Travel books are as varied in voice and content as the places and peo-ple they portray. These distinctive and thoroughly enjoyable titles offer un-usual perspectives, witty anecdotes, prac-tical information and a bit of wisdom.
AFRICATREK: A Journey by Bicycle Through Africa
Written and photographed by Dan Buettner, Lerner Publications/ Minneapolis, 112 pages, $16.95
Buettner explores the world on bicycle and holds a Guinness Book world record for pedaling around the globe. Here he tells the vastly entertaining story of his 262-day, 11,855-mile continental crossing of Africa in the company of his brother, an African-American doctor and two African cyclists, a team picked, he explains, to “show the world that black people and white people could cooperate even under the most difficult conditions.” Their unprecedented expedition through mountains, desert and rainforests was often grueling but always adventurous and edifying.
TRAVEL THAT CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE:
How to Create a Transformative Experience
By Jeffrey A. Kottler,
Jossey-Bass, 180 pages,
A self-help travel book? Why not? Kottler, the author of 25 books about psychology and education, believes that the urge to travel is activated by more than the need to take a break or see new sights, that it is actually an unconscious desire to change some-thing significant about ourselves. Kottler’s book builds convincingly on this intriguing theory, then offers suggestions for planning a journey that can lead to personal transformation.
FEMME D’ADVENTURE: Travel Tales From Inner Montana to Outer Mongolia
By Jessica Maxwell,
Seal Press/Publishers Group West, 232 pages, $14 paper
Maxwell doesn’t hold back when it comes to traveling to the far corners of the Earth, or flying in horrific weather, confronting wild animals and lousy food, or talking to strangers: She just goes for it. Driven by curiosity, great good humor, chutzpah and as much love for a snappy sentence as for unspoiled wilderness and eccentric people, Maxwell, a former columnist for Audubon magazine, a regular contributor to Natural History and Esquire, and a self-described “gonzo naturalist,” writes about everything from manatees to birds of prey, an Irish architect, Mongolian taimen salmon, monarch butterflies and an Alaska geologist with madcap energy and sizzling intelligence.
TRAVELS ALONG THE EDGE
By David Noland
Vintage, 427 pages, $14 paper
Noland’s byline appears frequently in Outside magazine and the New York Times travel section because he’s an outdoorsman hooked on adventure who doesn’t mind sharing some of his secrets. And he’s sure been around. Here, in this captivating blend of first-rate travel writing and a bona fide travel guide, Noland vividly describes 40 “ultimate adventures for the modern nomad.” These include such arduous, gear-intensive endeavors as skiing to the North Pole, bicycling in Vietnam, kayaking in Greenland, climbing volcanoes in Mexico and trekking in Pakistan.
FAMILY TRAVELS: Around the World in 30 (or so) Days
By Richard Reeves
Andrews and McMeel, 343 pages, $22.95
Reeves, a best-selling author, syndicated columnist, documentary filmmaker and writer for The New Yorker, has top billing in this hilarious, richly descriptive, thoughtful and warm chronicle of a trip around the world, but he has six co-authors: his family and partners in adventure. He and his wife, Catherine O’Neill, traveled around the world in 1981, and O’Neill decided in 1994 that it was time for a repeat performance. They invited their children to accompany them, and Reeves has incorporated excerpts from their journals into his narrative.
