My Trip Abroad - audiobook Charlie CHAPLIN (1889 - 1977) "A steak and kidney pie, influenza and a cablegram. There is the triple alliance that is responsible for the whole thing." So begins Charlie Chaplin's My Trip Abroad, a travel memoir charting the actor-director's semi-spontaneous visit to Europe. Fresh off the success of 1921's The Kid, Chaplin decides to "play hookey" after his seven year stay in Hollywood. He return to his native Europe as an international superstar, beloved by fans and Read more [...]
The Old Year - audiobook John CLARE (1793 - 1864) John Clare was an English poet, the son of a farm labourer, who came to be known for his celebratory representations of the English countryside and his lamentation of its disruption. His biographer Jonathan Bate states that Clare was "the greatest labouring-class poet that England has ever produced. No one has ever written more powerfully of nature, of a rural childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self". (Summary from Wikipedia ) Genre(s): Read more [...]
Germania audiobook Publius Cornelius TACITUS (56 - 117), translated by Alfred John CHURCH (1829 - 1912) and William Jackson BRODRIBB (1829 - 1905) The Germania (Latin: De Origine et situ Germanorum, literally The Origin and Situation of the Germans), written by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus around 98, is an ethnographic work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire. Germania fits squarely within the tradition established by authors from Herodotus to Julius Caesar. Tacitus himself had already written Read more [...]

The Oregon Trail audiobook
Francis PARKMAN, JR. (1823 – 1893)
The book is a breezy, first-person account of a 2 month summer tour of the U.S. states of Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and Kansas when Parkman was 23. (Summary by Wikipedia)

Genre(s): Travel & Geography, Modern (19th C)
Language: English (FULL Audiobook)

 

South! The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917 audiobook Ernest SHACKLETON (1874 - 1922) Shackleton's most famous expedition was planned to be an attempt to cross Antarctica from the Weddell Sea south of the Atlantic, to the Ross Sea south of the Pacific, by way of the Pole. It set out from London on 1 August 1914, and reached the Weddell Sea on January 10, 1915, where the pack ice closed in on the Endurance. The ship was broken by the ice on 27 October 1915. The 28 crew members managed Read more [...]
American Notes audiobook Rudyard KIPLING (1868 - 1936) In American Notes, Rudyard Kipling, the Nobel Prize-winning author of the Jungle Book, visits the USA. As the travel-diary of an Anglo-Indian Imperialist visiting the USA, these American Notes offer an interesting view of America in the 1880s. Kipling affects a wide-eyed innocence, and expresses astonishment at features of American life that differ from his own, not least the freedom (and attraction) of American women. However, he scorns Read more [...]

The Spell of Egypt audiobook
by Robert Smythe Hichens (1864-1950)

The author, a British journalist and novelist, is interested in the feel of the places he visits. He describes at length a visit he has made to Egypt, with emphasis on the emotional response the places generate. (summary by Sibella Denton)

 

 

Faery Lands of the South Seas audiobook by James Norman Hall and Charles Nordhoff Returning from the horrors of World War I James Hall and Charles Nordhoff follow a dream to tour the South Pacific. They later co authored "Mutiny on the Bounty". This is a love story. A travelogue and an adventure rolled into one. This book just went into the public domain, so enjoy an early 20th Century look at paradise. (Summary by Mike Vendetti)   Read more [...]
The Last of the Plainsmen audiobook by Zane Grey (1872 -- 1939) Travel along as Mike Vendetti aka miketheauctioneer narrates an outstanding true account of a trip made in 1909 by Zane Grey and a plainsman, Buffalo Jones, through the Grand Canyon to lasso a cougar. That's right lasso. Throw a rope around. That's equivalent to catching one by the tail. As I narrated this book, I found fact to be as exciting as fiction. This part of the west was relatively wild and untamed at this time. Wolves, Read more [...]
The Western United States: A Geographical Reader audiobook by Harold W. Fairbanks (1860-1952) "In preparation of this book the author has had in mind the needs of the upper grammar grades. The subject matter has not been selected with the object of covering the field of Western geography in a systematic manner, but instead the attempt has been made to picture as graphically as may be some of its more striking and interesting physical features, and the influence which these features have exerted Read more [...]
Bohemian San Francisco audiobook by Clarence Edwords (b. 1856) While describing his dining experiences throughout "Bohemian San Francisco," Clarence Edwords paints an historic panorama of California cuisine with all its cosmopolitan influences. Best of all, he offers tantalizing recipes culled from conversations with the master chefs of 1914 in "The City by the Bay." (Summary by Denny)     Read more [...]
Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys audiobook by Amelia B. Edwards (1831-1892) Amelia B. Edwards wrote this historical travelogue in in 1873. The book describes her travels through a relatively un-visited area in the South Tyrol district of Italy. The Dolomites are a part of that most famous of mountain chains, the Alps. In this book, the Writer and her friend and companion, L., travel from Southern Italy, having over-wintered there, to visit the Dolomite district. Her chatty style, dry Read more [...]
A Thousand Miles up the Nile audiobook by Amelia B. Edwards (1831-1892) Amelia B. Edwards wrote this historical, egyptological, and cultural study in in 1877, and it became an immediate best-seller, reprinted in 1888 at home in England and abroad. She travelled throughout Egypt at a time when most women didn't leave home. One of the pioneering Egyptologists of the age, she established the Edwards Chair of Egyptology, occupied first by the great Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie. This Read more [...]
Letters from Egypt audiobook by Lady Lucie Duff-Gordon (1821-1869) As a girl, Lady Duff-Gordon was noted both for her beauty and intelligence. As an author, she is most famous for this collection of letters from Egypt. Lady Duff-Gordon had tuberculosis, and went to Egypt for her health. This collection of her personal letters to her mother and her husband. By all accounts everyone loved her, and the letters are very personal in style and content. The letters are as much an introduction to her Read more [...]
A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World audiobook by James Cook Having, on his first voyage, discovered Australia, Cook still had to contend with those who maintained that the Terra Australians Incognita (the unknown Southern Continent) was a reality. To finally settle the issue, the British Admiralty sent Cook out again into the vast Southern Ocean with two sailing ships totalling only about 800 tons. Listen as Cook, equipped with one of the first chronometers, pushes his small vessel Read more [...]
Europe Revised audiobook by Irwin S. Cobb (1876-1944) Irwin Cobb's humorous Europe Revised is a travelogue and comedy almost in the style of Mark Twain. The dedication says it best, "To My Small Daughter Who bade me shed a tear at the tomb of Napoleon, which I was very glad to do, because when I got there my feet certainly were hurting me."     Read more [...]
The Englishwoman in America audiobook by Isabella Lucy Bird Isabella Bird travels abroad in Canada and the United States in the 1850s. As an Englishwoman and a lone female, she travels as far as Chicago, Prince Edward Island, and Cincinatti. Her observations on the trials and tribulations of the journeys are astute, if formed by her place and time in history. Adventures with pickpockets, omnibuses, cholera, and rat invested hotels deter her not. (Sibella Denton)     Read more [...]
Unbeaten Tracks in Japan audiobook by Isabella L. Bird (1831 -- 1904) Isabella Lucy Bird (1831 -- 1904) was a 19th century English traveller, writer, and natural historian. She was a sickly child, however, while she was travelling she was almost always healthy. Her first trip, in 1854, took her to America, visiting relatives. Her first book, The Englishwoman in America was published anonymously two years later. Unbeaten Tracks in Japan is compiled of the letters she sent to her sister during Read more [...]
A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains audiobook by Isabella L. Bird (1831-1904) Isabella Bird began travelling while in her early twenties to help alleviate illness that had plagued her since childhood. She was a single woman in her early forties when she made her treck through the Rocky Mountains. A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains details this fascinating account of her travels through a series of letters written to her sister, Henrietta. These letters are filled with beautiful, vivid descriptions Read more [...]