Robert Louis Stevenson was not only a gifted writer, he was also an indefatigable traveller. His thirst for adventure was formed by his boyhood visits to remote Scottish lighthouses, & he spent much of his life fleeing the rigours of cold climates & social orthodoxy. Along the way he canoed through Belgium & France, booked passage to & across America, & finally famously settled in Samoa in the South Seas. The walking trip that Stevenson describes in Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes (1879) was taken when the nascent author was still in his twenties & pining for a lost love. Accompanied by Modestine, the eponymous donkey he hired to carry his camping gear, the journey proved both challenging & charming. The book is infused with all of the qualities that make Stevenson the most popular of writers: humour & humanity, poetry & perspicacity, ebullience & intelligence. About this series: Stanfords Travel Classics feature some of the finest historical travel writing in the English language, with authors hailing from both sides of the Atlantic. Every title has been reset in a contemporary typeface to create a series that every lover of fine travel literature will want to collect & keep. ...

In 1878, Robert Louis Stevenson was suffering from poor health, struggling to survive on the income derived from his writings, & tormented by his infatuation with Fanny Osbourne, a married American woman. His response was to embark on a journey through the Cevennes with a donkey, Modestine, & a notebook, which he later transformed into Travels with a Donkey. Just a few months after publication, Stevenson was off again – this time crossing the Atlantic & the breadth of America in the hope of being re-united with Fanny, an experience he recorded in The Amateur Emigrant. Both pieces are classics of travel writings, which reveal as much about Stevenson’s character as the landscape he travels through. ...

Read it & live it for yourself: The classic 19th century travelogue by the author of Treasure Island & Doctor Jekyll & Mr Hyde is the evergreen story of one man's 200-mile hike through the mountainous heart of France, & his love-hate relationship with his companion Modestine, a donkey with a personality as broad as the dramatic landscapes of the Languedoc & beyond. More than a mere traveller's tale, this much-loved diary celebrates the history, passion & culture of the last unspoilt corner of France. This new edition, on the 130th anniversary of the original publication, features an eat & sleep guide for the modern traveller keen to follow in the footsteps (and hoof prints) of the original adventurers. Stevenson's route is now a nationally recognised & preserved ramblers trail & takes in some of France's most stunning & unspoilt countryside. There are no international chain hotels in the Lozere, & hospitality is left to innkeepers, taverniers, monks & local families. You may still travel the length of the route with a donkey to carry your bags & pass the time of day with farmers & country folk. In Laurence Phillips companion section, discover up-to-date reviews of dozens of places to eat, from the starched napkins of great restaurants to home cooked meals around a kitchen table; find plenty of hotels, guesthouses, campsites, even one of Stevenson's monasteries, on the original route: Take a fresh look at the ever glorious Lozere & southern Auvergne & discover tips for everyone passing through or hiking the original route
- whether travelling with a donkey, strolling with the family & friends, walking the dogs, driving through the region or even exploring in a wheelchair. Lots of advice for disabled guests, & heads up on which restaurants & hotels accept donkeys & dogs as guests. This edition even tells you which villages & hamlets on the trail have a resident physiotherapist, should the walking start to take its toll. For visitors pressed for time or reluctant hikers, the book even

Includes:: a range of cheating options
- hopping on a school bus to save a day's trek here & there, even driving from hamlet to hamlet.



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Robert Louis Stevenson was not only a gifted writer, he was also an indefatigable traveller. His thirst for adventure was formed by his boyhood visits to remote Scottish lighthouses, & he spent much of his life fleeing the rigours of both cold climates & social orthodoxy. The walking trip that Stevenson describes in [i] Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes[/i] (1879) was taken when the nascent author was still in his twenties & pining for a lost love. Accompanied by Modestine, the eponymous donkey he hired to carry his camping gear, the journey proved both challenging & charming. The book is infused with all of the qualities that make Stevenson the most popular of writers: humour & humanity, poetry & perspicacity, ebullience & intelligence. & his timeless exhortation continues to inspire all true travellers: For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move. ...

Katie Hickman went to Mexico looking for magic. She found it in the circus
- Big Top, clowns, elephants & all
- where cheap,

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` All writers of fiction should be required by law to go out & do a bit of reporting from time to time, just to remind them how different the real world in front of their eyes is from the invented world behind them`. This is what Frayn did in mid-career, when he took up his old trade, journalism, & wrote a series of occasional articles for ” The Observer” about some of the places in the world that interested him. He wanted to describe `not the extraordinary but the ordinary, the typical, the everyday` & his accounts became the starting-point for some of the novels & plays he wrote later. From a kibbutz in Israel to summer rains in Japan, bicycles in Cambridge to Notting Hill at the end of the 1950s, they are glimpses of a world which sometimes seems tantalizingly familiar, sometimes vanished forever. ...

” Travels With Boogie” is the story of two city slickers
- one an unattractive but streetwise mongrel from Stockwell, the other
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Travels with Charley is an account of legendary American writer John Steinbeck’s journey in 1960, when he was almost sixty years old, to rediscover his native l&. Steinbeck felt that he might have lost touch with its sights, sounds & the essence of its people. Accompanied only by his dog, Charley, he travelled across the United States in a pick-up truck. His journey took him through almost forty states, & he saw things that made him proud, angry, sympathetic & elated. All that he saw & experienced is described with remarkable honesty & insight. ...

Our society worships at the fountain of youth. Each year, we try to delay the arrival of old age, using everything at our disposal, from extreme exercise & botox to pilates & cosmetic dentistry. But in the process, are we missing out on a distinct & extraordinarily valuable stage of life? Asking whether it is better to be forever young or to grin toothlessly & live an authentic old age, Daniel Klein journeys to the Greek island of Hydra to see a different side to aging. There he draws on the lives of Octagenarian Greek locals, as well as philosophers ranging from Epicurus to Sartre, to discover the secrets of aging happily. A travel book, a witty meditation, & an optimistic guide to living well, this is a delightful, quirky jaunt through the terrain of old age, led by a perceptive & witty modern-day sage. ...

” To travel with James in these pages is to take an unhurried vacation with a thoroughly seasoned, supremely cultivated, acutely intelligent companion. Our guide is a curious, engaged observer not only of landscapes & streets & cathedrals but also of paintings & plays & the characteristics--national, social, & individual--of the people we encounter at his side. This is a book to be read slowly, the better to absorb its sights & sounds, its insights & reflections.” --from the foreword by Hendrik Hertzberg Brimming with charm, wit, & biting criticism, this new collection of travel essays reintroduces Henry James as a formidable travel companion. Whether for a trip to Lake George or an afternoon visit to an art exhibit in Paris, James will delight readers with his insights & make them feel nostalgic for places they`ve never been. ...