Travel

First serialized in The Century Magazine (1900), Sailing Alone Around the World tells the story of adventurer Joshua Slocum circumnavigating the world solo. Sailing from Boston in April 1895 aboard the Spray, a thirty-six foot wooden sloop, Captain Slocum eventually sailed forty-six thousand  miles over three years. Recently republished in Nowhere: Travel Stories.

“For, one day, well off the Patagonian coast, while the sloop was reaching under short sail, a tremendous wave, the culmination, it seemed, of many waves, rolled down upon her in a storm, roaring as it came. I had only a moment to get all sail down and myself up on the peak halyards, out of danger, when I saw the mighty crest towering masthead-high above me.”

photo credit: gabriel amadeus

Skier and writer Sarah Ivey of the The New Zealand Herald explores the Dave Murray Downhill course at Whistler Blackcomb in British Columbia.

“As the passing trees morphed into a blur of green, momentary lapses in concentration started to occur, and I started to wonder if taking this on was such a good idea after all.”

“The land of little rain”: Eastern California’s Owens Valley is known for rugged country and history, longstanding water wars, and diverse rock climbing opportunities. Vanessa Gregory of The New York Times and her husband spend a few days camping, hiking, and climbing the Alabama Hills near Bishop.

“With a final, clumsy motion, I clipped the rope that was tied to my harness into two carabiners at the route’s end. Now totally safe, I was able to relax, lean back from the anchor and appreciate the surrounding Owens River Gorge. I looked south to the river, shaded by cottonwood trees, coursing down between 300-foot-high walls of volcanic tuff.”

photo credit: Alan Vernon

U.S. freeskiiers Matt Walker and Tom Wallisch embark on a 1,783 mile journey throughout Western Europe, searching for urban skiing opportunities in the United Kingdom and Barcelona, Spain.

Produced by Michael Clarke

Noted Croatian-American writer Josip Novakovich (April Fool’s Day, Salvation and Other Disasters, and Infidelities: Stories of War and Lust) explores his Hungarian lineage in the latest issue of Nowhere: Travel Stories.

“My great-grandfather died as a lumberjack near Pecs when my grandfather was only three years old. A tree crushed him. Should that count as Hungarian roots? And I was born during the Soviet crushing of the Hungarian uprising. The thing that intrigued me about Hungary, though, was the Soviet enigmatic and anti-charismatic presence. “

Jeff Erickson of Big Sky Journal drops into Wyoming’s Tri-Basin Divide to explore the headwaters of the Greys River (Snake River cutthroats), LaBarge Creek (Colorado River cutthroats), and the Smiths Fork River (Bonneville cutthroats) in search of three distinct types of native cutthroat trout.

“Like the other Tri-Basin cutthroats, Greys’ denizens tend to be opportunistic feeders, not hatch-specific Einsteins. Cutts are suckers for attractor dry patterns — bring Turck’s Tarantulas, Chernobyl Ants, Madame Xs, Humpies, Wulffs, Renegades, Stimulators, and Trudes and you’ll likely be off to the races. These fish don’t mind looking up for their next meal.”

photo credit: araddon

Not a lot of surprises: most of the great lodges here cost well over $4,000 per week, not including air fare. Then again, we can name a handful of do-it-yourself expeditions that would cost as much or more and not provide the level of service that places like Bristol Bay Lodge and the Firehole Ranch do. “The [Firehole] lodge does the little things right: Everybody, from the guides to the chambermaids, knows your name from the moment you arrive.” Chambermaids? Really?

Contributing editor McKenzie Funk of National Geographic Adventure and photographer Aaron Huey attempt to hitchhike from Vladivostok, Russia 6,000 miles west to Moscow along the newly opened Trans-Siberian Highway, “arguably the longest highway in the world.”

“Exploring Siberia was once synonymous with the Trans-Siberian Railroad, a form of travel as controlled and preprogrammed as the economy once was. Hitchhiking was the other extreme—as freewheeling and sometimes desperate as Russia’s new reality—and from the moment we hit shore, we’d have no idea how to find our next ride.”

photo credit: Bernt Rostad

Kenneth Fletcher of Smithsonian Magazine spends a weekend canoeing some of the Okefenokee Swamp’s 400,000 acres–a 7,000 year-old peat bog (38 miles long by 25 miles wide) along the Georgia and Florida border.

“As the sky darkened, I heard an orchestra of night sounds. Pairs of cranes sang together, a trumpeting that reverberated across the swamp. Choruses of frogs chimed in. Night fell, and owls hooted and howled from trees dotting the prairie. The stars reflected brightly off the inky water while the Milky Way glowed in the sky.”

photo credit: twoblueday

Tom Gorman of the Los Angeles Times loads up the campervan and treks across Europe for 18 days, amounting to “10 countries, 2,982 miles, 8,766 photos, one traffic violation, one break-in, invitations to stay with new friends in Switzerland, Germany and South Africa, and one marriage proposal.”

“Our campsite alongside the beginning of the Danube River in the Black Forest, in the shadow of a towering granite bluff, is reminiscent of Yosemite, very tranquil. But the mobi is developing problems. The lock on the side door breaks. We can lock it from the outside but not inside. So from now on, at night, we secure the door shut with bungee cords. If someone breaks in, he’ll think someone is fighting him.”