'Mr. Gaines made each of his experiences tangible for me through his descriptive style. I actually felt like I was there with him meeting the people, tasting the food, dancing, and generally learning a totally different culture' - Amazon review. Buy

Labels: Armchair Travel, Ghana

Labels: Armchair Travel, Biography, China, Culture

In 1996, 26-year-old Peter Hessler arrived in Fuling, a town on China's Yangtze River, to begin a two-year Peace Corps stint as a teacher at the local college. Along with fellow teacher Adam Meier, the two are the first foreigners to be in this part of the Sichuan province for 50 years. Buy

Labels: Armchair Travel, Biography, China, Culture

Labels: Alaska, Armchair Travel

A road trip through the history, life, and attractions of one of the most beautiful countries in the southern hemisphere. Straying from the Flock is an intimate and personal account of one passionate traveller's visit to this incredible country, its mountains and beaches, fjords, rainforests, vineyards, and hidden eateries. Buy

Labels: Armchair Travel, New Zealand

Take a trip to last century's Alaska through Muir's clean, easy-going, enthusiastic prose. He wrote the way he took pictures, with insight, attention, care and genuine feeling. It's a lovely look into a beautiful land and its inhabitants the way it used to be, told in a flowing narrative that is far less rushed than contemporary travel tales. Buy

Labels: Alaska, Armchair Travel

Two in the Far North is the life story of Margaret Murie, who grew up in Alaska before it was a state, tramped its wild lands before they were mapped, and has worked hard to preserve its wild places. With her husband, she spent fifty years exploring and mapping the wilderness of Alaska, researching, studying, and counting its wildlife by dogsled, snowshoe, skis, boat, and floatplane - sometimes with a baby in tow. Buy

Labels: Alaska, Armchair Travel, Environment

This book provides a comprehensive survey of Russia's tragic and glorious history from prehistory through glasnost and the fall of the Soviet Union right up to the present day. The book begins with prehistoric Russia and its nomadic invaders, and covers the rise of Muscovy with its colourful panoply of rulers from Ivan Moneybags to Ivan the Terrible, despotism of the Romanovs, and the Russian Revolution. Buy

Labels: Armchair Travel, History, Russia

Every story in The Things They Carried speaks another truth that Tim O'Brien learned in Vietnam; it is this blurred line between truth and reality, fact and fiction, which makes his book unforgettable. Buy

Labels: Armchair Travel, Culture, Vietnam

The son of Vietnamese parents who suffered terribly during the Vietnam War and brought their family to America when he was 10, Pham, on the cusp of his 30s, defied his parents' conservative hopes for him and his engineering career by becoming a poorly paid freelance writer. After the suicide of his sister, he set off on an even riskier path to travel some of the world on his bicycle. In the gruelling, enlightening year that followed, he pedalled through Mexico, the American West Coast, Japan, and finally his far-off first land, Vietnam. Buy

Labels: Armchair Travel, Biography, History, Vietnam

Combining moments of danger with moments of profound introspection, mountaineer/explorer Ridgeway details his journey from the top of Mount Kilimanjaro through the Tsavo game reserves to Mombasa, a month-long journey on foot, which allows him to experience man's primal relationships with the environment. Buy

Labels: Armchair Travel, Environment, Tanzania

In 1992, The United States and Russia signed an accord allowing the citizens of each country the right to travel freely throughout the territory of the other, thus reversing years of Cold War policy that had closed off access to cities and immense tracts of land to the respective peregrinations of both "commie comrades" and "imperial warmongers". In this book, Taplin records his observations as he visits newly "Open Lands" at the far margins of his host country. Buy

Labels: Armchair Travel, Russia

Taken from the pages of Alaska Magazine and its predecessor, The Alaska Sportsman, these stories represent 67 years of work by Alaskan writers. The tales are as diverse as the writers themselves, ranging from a memoir piece by a nurse who managed a hospital in Barrow in 1921 to a present-day account of a bear-watching trip to Mount Katmai by mystery writer Dana Stabenow. Buy

Labels: Alaska, Armchair Travel

The wittily observant and endearingly irascible Paul Theroux takes readers the length of Africa by rattletrap bus, dugout canoe, cattle truck, armed convoy, ferry, and train. In the course of his epic and enlightening journey, he endures danger, delay, and dismaying circumstances. Gauging the state of affairs, he talks to Africans, aid workers, missionaries, and tourists. What results is an insightful meditation on the history, politics, and beauty of Africa and its people. Buy

Labels: Armchair Travel, South Africa

Here is a fresh perspective on the last tumultuous years of the Soviet Union and an exquisitely poetic travelogue. With a keen grasp of Russia's history, a deep appreciation for its architecture and iconography, and an inexhaustible enthusiasm for its people and its culture, Colin Thubron is the perfect guide to a country most of us will never get to know firsthand. Here, we can walk down western Russia's country roads, rest in its villages, and explore some of the most engaging cities in the world. Buy

Labels: Armchair Travel, History, Russia

By the time you read the first of these "Traveler's Tales," you'll be flipping to the back of the book to find out more about how to get to Nepal. The country's beguiling mysteries are revealed by teachers, musicians, photographers, poets, and authors such as Peter Matthiessen and Broughton Coburn. Buy

Labels: Armchair Travel, Nepal, Travel Guide

This novel is proof that truth is not only stranger than fiction, it's funnier. As you follow Balows on a budget safari through the wilds of Africa, you manage to feel sorry for his misadventures, while at the same time wishing you were there. Buy

Labels: Armchair Travel, Tanzania