Showing titles in Travel Writing & Commentary

In 1934, the painter Christiane Ritter leaves her comfortable life in Austria and travels to the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen, to spend a year there with her husband. She thinks it will be a relaxing trip, a chance to "read thick books in the remote quiet and, not least, sleep to my heart's content," but when Christiane arrives she is shocked to realize that they are to live in a tiny ramshackle hut on the shores of a lonely fjord, hundreds of miles from the nearest settlement, battling the elements every day, just to survive.

In a bid to uncover the unique spirit of the single malt whisky, author lain Banks has decided to undertake a tour of the distilleries of his homeland. His tour of Scotland combines history, literature and landscape in an entertaining and informative account.

BBC Countryfile Magazine brings you The Plodcast - a weekly escape to the British countryside with fascinating guests and the wonders of the great outdoors. Enjoy a new escape into the countryside every Tuesday and wind down with our Sound Escapes on a Friday. Find out more about us at www.countryfile.com/podcast Subscribe to the print version of BBC Countryfile Magazine at https://www.ourmediashop.com/bbc-countryfile-magazine-wmonx25

Named one of Time Magazine International's 30 most important people of 2005, Maud Fontenoy presents us with a terrific, entertaining adventure story on the high seas as she challenges the Pacific Ocean - a feat no woman before her ever accomplished. Already the first woman to row alone across the North Atlantic, Maud raised the bar to defy the elements, the daunting solitude, and the circling sharks of the South Pacific on her second solo voyage.

Dead horses, armed border guards and furious Slavs stand in the way. Join Andy on his battered old Suzuki GS1000G as we cross Europe, and ride together through the Iron Curtain to reach the very edge of Asia. Filled with adventure and humor, poignant and accidentally informative, this true-life story tells of travel in an era long gone, when we read paper maps like pirates on the high seas, and friends were made and lost along roads less traveled.

Book three in the series is filled with more madcap escapades and humour. This true-life story tells of travel in an era long gone, when we read paper maps like pirates on the high seas, and friends were made and lost along roads less travelled. For folks who like their travels with a twist of disaster, Andy's misguided misadventures deliver the usual laughs on the highway to hell. It's a cautionary tale told by one of the most hapless wanderers.

Brought to you by Penguin. We tend to think that everything important comes from the centre: from big cities, from established orthodoxies in the sciences and the arts, from the Establishment in all its forms. We think this because the centre tells us it is so, but it's a lie. It is only at the...

In Hidden Japan, acclaimed author and environmentalist Alex Kerr leads us to the country's most secluded and enchanting corners—places where time seems to stand still and traditional culture endures. From thatched-roof villages in misty mountains to volcanic islands few have ever visited, Kerr's lyrical prose, narrated by the author himself, is brought to life in this immersive audio experience.

'Glorious . . . anecdote and information accumulate with marvellous abundance and a passionate sense of the fascination of jewels . . . a wonderfully generous gift' - John de Falbe, Spectator In this scintillating audiobook, journalist Victoria Finlay embarks on her own globe-circling search for...

In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident.

I can move only with the aid of barrels of anti-inflammatory gel, sticking plasters, and real ale anesthetic. Martin and I descend from hours of walking to the small town of Middleton-in-Teesdale. I walk, stiff-legged, into the campsite office, and a plump, middle-aged woman looks up from her desk and can see the old timer is in trouble.

The monthly Wander Woman Podcast frequently charts in 'Travel and Places' in over 147 countries around the world. It is the first travel podcast to take on a magazine style - rather than the format of just an interview – and has been listened to and downloaded everywhere from the UK to Australia and beyond, by hundreds of thousands of people. It has been selected as “Best of” travel podcasts by The Telegraph, The Guardian and The i newspaper, Globetrender and Tech Times - to name a few. Every episode, award-winning broadcaster, travel writer, author and photographer Phoebe Smith offers ...

Joe Simpson, with just his partner Simon Yates, tackled the unclimbed West Face of the remote 21,000 foot Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in June 1995. But before they reached the summit, disaster struck. A few days later, Simon staggered into Base Camp, exhausted and frostbitten, to tell...

A "beautifully written travelogue" that draws on the latest scholarly research as well as a lifetime of exploration to light on the extraordinary Anasazi culture of the American Southwest (Entertainment Weekly). The greatest "unsolved mystery" of the American Southwest is the fate of the Anasazi...

Maybe you’re already learning Russian with us on YouTube? On this podcast, we talk about the Russian language and the culture of the Russian-speaking countries from the perspective of our two hosts who left Russia in 2022. We also explain words and expressions and answer your questions. Members also get interactive transcripts, early access and bonus content for each episode. Learn more at www.easyrussian.fm.

Danny Wallace was bored. Just to see what would happen, he placed a whimsical ad in a local London paper. It said, simply, 'Join Me'. Within a month, he was receiving letters and emails from teachers, mechanics, sales reps, vicars, schoolchildren and pensioners - all pledging allegiance to his cause. But no one knew what his cause was.

Driving terrified me; I hadn't done it in a decade. But if I could drive in India, I could drive anywhere. If I drive a tuk-tuk, I could drive anything. And if I said yes, I'd get to spend 10 days with her. Would that be enough time to find out who she was, what she wanted, and then convince her to abandon that and want me instead? There was only one way to find out.

A Northerner in exile, Stuart Maconie goes on a journey in search of the North, attempting to discover where the clichés end and the truth begins. He travels from Wigan Pier to Blackpool Tower and Newcastle's Bigg Market to the Lake District to find his own Northern Soul, encountering along the way an exotic cast of chippy Scousers, pie-eating woollybacks, topless Geordies, mad-for-it Mancs, Yorkshire nationalists and brothers in southern exile.

As a kid growing up in Manhattan, William Helmreich played a game with his father they called "Last Stop." They would pick a subway line and ride it to its final destination, and explore the neighborhood there. Decades later, Helmreich teaches university courses about New York, and his love for exploring the city is as strong as ever. Putting his feet to the test, he decided that the only way to truly understand New York was to walk virtually every block of all five boroughs - an astonishing 6,000 miles.

Peru Travel Podcast is an entertaining and fun way to hear stories and learn everything you need to know about travel in Peru! Your hosts walk you through the dos and don'ts, must-sees, what to expect, and the culture of Peru. Your ears with thank you for listening if you're an avid traveler.