of coasts, islands and isolated fortresses by which, as Wordsworth wrote, the mercantile Venetians 'held the gorgeous east in fee'.
Combining the acute observation of a nineteenth-century missionary, and the wit of a Monty Python player, Redmond O'Hanlon is famous for his adventurous travel.
