by Colin Thubron (2006)
Colin Thubron covers seven thousand miles along the historic Silk Road, trekking across western China, the mountains of Central Asia, northern Afghanistan, and Iran by local bus, horse, and camel.
William Dalrymple
Acclaimed historian William Dalrymple explores nine different spiritual paths across modern India, profiling a Jain nun fasting to death, a Tantric skull-feeder, and a wandering Baul minstrel.
Patrick Leigh Fermor
In 1933, eighteen-year-old Patrick Leigh Fermor walked from Holland across Germany, Austria, and Hungary toward Constantinople, capturing a magical, vanished central European landscape on the brink of disaster.
Bill Bryson
The Appalachian Trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America. Bill Bryson, accompanied by his idiosyncratic friend Stephen Katz, sets out to hike this magnificent footpath. Bryson faces raging rivers, bears, and eccentric fellow hikers with razor-sharp humor.
Jon Krakauer
In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself.