Classic Travel Memoirs

His second major venture into nonfiction (after Death in the Afternoon, 1932), Green Hills of Africa is Ernest Hemingway's lyrical journal of a month on safari in the great game country of East Africa, where he and his wife, Pauline, journeyed in December of 1933. Hemingway's well-known interest in - and fascination with - big-game hunting is magnificently captured in this evocative account of his trip.

The Log from the Sea of Cortez is the exciting day-by-day account of Steinbeck's trip to the Gulf of California with biologist Ed Ricketts. Drawn from the longer Sea of Cortez, it is a wonderful combination of science, philosophy, and high-spirited adventure.

Spanning an extraordinary range of subjects and locations, these ten gripping essays show why Jon Krakauer is considered a standard-bearer of modern journalism.

More than 20 years ago, Frances Mayes - widely published poet, gourmet cook, and travel writer - introduced readers to a wondrous new world when she bought and restored an abandoned Tuscan villa called Bramasole. Under the Tuscan Sun inspired generations to embark on their own journeys.

Two Years Before the Mast is a book by the American author Richard Henry Dana, Jr., written after a two-year sea voyage starting in 1834 and published in 1840. While at Harvard College, Dana had an attack of the measles that affected his vision. Thinking it might help his sight, Dana, rather than going on a Grand Tour as most of his fellow classmates traditionally did (and unable to afford it anyway), and being something of a nonconformist, left Harvard to enlist as a common sailor.

Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada is an engrossing blend of scientific exploration and personal adventure. Clarence King describes the ascent of Mounts Tyndall, Shasta, and Whitney with a scientific poet’s eye, and makes the grandeur of the cliffs, the peaks, the glaciers, and the meadows of Yosemite Valley come alive through his remarkable gifts of portrayal. King describes nature like a master painter while his portrait of the people of California 20 years after the Gold Rush finds engaging expression in a subtle shift of style.

In the heart of the Swiss Alps stand the three majestic peaks of the Bernese Oberland, Europe's most famous mountain range. The highest, at 13,638 feet, is the Jungfrau. Next is the Mönch at 13,465 feet. But it is the smallest, the Eiger, rising 13,038 feet above sea level, that is by far the deadliest.

"We are all travelers in the 'wilderness of the world' - travelers with a donkey." So Robert Louis Stevenson wrote to a friend on completing this enchanting account of a journey in rural France in 1878. Alone with his pack-donkey Modestine, and showing total disregard for discomfort, Stevenson relishes to the full his walking tour of the Cevennes.

1842 brach der junge und schon gefeierte Autor Charles Dickens zu einer Lesereise nach Amerika und Kanada auf - von Boston bis St. Louis, von Richmond bis Quebec, mit Bahn oder Schiff. Zunächst stellte er sich ein Amerika vor, in dem eine tolerante und demokratische Zukunftsgesellschaft entstehen würde, ohne den Dünkel der englischen Aristokratie. Umso enttäuschter war er über den amerikanischen Kapitalismus und vor allem über die Sklaverei. Seine Kritik an Land und Leuten formulierte er unmittelbar und nicht ohne Ironie in seinen "Aufzeichnungen aus Amerika", gelesen von Christian Brückner.

Ein auf den "Reisetagebüchern" des großen Schriftstellers und Seefahrers basierendes Hörbuch, das ebenso viel über das Leben des "Moby-Dick"-Autors wie über seine Werke aussagt: Herman Melville hat drei große Reisen in seinem Leben unternommen, die ihn nach Europa, in das Heilige Land und in den vorderen Orient geführt haben und auf denen er so manch spannendes Abenteuer erlebt und die Welt kennengelernt hat.