Travel Literature

A veteran nature writer walks the length of Britain in pursuit of spring, and of hope Fed up with bleak headlines of biodiversity loss, acclaimed nature writer Roger Morgan-Grenville sets out on a 1,000-mile walk through a British spring to see whether there are reasons to be hopeful about the natural world. His aim is to match the pace at which the oak leaves emerge, roughly 25 miles north each day. ...

Introduced by Jeet Thayli, author of Booker Prize shortlisted novel Narcopolis. At the age of 20, Dom Moraes - already a celebrated poet who would go on to be regarded as one of India's finest writers - returned to his native India after finishing education in England. After spending time in Delhi, meeting Jawaharlal Nehru and the young Dalai Lama, he embarked on a meandering journey through northern Ind...

On the eve of its centenary year and elections that will shape the coming generations, Julian Emre Sayarer sets out to cycle across Turkiye, from the Aegean coast to the Armenian border.

A pilot's love letter to the world's greatest cities from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Skyfaring 'A journey around both the author's mind and the planet's great cities that leaves us energised, open to new experiences and ready to return more hopefully to our lives' ALAIN DE BOTTON Growing up in his small hometown, Mark Vanhoenacker spun the illuminated globe in his bedroom and dreamt of e...

Introduced by Lois Pryce, author of Lois on the Loose, Red Tape & White Knuckles and Revolutionary Ride. In 1959 Barbara Toy, famous for her solo overland travels in North Africa and Arabia, set out in her trademark Land Rover to drive from Libya to Ethiopia. Alone, she crossed the Sahara Desert and the equatorial forests of the Congo before ascending the highlands of Haile Selassie's empire. Her Ethi...

For over 20 years Bradt Travel Guides has been running an annual travel-writing competition which now attracts hundreds of entrants each year. Thanks to Bradt's status as the largest remaining independently owned travel publisher in the UK and one of the most respected travel publishing brands in the world, it is uniquely placed to champion good writing, bringing to the written word the same calibre of high...

Can the questions over Britain's future be answered by maps of our past? What is Britain? How did our nation get to be the shape that it is? And will those borders change? Not long ago, these questions were rarely posed, as it felt as though Britain's borders were an immutable fact, the bedrock upon which British culture could stand forever. But after the Scottish and Brexit referenda we discovered th...

Shortlisted for the 2020 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award's Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year When Monisha Rajesh announced plans to circumnavigate the globe in eighty train journeys, she was met with wide-eyed disbelief. But it wasn't long before she was carefully plotting a route that would cover 45,000 miles - almost twice the circumference of the earth - coasting along the ...

A fascinating, lyrical account of an east-west walk across Britain's westernmost and most mysterious region. A distant and exotic Celtic land, domain of tin-miners, pirates, smugglers and evocatively named saints, somehow separate from the rest of our island... Few regions of Britain are as holidayed in, as well-loved or as mythologized as Cornwall. From the woodlands of the Tamar Valley to the remote...

Travel around Turkey in the footsteps of the great British archaelogist Gertrude Bell. In 1889 Gertrude Bell, the great British archaeologist, writer and explorer, arrived in Constantinople (Istanbul) on the first of many visits to what is now Turkey. Over the next twenty-five years, she would travel the length and breadth of the country, climbing mountains Hasan and Cudi, crossing the Dicle (Tigris) o...

"Mr. Biggers is an enthusiastic and erudite guide. Seeking out the past in local lore and in Sardinia’s long and overlooked literary tradition, he returns the island to the center of our imaginative map of the Mediterranean." -- The Wall Street Journal

China today is a land of opportunity for African people blocked from commerce with most of Europe and Northern America. It is also an intersection of racism and prejudice.

It's time we celebrated women in adventure What does "toughness" mean to you? Perhaps it's being physically fit and mentally resilient. Perhaps it's doing something no one else has done before. Perhaps it's breaking down boundaries and proving what you can do, in spite of the naysayers. Perhaps it's travelling alone, immersing yourself in new cultures and meeting new people. Perhaps it's running ultramar...

WINNER of the 2021 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards, Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year in association with the Authors' Club. Winner of the Tata Literature Live First Book Award for Non-Fiction 2020 'A fabulous piece of writing... I recommend it unreservedly' William Dalrymple 'A brilliant book' Christina Lamb One of the first things I was told when I arrived in Kabul was never to w...

'A gripping read for anyone who cares about what we're doing to the planet and how we can change it' DAVID SHUKMAN, FORMER BBC NEWS SCIENCE EDITOR

*A SCOTSMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR* Stranded at Schiphol airport, Ben Coates called up a friendly Dutch girl he'd met some months earlier. He stayed for dinner. Actually, he stayed for good. In the first book to consider the hidden heart and history of the Netherlands from a modern perspective, the author explores the length and breadth of his adopted homeland and discovers why one of the world's smallest ...

Signed by the Author The river Tigris is in danger. It has been the lifeblood of ancient Mesopotamia and modern Iraq, but geopolitics and climate change have left the birthplace of civilisation at risk of becoming uninhabitable. In 2021, adventurer Leon McCarron travelled by boat along the full length of the river, in search of hope. From the source, where Assyrian kings had their images carved into s...

'Without doubt JBS, as many know him, is one of the world's most eminent explorers' Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Bt. OBE For over 60 years John Blashford-Snell has been exploring some of the planet's most remote, inaccessible and dangerous places; his name is known globally for his daring adventures and intrepid journeys of discovery. Now, well into his eighties (and still planning future trips), he has gathere...

Winner of the 2022 Edward Stanford Travel Awards, Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year, in association with the Authors’ Club 'Thubron on top form. Richly detailed, immaculately written and full of insights and encounters that bring a complex corner of the world to life' MICHAEL PALIN 'A masterpiece' WILLIAM DALRYMPLE 'Unforgettable' ANTONY BEEVOR As read on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Wee...

Travel writing matters Explore the world through this beautiful collection of the finest travel writing published in British media in the 21st century - as judged by some of the most respected travel writers in the world: Levison Wood, Monisha Rajesh, Jessica Vincent and Simon Willmore The world has changed, but our desire to explore new places remains as strong as ever. The Best British Trave...