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Find out moreFeeling the desire to explore closer to home or travel to far flung places? We have a selection of titles to satisfy your wanderlust. Whether you’re planning a great adventure or reading about your favourite parts of the world, have a browse of our Travel selection.
With almost 300 pages of insider knowledge, this great-looking guidebook will serve you well for several trips. This thoroughly revised edition covers vibrant Seville, gorgeous Granada, magnificent mountaintop city Ronda, Cordoba, Las Alpujarras, the Costa del Sol, and more, with interesting articles on the likes of flamenco, sherry and Andalusian food peppering the practical information. The cultural contextualisation of the region is excellent, and travellers are sure to find the free app and Travel Tips chapter (which includes a concise dictionary section) invaluable. Included in the guide is a free app with travel tips and practical information which is regularly updated - find out more. Further Reading Recommendations: Rose for Winter by Laurie Lee The Barefoot Queen by Ildefonso Falcones For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway Winter in Madrid by C.J. Sansom
It’s quite a feat to cover this country in one book, but this vibrant book manages to do just that across almost 400 pages. There are dozens of in-depth articles on culture and politics - Zulus, traditional religion, historical greats, emerging artists and musicians, to mention a few - and the coverage of wildlife is excellent, with features on everything from elephants and birds, to amphibians and arachnids. In terms of areas, the book offers excellent overviews of Cape Town, the Garden Route, the Eastern Cape, Zululand, Durban and the Kwazulu-Natal Coast, and Swaziland and Lesotho, with detailed maps of many key locations, among them Johannesburg, Pretoria and Kruger National Park. Included in the guide is a free app with travel tips and practical information which is regularly updated - find out more. Further Reading Recommendations: Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee No Time Like the Present by Nadine Gordimer Welcome to Our Hillbrow by Phaswane Mpe
With this new edition of The Rough Guide to South Africa Lesotho and Swaziland to hand you’ll feel like you’re taking a trip with your savvy best friend and ultra-informed local guide rolled into one, with every area comprehensively covered. This feat of meticulous research and mapping will help you find perfect places to stay, whether you’re looking to splash out or working to a budget and, since this is a Rough Guide, you can truly trust the recommendations. The wildlife field guide is fabulous, with top quality photographs and notes on where to spot a host of amazing beasts, big and small, in the many reserves. The guidance on getting around will be invaluable to independent travellers, while the extensive Contexts chapter is excellent on history, music, books and language, with truly absorbing background information that will spur you to explore even further. Further Fiction Recommendations; Whiplash by Tracey Farren In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut July’s People by Nadine Gordimer Dance with a Poor Man’s Daughter by Pamela Jooste
Now in its ninth edition, the informative, entertaining Rough Guide to Nepal delivers everything you’d hope for from this outstanding range of travel guides. The introduction includes a handy suggested itineraries section, plus the editor’s top tips for maximising your exploration of Nepal, while the main bulk of the book explores every corner of this fascinating country in detail, with reliable recommendations for places to stay, eat, drink and explore. It seems that no stone has been left unturned! The cultural and historical contexts come as a great addition to the practical advice - not too dense, but providing plenty of food for thought. And the comprehensive coverage of hiking, biking, rafting and kayaking is especially excellent, with clear maps that will serve you well when you’re trekking and travelling off the beaten track. Further Fiction Recommendations; The Tutor of History by Manjushree Thapa Arresting God in Kathmandu by Samrat Upadhyay
This meticulously updated Rough Guide to Bolivia is astoundingly exhaustive - every area is prefaced by regional highlights, while the level of detail in each ensuing chapter is tremendous, featuring reliable recommendations for the likes of accommodation (for every budget), getting around, eating and drinking, shopping, and all the local contacts you’ll need. As well as providing such detailed practical information, the book is peppered with highlights that will really enhance your experiences, including sampling street food in La Paz, learning about Lake Titicaca’s Lady of the Lake, dancing with the devil at Oruro Carnaval, following in Che Guevara’s footsteps, and forest ecology, to name but a few. Special mention must be made of the maps – they appear every few pages and are easy to follow, whether you’re looking for an area overview, or trying to find your way around a village, national park or ancient site. Further Fiction Recommendations;FICTION The Fat Man from La Paz - Rosario Santos (ed) NON FICTONErnesto “Che” Guevara The Motorcycle Diaries
With over 900 pages of detailed practical guidance, this fully updated 16th edition will serve you trip after trip after trip. With a generous sprinkling of colour photography and many maps throughout, you’ll feel fully armed to explore independently. The chapters covering Madrid and Barcelona brim with inspired information about cool cultural highlights you won’t want to miss, and those travelling with a young family will really appreciate the recommended child-friendly activities and sights around the entire country, and beyond - the holiday hotspots of the Balearic Islands are covered here too, with information on what to do and see in Ibiza, Formentera, Mallorca and Menorca. Exhaustively informative, invaluable practical and written with real panache, this is a veritable bible to discovering Spain. Further Fiction Recommendations;Various books by Carlos Ruiz Zafon Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell As I walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee
With fascinating features on everything from yaks and the yeti to World Heritage Sites, this 300+ page book offers excellent insight into all Nepal has to offer both intrepid explorers and culture-minded travellers. The in-depth regional coverage is extensive, providing insider guidance around Kathmandu, Patan, the road to Tibet, the Everest region, and more, including the remote west. Throughout, the photography is absolutely stunning, with fabulous images of evocative street scenes and awe-inspiring natural landscapes. And, if you’re planning to climb Everest or to embark on similarly adventurous exploits, the free eBook provides the same invaluable content digitally, so you can leave the print book back at base camp! Included in the guide is a free app with travel tips and practical information which is regularly updated - find out more. Further Reading Recommendations: Mountains Painted with Turmeric by Lil Bahadur Chettri Nothing to Declare by Rabi Thapa
This fabulous full-colour guidebook is perfect for short breaks in beautiful Bruges and Ghent. It covers the top attractions of both cities, including Gravensteen, Stadhuis and Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk, and also has some really handy Perfect Day itinerary suggestions, which are invaluable for first-time visitors, especially when time is tight and you want to pack in as much as you can! Tech-savvy travellers wishing to travel light can download the free eBook and leave the book at home, though being such a handbag-friendly size, it’s really no hassle to carry around. As well as providing pertinent information about un-missable attractions, this also offers some insight into historical and cultural contexts, and suggests several great galleries and museums to pop into.
At once an invaluable planning tool and a provider of practical travel tips, this gorgeous book (it features full-colour photography throughout) will guide you through what might seem like a daunting range of options. The Top Attractions and Editor’s Choice chapters will help you focus on what you want to get from your trip, while the travel tips and maps provide practical support. Of special note are the detailed features on politics, cuisine, art and the area’s volcanoes. Places covered in detail include Manila, Luzob’s islands, Palawan, Mount Apo, and Zamboanga and the Sulu Islands. And, if you’re planning to travel around, the accompanying free eBook and app will come in very handy. Included in the guide is a free app with travel tips and practical information which is regularly updated - find out more. Further Reading Recommendations: Dusk: A Novel by F. Sionil José Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides
This visually stunning guidebook is perfect for travellers who are planning an adventure around Central America. Covering the entire region (Southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama), it provides excellent overviews of the cultural and natural hotspots of each country, with inspirational features on the likes of local crafts, flora and fauna, and the region’s rich Mayan past. There’s also great coverage of the region’s cities (with easy-to-follow maps), so if you’re planning to explore the cosmopolitan urban hubs alongside going off the beaten track, this is an inspirational tool for your entire trip. Included in the guide is a free app with travel tips and practical information which is regularly updated - find out more. Further Reading Recommendations: The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux The Jaguar Smile A Nicaraguan Journey, by Salman Rushdie (non-fiction about Nicaragua)
There’s no better way to explore beautiful Bath than on foot and this practical book makes the perfect companion for doing just that, with its richness of wonderful walking routes around the city and beyond. Tour One provides a superbly detailed route around Bath’s ancient centre, with welcome tips on places to stop off for well-earned breaks. Tour Two takes in the splendours of Georgian Bath and recommends visiting the Fashion Museum and the Museum of Asian Art as you meander Queen Square, the Circus, the Royal Crescent and Royal Victoria Park. There are ten inspired tours in total, each of them clearly-mapped and speckled with fascinating facts and local tips. But this isn’t solely limited to Bath itself – this conveniently compact guide also includes walking routes around Bristol, Wells and Glastonbury, Longleat and Stourhead, and the ancient sites of Stonehenge, Avebury and Silbury Hill.
A chance read magazine article found in a Dentist’s waiting room sets Nick Perry, his wife and 3 children off on a quest to find a home in Greece. They’d sold their Welsh farm and looked for a better way of life – and a better climate. They landed, rather by accident on Icaria, an island midway between Naxos and Samos and there began their adventure – and the need to find a living. I liked this travel adventure a great deal, the family aspect gives another dimension, their relative poverty gives it forward momentum and of course, there is beautiful Greece making this a very good read for a dull autumn day. ~ Sue Baker Like for Like Reading Extra Virgin: Among the Olive Groves of Liguria by Annie Hawes The Olive Farm by Carole Drinkwater
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We all love to travel. We all love escape. Granted, some are more adventurous than others, hankering to cross vast plains of unchartered territory, while the rest of us just want to find a nice hotel somewhere by a crystal blue sea. Whatever your level of wanderlust, there’s something here to inspire, inform and invade your senses. Follow in the footsteps of pioneers, heroes or trusted raconteurs; visit the real settings of favourite works of fiction (See our Reading on Location guide and read great novels set in the place you’re sitting in!); discover off the beaten track getaways; ponder the history of travel itself, laugh at anecdotes of the hapless. In short, by using our Book of the Month recommendations and taking a little stroll around the section, you can discover the world without leaving your fireside chair. Free your mind, they say, and the rest will follow.
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” T.S. Elliot