The Travel Writing & Commentary category has 277 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 487 ratings. The most-rated is The Final Frontiersman.
Getting Stoned with the Savages
Summary
Getting Stoned with Savages again reveals Troost's wry wit and infectious joy of discovery in a hilarious account of life in the farthest reaches of the world. After two grueling years on the island of Tarawa, Troost was in no hurry to return to the South Pacific until he began to feel remarkably out of place in modern America. He knew it was time to set off again for parts unknown. Here he tells the story of his time on Vanuatu, a cluster of islands where he struggles against typhoons, earthquakes, and giant centipedes but finds himself swept up in the laid-back, clothing-optional lifestyle of the islanders. When his wife Sylvia gets pregnant, they decamp for slightly more civilized Fiji, a fallen paradise rife with prostitutes and government coups, where their son takes quite naturally to island living.
©2006 J. Maarten Troost (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.
The Great Railway Bazaar
Summary
The Great Railway Bazaar is Paul Theroux's account of his epic journey by rail through Asia. Filled with evocative names of legendary train routes - the Direct-Orient Express, the Khyber Pass Local, the Delhi Mail from Jaipur, the Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur, the Hikari Super Express to Kyoto, and the Trans-Siberian Express - it describes the many places, cultures, sights, and sounds he experienced and the fascinating people he met. Here he overhears snippets of chat and occasional monologues, and is drawn into conversation with fellow passengers, from Molesworth, a British theatrical agent, and Sadik, a shabby Turkish tycoon, while avoiding the forceful approaches of pimps and drug dealers. This wonderfully entertaining travelogue pays loving tribute to the romantic joys of railways and train travel.
©1975 Paul Theroux (P)1983 Recorded Books LLC
Michael Palin: New Europe
Summary
Michael Palin reads his own account of a journey into a new Europe. Michael Palin's New Europe starts with a simple idea: that only a couple of hours from home are a half of Europe that is for him as unknown and unexplored as the plateau of Tibet or the vastness of the Sahara. Cut off for most of his life by Cold Wars and Iron Curtains, Europe's eastern lands are now open for business - and Michael sets off to discover them. Visiting 20 countries, more than in his Himalaya and Sahara journeys combined, he encounters painful memories and exuberant celebrations. Throwing himself into local life with his usual reckless curiosity, he samples pig fat with a brandy chaser, meets Romanian lumberjacks, drives the 8.58 stopping train from Poznan to Wolsztyn, learns about mine-clearing in Bosnia, treads the catwalk at a Budapest fashion show and watches Turkish gents wrestling in olive oil. It's New Europe, but vintage Palin.
©2012 Michael Palin (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Three Weeks with My Brother
Summary
In January 2003, Nick Sparks and his brother Micah set off on a three-week trip around the world. It was to mark a milestone in their lives, for at 35 and 36, respectively, they were now the only surviving members of their family. As Nick and Micah travel the globe, the intimate story of their tragic family legacy unfolds in the details of the untimely deaths of their parents and only sister. Against the backdrop of the wonders of the world, the Sparks brothers bond together to heal, to remember, and to learn to live life to the fullest.
©2004 Nicholas Sparks and Micah Sparks (P)2004 Time Warner Audiobooks
Lost in the Jungle
Summary
Four travelers meet in Bolivia and set off into the heart of the Amazon rainforest, but what begins as a dream adventure quickly deteriorates into a dangerous nightmare, and after weeks of wandering in the dense undergrowth, the four backpackers split up into two groups. But when a terrible rafting accident separates him from his partner, Yossi is forced to survive for weeks alone against one of the wildest backdrops on the planet. Stranded without a knife, map, or survival training, he must improvise shelter and forage for wild fruit to survive. As his feet begin to rot during raging storms, as he loses all sense of direction, and as he begins to lose all hope, he wonders whether he will make it out of the jungle alive.Lost in the Jungle is the story of friendship and the teachings of nature, and a terrifying true account that you won’t be able to put down.
©2009 Yossi Ghinsberg (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
The Atlas of Happiness
Summary
The Atlas of Happiness is a charming and entertaining guide that offers listeners the chance to learn and be inspired by the "untranslatable" beliefs and unique perspectives on how to live a happier life from countries around the world. Listeners can seek and find happiness in their everyday lives guided by the diverse assortment of advice, history, and philosophies on how to develop and experience special cultural traits like: Sobrenesa from Spain Turangawaewae from New Zealand Azart from Russia Samar from Syria joie de vivre from Canada And many more.
©2018 Helen Russell (P)2019 Hachette Audio
Last Chance to See
Summary
Brought to you by Penguin. Join Douglas Adams, best-selling and beloved author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and zoologist Mark Carwardine on an adventure in search of the world’s most endangered and exotic creatures. In this book, Adams’ self-proclaimed favourite of his own works, the pair encounter animals in imminent peril: the giant Komodo dragon of Indonesia, the lovable kakapo of New Zealand, the blind river dolphins of China, the white rhinos of Zaire, the rare birds of Mauritius island in the Indian Ocean and the alien-like aye-aye of Madagascar. Inimitably witty and poignant, Last Chance to See is both a celebration of our most extraordinary creatures and a warning about what we have to lose if we do not act soon. Featuring a fantastic new foreword by the authors' longtime friend Stephen Fry and an afterword from Mark Carwardine that considers what has changed since the book was first published, Last Chance to See feels more urgent than ever before.
©1990 Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine (P)2020 Penguin Audio
An Arabian Journey
Summary
Following in the footsteps of famed explorers such as Lawrence of Arabia and Wilfred Thesiger, British explorer Levison Wood brings us along on his most complex expedition yet: a circumnavigation of the Arabian Peninsula. Starting in September 2017 in a city in Northern Syria, a stone's throw away from Turkey and amidst the deadliest war of the 21st century, Wood set forth on a 5,000-mile trek through the most contested region on the planet. He moved through the Middle East for six months, from ISIS-occupied Iraq through Kuwait and along the jagged coastlines of the Emirates and Oman; across a civil-war-torn Yemen and on to Saudia Arabia, Jordan, and Israel, before ending on the shores of the Mediterranean in Lebanon. Like his predecessors, Wood traveled through some of the harshest and most beautiful environments on Earth, seeking to challenge our perceptions of this often-misunderstood part of the world. Through the relationships he forges along the way - and the personal histories and local mythologies that his companions share - Wood examines how the region has changed over thousands of years and reveals a side of the Middle East we don't often see in the media.
©2018 Levison Wood (P)2019 Tantor
Ship for Brains: Cruise Confidential 2
Summary
Cruise ship crew have it hard. Cruise ship rock stars have it harder! Bruns is back to expose the high seas art world. In this hilarious sequel he vividly describes his ship life highs and lows, misadventures, mis-flirtations and, through it all, his astute insights into human nature.
©2011 Brian David Bruns (P)2018 Brian David Bruns
Alone Time
Summary
"In Paris (or anywhere else, really) a table for one can be a most delightful place." (Alone Time, as seen in The New York Times) A wise, passionate account of the pleasures of travelling solo In our increasingly frantic daily lives, many people are genuinely fearful of the prospect of solitude, but time alone can be both rich and restorative, especially when travelling. Through on-the-ground reporting and recounting the experiences of artists, writers, and innovators who cherished solitude, Stephanie Rosenbloom considers how being alone as a traveler - and even in one's own city - is conducive to becoming acutely aware of the sensual details of the world - patterns, textures, colors, tastes, sounds - in ways that are difficult to do in the company of others. Alone Time is divided into four parts, each set in a different city, in a different season, in a single year. The destinations - Paris, Istanbul, Florence, New York - are all pedestrian-friendly, allowing travelers to slow down and appreciate casual pleasures instead of hurtling through museums and posting photos to Instagram. Each section spotlights a different theme associated with the joys and benefits of time alone and how it can enable people to enrich their lives - facilitating creativity, learning, self-reliance, as well as the ability to experiment and change. Rosenbloom incorporates insights from psychologists and sociologists who have studied solitude and happiness, and explores such topics as dining alone, learning to savor, discovering interests and passions, and finding or creating silent spaces. Her engaging and elegant prose makes Alone Time as warmly intimate an account as the details of a trip shared by a beloved friend - and will have its many listeners eager to set off on their own solo adventures.
©2018 Stephanie Rosenbloom (P)2018 Penguin Audio
Steps out of Time
Summary
Years ago, an overachieving and harried young mother accidentally flushed her gold watch down the toilet. Time passed, but the image of the lost watch continued to haunt her, a symbol of an overcommitted life. Two decades later, propelled by a series of curious coincidences, she leaves behind her busy professional life, her cell phone, and her family to escape the tyranny of time and walk 500 miles across Northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. Steps out of Time brings the mysterious and wonderful world of the Camino to life with its tales of serendipitous encounters, new friends made (and one tragically lost), stunning natural beauty, and unforgettable food. By the end of her journey, an exhausted and exhilarated Katharine Soper is keenly aware she has completed much more than a monthlong walk.
©2013 Katharine B. Soper (P)2019 Tantor
Motorcycle Therapy
Summary
From the Canadian Rockies to the Panamanian Jungle, Motorcycle Therapy rumbles with comic adventure as two men, fleeing failed relationships, test the limits of their motorcycles and their friendship. Join the horn-honking, signal-flashing, wheelie-popping pair as they endure painful bee stings, painful snakebites, and (when they talk to girls) painful humiliation.
©2006 Jeremy Kroeker (P)2013 Jeremy Kroeker
How to Be a Family
Summary
In this "funny and honest" (Pamela Druckerman) memoir, Slate editor Dan Kois sets out with his family on a journey around the world to change their lives together. What happens when one frustrated dad turns his kids' lives upside down in search of a new way to be a family? Dan Kois and his wife always did their best for their kids. Busy professionals living in the D.C. suburbs, they scheduled their children's time wisely, and when they weren't arguing over screen time, the Kois family - Dan, his wife Alia, and their two pre-teen daughters - could each be found searching for their own happiness. But aren't families supposed to achieve happiness together? In this eye-opening, heartwarming, and very funny family memoir, the fractious, loving Kois' go in search of other places on the map that might offer them the chance to live away from home - but closer together. Over a year the family lands in New Zealand, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, and small-town Kansas. The goal? To get out of their rut of busyness and distractedness and to see how other families live outside the East Coast parenting bubble. How to Be a Family brings listeners along as the Kois girls - witty, solitary, extremely online Lyra and goofy, sensitive, social butterfly Harper - walk through the Kiwi bush, ride bikes to a Dutch school in the pouring rain, battle iguanas in their Costa Rican kitchen, and learn to love a town where everyone knows your name. Meanwhile, Dan interviews neighbors, public officials, and scholars to learn why each of these places work the way they do. Will this trip change the Kois family's lives? Or do families take their problems and conflicts with them wherever we go? A journalistic memoir filled with heart, empathy, and lots of whining, How to Be a Family will make listeners dream about the amazing adventures their own families might take. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2019 Dan Kois (P)2019 Hachette Audio
Distant Suns
Summary
Sam Manicom's dynamic third book transports you to Southern Africa, South and Central America. Sam has a gift for describing the vibrancy of people and places, and you are led effortlessly through three very different parts of the world by his enthusiasm and his acute observations. Human behavior, drama, passion, disaster, humor, and the pure adrenaline buzz of overlanding such far-flung, wild and exotic places are all here. This thought-provoking mix is brought alive by both his descriptive, which can make the mouth water or the hairs on the back of the neck crawl, and the historical tidbits and cultural notes about the people and places he visits. Distant Suns highlights the joys of traveling with others and how, when you are with others, you often do and see things you otherwise may not have done; but also touches on the added stress that comes with traveling in groups - even small groups. Unlike his two previous books, Sam travels with a companion, Birgit, who you'll have met during the course of his previous book Under Asian Skies. Distant Suns is the story of how boy meets girl, both endowed with a mile-wide streak of wanderlust, and both fiercely independent, but learning to live together on the road, and saving each other's lives on occasion. Birgit catches your attention right away with her incredible initiative and capability with her bike. Yet, she'd only been riding a bike for 600 miles when they arrived in Kenya at the beginning of this journey. Sam and Birgit's adventures are never without peril, but the attitude they have is what makes them terrific world travelers. Over the course of three years, a lot of things can and do go wrong, but Sam and Birgit don't let any of them stop them from completing their journey. When Paul Theroux wrote, "Take the leap. Go as far as you can. Try staying out of touch. Become a stranger in a strange land," he could have been describing Distant Suns.
©2008 Sam H.N. Manicom (P)2016 Sam N.H. Manicom
This Van Could Be Your Life
Summary
From the bestselling author of The Long Run comes an emotional and adventurously funny true story of a man, a van, and a family on an epic journey of rediscovering what matters most. It’s been a rough time for Mishka Shubaly and the women in his family. In a failed quest for something stable, they’ve all arrived at a crossroads. Divorce, unemployment, eviction, addiction, sobriety, an abusive marriage, grief, homelessness, breakups, and abandonment. Can Mishka, still single, self-doubting, and on the lost side of forty, help? Maybe. He’s got the idiotic idea of a pilgrimage from Southern California to northern Saskatchewan for a family reunion. Eight troupers in all. And so sisters, nieces, nephews, and mom (armed with a bulletproof positive attitude) pile into Mishka’s 1976 shag-carpeted Chevy van. It’s a little wounded itself but raring to go. With four thousand miles of road ahead of them, Mishka steers headlong on a journey toward a better understanding of what defines a family, and what it means to grow up, grow apart, and get back together again - at ten miles to the gallon.
©2020 Mishka Shubaly (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved
Secrets of the Savanna
Summary
"Vividly written... Their story is thrilling - the kind of tale that wild-animal lovers won't easily forget." (People)
In this riveting real-life adventure, Mark and Delia Owens tell the dramatic story of their last years in Africa, fighting to save elephants, villagers, and - in the end - themselves. The award-winning zoologists and pioneering conservationists describe their work in the remote and ruggedly beautiful Luangwa Valley, in northeastern Zambia. There they studied the mysteries of the elephant population’s recovery after poaching, discovering remarkable similarities between humans and elephants. A young elephant named Gift provided the clue to help them crack the animals’ secret of survival. A stirring portrait of life in Africa, Secrets of the Savanna is a remarkable record of the Owenses's unique passions.
©2006 Mark Owens and Delia Owens (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved
Country Driving
Summary
From the best-selling author of Oracle Bones and River Town comes the final book in his award-winning trilogy, on the human side of the economic revolution in China. In the summer of 2001, Peter Hessler, the longtime Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, acquired his Chinese driver's license. For the next seven years, he traveled the country, tracking how the automobile and improved roads were transforming China. Hessler writes movingly of the average people - farmers, migrant workers, entrepreneurs - who have reshaped the nation during one of the most critical periods in its modern history. Country Driving begins with Hessler's 7,000-mile trip across northern China, following the Great Wall, from the East China Sea to the Tibetan plateau. He investigates a historically important rural region being abandoned, as young people migrate to jobs in the southeast. Next, Hessler spends six years in Sancha, a small farming village in the mountains north of Beijing, which changes dramatically after the local road is paved and the capital's auto boom brings new tourism. Finally, he turns his attention to urban China, researching development over a period of more than two years in Lishui, a small southeastern city where officials hope that a new government-built expressway will transform a farm region into a major industrial center. Peter Hessler, whom The Wall Street Journal calls "one of the Western world's most thoughtful writers on modern China", deftly illuminates the vast, shifting landscape of a traditionally rural nation that, having once built walls against foreigners, is now building roads and factory towns that look to the outside world.
©2010 Peter Hessler (P)2010 Audible, Inc.
Surfacing
Summary
"[Kathleen Jamie’s] essays guide you softly along coastlines of varying continents, exploring caves, and pondering ice ages until the narrator stumbles over - not a rock on the trail, but mortality, maybe the earth’s, maybe our own, pointing to new paths forward through the forest." (Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing, "By the Book" in The New York Times Book Review)
An immersive exploration of time and place in a shrinking world, from the award-winning author of Sightlines.
In this remarkable blend of memoir, cultural history, and travelogue, poet and author Kathleen Jamie touches points on a timeline spanning millennia, and considers what surfaces and what reconnects us to our past. From the thawing tundra linking a Yup'ik village in Alaska to its hunter-gatherer past to the shifting sand dunes revealing the impressively preserved homes of neolithic farmers in Scotland, Jamie explores how the changing natural world can alter our sense of time. Most movingly, she considers, as her father dies and her children leave home, the surfacing of an older, less tethered sense of herself. In precise, luminous prose, Surfacing offers a profound sense of time passing and an antidote to all that is instant, ephemeral, unrooted.
©2019 Kathleen Jamie (P)2019 Penguin Audio
Cruise Confidential: A Hit Below the Waterline
Summary
National Best Seller ForeWord Humor Book of the Year Benjamin Franklin Awards Humor Book of the Year In Cruise Confidential, Brian David Bruns spills the dirt - or, in this case, the dirty water - on those romantic, fun-filled vacations at sea. His hilarious chronicle of the year he spent working for Carnival Cruise Lines takes listeners down into the areas where the crew works and lives, leaving listeners gasping with laughter as they're assaulted nonstop with events that range from the absurd to the utterly bizarre. Stewards fighting over food. Cutlery allowances and other nonsensical rules. What the crew calls those onboard (no, it's not passengers). And, of course, the sex. An abundance of ready, willing, and able bodies eager for action on a vessel replete with nooks and crannies leads to love in some mighty strange and seemingly impossible places. Breezy, entertaining, and informative, Cruise Confidential is essential listening for those planning a cruise or for anyone who just needs a good laugh. Don't miss the entire Cruise Confidential series: Cruise Confidential Ship for Brains Unsinkable Mister Brown High Seas Drifter
©2008 Brian David Bruns (P)2016 Brian David Bruns
Incontinent on the Continent
Summary
In this travelogue of self-discovery, Jane Christmas brings her wickedly irreverent style to a new mother-daughter experience. Since the beginning of time, mothers and daughters have had notoriously fraught relationships. "Show me a mother who says she has a good or great relationship with her daughter," Jane Christmas writes, "and I'll show you a daughter who is in therapy trying to understand how it all went so horribly wrong."
To smooth over five decades of constant clashing, Christmas takes her arthritic, incontinent, and domineering mother, Valeria - a cross between Queen Victoria and Hyacinth Bucket of the British comedy Keeping Up Appearances - on a tour of Italy. Neither has been to Italy before, but both are fans of ancient art, architecture, and history. Will gazing at the fruits of the Italian Renaissance be enough to spark a renaissance in their relationship?
As they wander along the winding Amalfi Coast, traverse St. Peter's Square in Rome, and sample the wines of Tuscany - walkers, biscuits, shawls, and medications in tow - they revisit the bickering and bitterness of years past and reassess who they are and how they might reconcile their differences.
Unflinching and frequently hilarious, Incontinent on the Continent will speak to all women who have tried to make friends with their mothers.
©2011 Jane Christmas (P)2013 Post Hypnotic Press Inc.