travel

"Photographer Mark Shachter travels the Great Lakes system to produce a personal portrait of the lakes and their surrounding towns, cities, ports, industrial zones and landscapes."--Publisher.

Explores the culture and people of Indonesia.

Readers go exploring with Norwegian adventurer Roald Amundsen and English explorer Robert Scott as they compete to reach the South Pole.

Nikki Moustaki grew up in 1980s Miami, the only child of parents who worked, played, and traveled for luxury sports car dealerships. At home, her doting grandmother cooked for and fed her, but it was her grandfather--an evening-gown designer, riveting storyteller, and bird expert--who was her mentor and dearest companion. Like her grandfather, Nikki fell hard for birds. 'Birds filled my childhood,' she writes, 'as blue filled the sky.' Her grandfather showed her how to hypnotize chickens, sneak up on pigeons, and handle baby birds. He gave her a white dove to release for luck on each birthday. And he urged her to visit the bird market of Paris someday. But by the time Nikki graduated from college and moved to New York City, she was succumbing to alcohol and increasingly unable to care for her flock. When her grandfather died, guilt-ridden Nikki drank even more. In a last-ditch effort to honor her grandfather, she flew to France hoping to visit the bird market of Paris to release a white dove. Instead, something astonishing happened there that saved Nikki's life.

Traces the author's recreation of Hiram Bingham III's discovery of the ancient citadel, Machu Picchu, in the Andes Mountains of Peru, describing his struggles with rudimentary survival tools and his experiences at the sides of local guides.

A few years ago, Mark Adams made a strange discovery: Everything we know about the lost city of Atlantis comes from the work of one man, the Greek philosopher Plato. Then he made a second, stranger discovery: Amateur explorers are still actively searching for this sunken city all around the world, based entirely on the clues Plato left behind. Adams decided to try and find out how well the searchers are doing. He visited scientists who use cutting-edge technology to find legendary civilizations once thought to be fictional. He examines the numerical and musical codes hidden in Plato's writings, and with the help of some charismatic sleuths traces their roots back to Pythagoras, the sixth-century BC mathematician. He learns how ancient societies transmitted accounts of cataclysmic events--and how one might dig out the 'kernel of truth' in Plato's original tale.

In 1938, when the Japanese arrived in Huan Hsu's great-great-grandfather Liu's Yangtze River hometown of Xingang, Liu was forced to bury his valuables, including a vast collection of prized antique porcelain, and undertake a decades-long trek that would splinter the family over thousands of miles. Many years and upheavals later, Hsu, raised in Salt Lake City and armed only with curiosity, moved to China to work in his uncle's semiconductor chip business. Once there, a conversation with his grandmother, his last living link to dynastic China, ignites a desire to learn more about not only his lost ancestral heirlooms but also porcelain itself. Mastering the language enough to venture into the countryside, Hsu set out to separate the layers of fact and fiction that have obscured both China and his heritage and finally complete his family's long march back home. Provides a revealing, lively perspective on contemporary Chinese society from the point of view of a Chinese- American coming to terms with his hyphenated identity.

Kimberly Meyer gave birth to her first daughter, Ellie, during her senior year of college. The Bohemian life of exploration she had once hoped to lead was lost in the responsibilities of single motherhood. For years mother and daughter were haunted by the facts of Ellie's birth. So Kimberly and Ellie, now a college student herself, set off on a pilgrimage to bond and rediscover who they are. In their quest for meaning they left behind the rhythms of ordinary life in Houston, Texas and dedicated a summer to retrace the footsteps of Felix Fabri, a medieval Dominican friar. They journeyed to exotic destinations infused with mystery, spirituality, and rich history---to Venice, Greece, Cyprus, Israel, the Sinai Desert, Palestine, Cairo, and Alexandria. Along they way they learned the wisdom of what the desert taught: carry only what you need, burn what can't be saved, and leave the remnants as an offering.

John Marshall's life had fallen apart. His seventeen-year-old son was about to leave home, his fourteen-year-old daughter was lost in cyberspace, his marriage was falling apart. He dreamed of a trip around the world and a chance to leave all of his routines and responsibilities behind if only for a little while. But a trip like this was unaffordable unless they volunteered their time as they traveled. The Marshall family took their trip around the world and it changed their lives. From Central American to East Asia the trip offered little rest, even less relaxation, but it gave the Marshalls a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to conquer their personal fears, strengthen their family bonds and find their true selves by helping those in need.

Shares the authors' first-hand encounters with snakes, edible worms, Mongolian wrestlers, and more, in their travels through five continents. Includes drawings, color illustrations, and photographs.