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Essay on An Unforgettable Journey

Students are often asked to write an essay on An Unforgettable Journey in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on An Unforgettable Journey

The beginning of the journey.

My unforgettable journey began when I boarded a train to visit my grandparents. The bustling station, filled with people, was exciting.

The Traveling Experience

On the train, I met different people. We shared stories, food, and laughter. The changing landscape outside was mesmerizing.

The Arrival

As I arrived, my grandparents’ warm welcome filled my heart with joy. Their small town had its unique charm.

This journey was unforgettable because of the people I met, the sights I saw, and the experiences I had. It taught me to appreciate the beauty of life.

250 Words Essay on An Unforgettable Journey

The prelude: a journey begins.

Every journey has a story, and every story has a protagonist. In this case, the protagonist was me, a college student yearning for an adventure. I embarked on a journey that was not just about traversing geographical distances but also about self-discovery.

The Adventure: Embracing the Unknown

My journey began in the bustling city of Mumbai and led me to the serene landscapes of Ladakh. The stark contrast between the two places was as different as day and night. The city’s chaos was replaced by the tranquility of mountains, and the skyscrapers were replaced by towering peaks. The journey was not smooth; there were unexpected challenges and hurdles, but they only added to the thrill.

The Epiphany: Lessons Learnt

The journey taught me resilience, patience, and the ability to appreciate the little things in life. It made me realize how insignificant our daily worries are in the grand scheme of things. The journey unveiled the raw beauty of nature and the simple lifestyle of the locals, which was a stark contrast to the materialistic life in the city.

The Aftermath: An Unforgettable Journey

The journey was not just about the destination; it was about the experiences, the people, and the lessons learned. It was an unforgettable journey that left an indelible mark on me. It was a journey that transformed me, a journey that I will carry in my heart forever. It was indeed an unforgettable journey, a journey of a lifetime.

In conclusion, every journey is a story waiting to be told, and every story is a journey waiting to be taken. It’s the journey, not the destination, that shapes us.

500 Words Essay on An Unforgettable Journey

The prelude to the journey.

Every journey is a mosaic of experiences, a tapestry of memories woven together over time. One such unforgettable journey that left an indelible mark on my life was a trekking expedition to the Himalayas.

Embarking on the Adventure

The journey began with an overnight train ride from Delhi to a small town nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas. As the train chugged along, the urban landscape gradually gave way to the serene beauty of the countryside. The excitement was palpable, not just for the destination, but also for the journey itself.

The trek was a test of endurance, courage, and perseverance. The terrain was treacherous, the weather unpredictable, and the altitude sickness a constant threat. But the sight of the majestic mountains, the sound of the bubbling streams, and the smell of the fresh mountain air made it all worthwhile. Every step taken was a step closer to self-discovery, every challenge faced a lesson in resilience.

The Epiphany

The pinnacle of the trek was an ethereal sunrise from the summit. As the first rays of the sun kissed the snow-capped peaks, the world seemed to stand still. It was a moment of profound clarity, a realization of our insignificance in the grand scheme of things, and yet, a recognition of our potential to conquer our fears and overcome our limitations.

The Descent and Beyond

The descent was no less challenging, but the sense of accomplishment and the memories made along the way made it easier. The journey was not just about reaching the summit, but also about the bonds forged, the friendships nurtured, and the stories shared. It was a journey of self-discovery, of pushing boundaries, and of finding joy in the journey itself.

Reflecting upon this unforgettable journey, I realized that it was a microcosm of life itself. Just like the trek, life is full of ups and downs, challenges and triumphs. It is not the destination, but the journey that shapes us, that defines us. It is the experiences we gather, the lessons we learn, and the memories we make that truly matter. This unforgettable journey was a testament to the fact that it is not the mountains we conquer, but ourselves.

In conclusion, an unforgettable journey is not merely a physical journey from one place to another, but also a journey of the mind and the soul. It is about stepping out of our comfort zones, challenging ourselves, and growing in the process. It is about embracing the journey, with all its challenges and triumphs, and making it a part of our story.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

  • Essay on A Memorable Journey
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An Unforgettable Journey

Science Scope—March/April 2021 (Volume 44, Issue 4)

By Ron Ruckman, Debbie French, and Ana K. Houseal

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An Unforgettable Journey

CONTENT AREA Earth and Space Science

GRADE LEVEL 6–8

BIG IDEA/UNIT Eclipses

ESSENTIAL PRE-EXISTING KNOWLEDGE Prior knowledge about rotation, revolution, eclipses, and the Earth-Sun-Moon system

TIME REQUIRED 3–4 class periods

COST No additional costs beyond normal classroom materials

SAFETY No special safety concerns

M y middle school students are fascinated by astronomy and ask lots of great questions, but like many students, they struggle with understanding challenging concepts such as Moon phases, gravity, and why eclipses occur. The purpose of this article is to provide an example of how to take tried-and-true learning activities, match them to a three-dimensional model ( Houseal 2015), and connect them to the Ambitious Science Teaching (AST) framework ( Windschitl, Thompson, and Braaten 2018; see Online Resources) and Next Generation Science Storylines (see Online Resources). These two frameworks were used to integrate the Earth science concepts of eclipses and motions of the Sun, Earth, and Moon by using the 2017 Great American Solar Eclipse as an anchoring phenomenon. Merging these ideas created authentic learning opportunities and a collaborative learning environment for my students. I found it put them in control of their learning and gave them the opportunity to engage in scientific discourse, use models to better learn a concept, and demonstrate their learning.

Two frameworks

The vision of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) and the NextGenStorylines project is to create opportunities for students to make sense of phenomena in the way that scientists do ( National Research Council [NRC] 2012). NextGenStorylines focus on the use of interesting, thought-provoking phenomena to get students to engage in authentic investigations ( Reiser 2017). The term natural phenomena is defined as “observable events that occur in the universe that [students can use their] scientific knowledge to explain or predict . . . and figure out” ( Achieve 2016, p. 1). A storyline is built by starting from students’ initial models and unresolved questions about a phenomenon. The teacher uses student questions to develop the activities and investigations to answer those questions and come up with new questions ( Turley, Trotochaud, and Campbell 2016). These new questions will lead to new investigations. It is important for teachers to anticipate student questions so they can have investigations and data ready ahead of time ( Reiser 2017). The anchoring phenomenon for this unit was solar and lunar eclipses. Although I had taught this topic before, it was my pedagogical practice that changed as I aligned activities I had previously used with this new storyline.

To make the NextGenStorylines method work, teachers must create a classroom environment in which students can engage in scientific inquiry, defined in the National Science Education Standards ( NRC 1996) as “the diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world and propose explanations based on the evidence derived from their work” (p. 23). This idea, further developed and described by AST , has a goal of ensuring that every student is actively engaged with the subject matter and can apply what they have learned. There are four core practices of AST: planning for engagement with important science ideas, eliciting students’ ideas, supporting ongoing changes in students’ thinking, and drawing together evidence-based explanations ( Windschitl, Thompson, and Braaten 2018, p. 4). The AST practices helped me to assist my students in participating in authentic science. By mapping my activities and instructional decisions to the AST framework, it allowed me to take a step back and put my students in charge of their learning. It allowed me to focus on student engagement with authentic data. It also allowed me to better anticipate students’ questions.

A snapshot from my classroom

As framing for this unit, it is important for the reader to know that our community was in the path of totality for the Great American Solar Eclipse on August 21, 2017. Also, on January 31, 2018, we were able to observe the Super Blue Blood Moon lunar eclipse. Because of timing and location, both were relevant and fresh in my students’ minds, making this an ideal anchoring phenomenon from which to develop this unit. The anchoring phenomenon was critical to the success of this unit as it helped to highlight other phenomena students noticed throughout the entire unit and was a way to coherently connect all of the science concepts I needed to teach. My students looked at images of both the solar and lunar eclipses and discussed why they thought eclipses occurred.

When I started the unit, my students shared their ideas about these phenomena. Using personal experiences and prior knowledge, students began to seriously think about and share ideas about possible causes for each eclipse. I listened carefully for partial understandings and alternate conceptions by noting the language students used and the way they made connections to their everyday experiences. Through discussion and guiding questions, the class identified a list of questions they needed to answer to understand the cause of eclipses, including:

  • What kinds of eclipses are there?
  • What are the sizes of the objects involved?
  • Which objects are involved?
  • What are the positions of the objects during an eclipse?
  • How do the objects move (the mechanism of their movement)?
  • When and where do eclipses happen?
  • How do orbits affect an eclipse?
  • What are the paths the objects follow?

From west to east

To determine the cause of solar eclipses, my eighth-grade students used various models to test some of their ideas. First, they used an eclipse simulator in Celestia , a web-based planetarium software, on the interactive whiteboard to better visualize the Earth-Moon-Sun system and see how the Moon revolves around the Earth (see Online Resources). To do this, I set up Celestia in advance to ensure students have the proper perspective ( see Figure 1 ).

|	FIGURE 1: A screenshot of the Celestia 3D space simulation depicting the Earth-Moon-Sun system the day before the 8/21/2017 Great American Solar Eclipse.

A screenshot of the Celestia 3D space simulation depicting the Earth-Moon-Sun system the day before the 8/21/2017 Great American Solar Eclipse.

Next, students used a globe to represent the Earth, a lamp to represent the Sun, and a baseball to represent the Moon to kinesthetically model different scenarios in three-dimensional space. Using these materials, students physically moved these items around to get their physical model of the Earth-Moon-Sun system to match what they were seeing in Celestia. It is important to note that by this time in the unit, students had also done extensive work with an eclipse simulator and had gained a fairly solid understanding of how the Moon moves around the Earth. We had discussed how, given the tilted path of the Moon, it is rare for the Sun, Moon, and Earth to align such that an eclipse can occur and that it could only occur at certain times of the year. At this point, they had reached consensus that solar eclipses were caused by the Moon moving directly between the Sun and the Earth. However, students were starting to make some other observations and had some new questions ( see Figure 2 ).

|	FIGURE 2: Students modeling eclipses in their classroom.

Students modeling eclipses in their classroom.

As students were viewing a NASA video on eclipses (see link in Online Resources), one student noticed something perplexing. He realized the eclipse shadow from the Great American Eclipse, which we had looked at earlier in class, had moved across the Earth from west to east. He stated that we had already figured out that the Earth turns toward the east and that this meant the shadow should appear to travel from east to west, just like other objects we see in the sky.

Realizing that this question about the motion of the eclipse’s shadow was a great opportunity for scientific thinking, I challenged the students to figure it out. They were stumped until I restated the question in a way that could be tested. The students really needed to find out whether the shadow moved because of the Earth’s rotation or if it was because of something else. We talked about what the “something else” could be. They decided that because the Sun and the Moon were the only other objects involved, it had to be one of those. Everyone agreed the Sun probably was not the cause because Earth moved around it.

After more discussion, the student holding the baseball started moving it around the Earth and told the person with the globe to start spinning it. Several students jumped in and corrected the direction of the Moon. They remembered from previous class explorations and observations in Celestia that the Moon traveled in a counterclockwise direction when viewed from above the North Pole. Although none were ready to commit to an answer, the students had become very engaged in finding a solution. They were not worried about throwing out ideas because they knew that they would be seriously considered by the others in the room.

Students finally became convinced when someone suggested we use our bright lamp to represent the Sun and try the same sequence with the lights off. We positioned the Moon at the scale distance from the Earth (about 24 feet) so the shadow would be the right size. We started by holding the Moon still and had someone turn the Earth very slowly. As the Earth turned, we watched the North American continent move under the shadow. In this scenario, we noted that the shadow started on the East Coast and the continent moved under it until the shadow was on the West Coast. This was not the way the actual eclipse had moved! Now, the students were convinced it could not be the movement of the Earth, but they still wanted to see if the Moon’s movement would explain it. Next, they took the baseball and orbited it in the correct direction between the “Sun” and the “Earth.” The shadow moved from the west coast to the east coast just like it did in reality. It was because of the Moon’s movement! This extensive discussion and modeling helped the students understand why the shadow moved from west to east.

How did we get to this point?

For this unit, I prioritized discourse and publicly represented student ideas. Having students talk about their ideas and conceptual understanding proved to be a critical strategy. To facilitate discussion, I used talk moves such as revoicing , where I would restate what the student said to allow them to confirm my description as well as elaborate on their statement, explain their reasoning, or provide additional evidence to support their statement, and wait time , by giving students several minutes to deeply think about an issue, record their thoughts, and revisit the topic the next day or whenever it came up in future class sessions ( Michaels, Shouse, and Schweingruber 2008). I also used questioning prompts outlined in “Teaching Practice Set: Eliciting Students’ Ideas and Adapting Instruction” ( AST 2014) such as: What do you see going on here? How do you think this happens? Why do you think it happens this way?

For each lesson-level phenomenon, my students and I went through cycles that built on the four AST teaching practices mentioned earlier. However, it took many of these cycles to make up the entire storyline, which addressed the overall anchoring phenomenon.

An important consideration I took into account as I implemented this strategy was the importance of creating an environment where students felt safe to share their claims without personal judgement. Middle school students are notoriously worried about their image in the eyes of fellow classmates. Thus, one step we took was to create norms about how we could appropriately listen and respond to each other’s ideas, especially when there was disagreement. Students were required to be patient listeners and to be respectful of others’ ideas. Students also felt empowered to share their ideas and engage in scientific argumentation. The specifics of the norms we had agreed on were posted in the classroom as a reminder. We initially spent time discussing and sharing ideas in small groups. By allowing students to pose their ideas in a small-group setting and listen to others, they were able to sort and try out their own thoughts, becoming more confident when sharing to the larger group later.

Once students began to realize that this classroom was a safe place in which they could share ideas, and that they were able to reinforce our shared norms, they became more willing to throw out new ideas even when they might be wrong. As a result, students became more flexible in their thinking. Even incorrect ideas spurred new discussions and more creative thoughts. As students shared ideas, I recorded their ideas on the whiteboard where they remained visible throughout the unit. I also posted these ideas on our course management system. Their ideas drove further instruction as they were revisited throughout the unit. This validated students’ ideas, helping them realize that their thinking was important. It also helped to get the ideas out into the open where they could be critiqued by the classroom community. In this way, the ideas became community knowledge, which could be leveraged by anyone throughout the unit.

Because students had become accustomed to sharing their ideas and commenting on others, I was able to get a good read on each student’s understanding of the concepts. This allowed me to make adjustments and help those who were still struggling with the big ideas.

To better identify students who may be struggling, I had students work in small groups to complete a formative assessment task based on Paige Keeley’s prompt, “#19 Earth or Moon Shadow?” ( Keeley and Sneider 2012; see Figure 3 ). They had to determine which person in the scenario had a correct explanation of why the moon was crescent shaped. Student groups created a storyboard that used a model to explain with whom they agreed and why. Every group determined an answer and worked to develop their storyboard explanations. However, one group was having a heated argument about the mechanics of lunar phases. A student was confused about the positions of the Earth, Moon, and Sun. By the time I arrived, the other students were trying to explain it, but they were getting confused as well. The paraprofessional educator who had come over to help them admitted that she was confused, too. Previously, I would have given them a detailed explanation of the concept. However, what I did instead made all the difference. I said, “Let’s go to the lab and figure it out.” Students went to a nearby room, which could be darkened and had ample space for students to move about safely; however, this activity could be done in the regular classroom with the teacher providing students with necessary supplies. The students used a lamp, Styrofoam balls, and a simulation depicting Moon-Earth-Sun positions during different phases of the moon on their computers as a reference. They worked together to figure out how to make the Moon appear to have a crescent shape from Earth’s perspective using the lamp and Styrofoam balls. Within five minutes, students were excited to explain it to me. I suggested they try several other phase shapes to make sure they truly understood it. After a few more minutes with the model, they were pretty sure they had it.

|	FIGURE 3: Prompt for formative assessment task.

Prompt for formative assessment task.

As a final check, I listened while students explained to the paraprofessional why the Moon goes through phases. At this point, it was clear that they understood it well; however, the paraprofessional still did not. To remedy this, I had the students take her to the lab to try it herself. They helped her use the model, which she had not done previously. Suddenly, we saw the realization hit her! In this case, both she and the students needed to use the kinesthetic models before they had the “aha!” moment.

I was able to use Keeley’s formative assessment probe the way these assessments are meant to be used—as a way to determine gaps and to help students change their thinking before moving on. Had I waited to assess until the end of the unit, it would have been too late to check my students’ understanding and clear up misconceptions that existed.

As a final assessment, I had students make a brochure about eclipses aimed at tourists who might want to visit a location where a future eclipse would occur. They were asked to explain how eclipses work and what visitors should know about the timing and location for the next solar eclipse and the next lunar eclipse. This gave me a snapshot of the depth of their understanding at the end of the unit. Students took a day in class to create their brochures on paper and included explanations and annotated eclipse diagrams.

Their brochures were assessed based on the rubric provided ( see Figure 4 ; also see “planning for the next big eclipse rubric” in Supplemental Materials). The rubric was aligned with the Student Performance Expectations (PE) to capture evidence of students’ three-dimensional learning. To begin, I started by setting Level 3, which represented students meeting that standard for the part of the PE that this addressed. To set the l evels above and below, I looked at the Science and Engineering Practices, Disciplinary Core Ideas, and Crosscutting Concepts progression in Appendix E, F, and G of the Next Generation Science Standards . From there, I thought about what understanding a student would have to demonstrate to go from Level 3 to Level 4. I looked at the high school progression to determine what a Level 4 should look like. Similarly, I looked at earlier grades to develop Levels 1 and 2 of the rubric, which indicated that their ideas were not fully matching the middle level PE.

|	FIGURE 4: Students showcased their knowledge by creating travel brochures for visitors traveling to a region where an eclipse would occur.

Students showcased their knowledge by creating travel brochures for visitors traveling to a region where an eclipse would occur.

Final thoughts

There were several instances during this unit when either a student or I noticed something interesting or perplexing. The earlier vignette showcased one of many completely spontaneous questions and subsequent investigations. Students were more engaged during these impromptu investigations because they were invested in the outcome. These opportunities helped students build a deep conceptual understanding of science ideas that previously might have been just “covered” in class. However, it wasn’t magic; it was due to deliberate planning and the implementation of the AST and NextGenStorylines frameworks.

The Great American Solar Eclipse and the Super Blue Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse fascinated my students. These two celestial events led us on an unforgettable journey of teaching and learning about these Earth science concepts ambitiously and through the use of storylines. During this process, my students wrestled with complex ideas and spatial patterns to uncover the causes of eclipses for themselves. This fostered rich learning that otherwise would not likely have occurred through using two-dimensional diagrams from textbooks.

Although it was initially uncomfortable to be asked a question I didn’t have an answer for, I was modeling what I wanted my students to become—critical, independent thinkers who were not afraid to grab a globe and a flashlight off the shelf to uncover the answer for themselves, instead of opening their favorite internet browser to search for the answer. •

Online Resources

Ambitious Science Teaching website— https://ambitiousscienceteaching.org/

Celestia planetarium software— https://celestia.space/download.html

NASA video of the eclipse— https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpCyFSugwdM

Next Generation Science Storylines— http://www.nextgenstorylines.org/

Video clips and simulations (p. 33); student activities, storylines, and assessments (Appendices)— https://mountainscholar.org/handle/20.500.11919/3136

Supplemental Materials

Connecting to the Next Generation Science Standards

Planning for the next big eclipse rubric

Ron Ruckman is a science teacher at Pinedale Middle School in Pinedale, Wyoming; Debbie French ( [email protected] ) is an assistant professor of science education in the Department of Education at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; and Ana K. Houseal is an associate professor and outreach science educator in the Science and Mathematics Teaching Center at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming.

Achieve. 2016. Using phenomena in NGSS-designed lessons and units. http://www.nextgenscience.org/sites/default/files/Using%20Phenomena%20in%20NGSS.pdf

Ambitious Science Teaching. 2014. Teaching practice set: Eliciting students’ ideas and adapting instruction. http://ambitiousscienceteaching.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Primer-Eliciting-Students-Ideas.pdf

Houseal, A. 2015. A visual representation of three-dimensional learning: A tool for evaluating curriculum. Science Scope 39 (1): 58–62.

Keeley, P., and C.I. Sneider. 2012. Uncovering student ideas in astronomy: 45 formative assessment probes. Arlington, VA: NSTA Press.

Michaels, S., A.W. Shouse, and H.A. Schweingruber. 2008. Ready, set, science!: Putting research to work in K–8 science classrooms. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

National Research Council (NRC). 1996. National science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

National Research Council (NRC). 2012. A framework for K–12 science education: Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Science Standards: For states, by states. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Reiser, B. 2017. Brian Reiser: Current storylines to support 3-D learning [Video File]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkUED-6jPOM

Turley, R., A. Trotochaud, and T. Campbell. 2016. Achieving liftoff: Using coherent storylines to explain phenomena. The Science Teacher 83 (6): 35–41.

Windschitl, M., J. Thompson, and M. Braaten, M. 2018. Ambitious Science Teaching. Boston, MA: Harvard Education Publishing. https://ambitiousscienceteaching.org /

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True Tales of Adventure to Inspire Your Next Epic Trip

Between the covers of these nine books, the authors cover a lot of ground, from a trek in australia to a perilous journey in antarctica..

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True Tales of Adventure to Inspire Your Next Epic Trip

Epic trips are made not only of towering mountains or grueling treks. You can have an epic trip in your home country, by making an unexpected move to a new one, or on a quest to recapture your sense of wonder about the world. At least, that’s what these adventurous souls show in the following collection of true stories. These memoirs, autobiographies, and historical accounts are sure to enthrall anyone seeking insight into a different place or time—and maybe provide the nudge needed to set out on an adventure of your own.

All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes By Maya Angelou (Random House, 1986) In 1962, Maya Angelou traveled to Accra with her son to help him get settled at the University of Ghana. But when he was seriously injured in a car accident, her two-week stopover became a three-year stay. In the resulting autobiography, she notes that Ghana was a place where “for the first time in our lives the color of our skin was accepted as correct and normal.” All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes is the fifth in Angelou’s seven-book series of autobiographies. Her poetic prose touches on themes of motherhood, race, and identity, and with her characteristic grace, Angelou introduces her audience to the characters she meets and the customs she learns as she navigates local culture and becomes involved with the expat community of black Americans.

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Braving It: A Father, a Daughter, and an Unforgettable Journey Into the Alaskan Wilderness By James Campbell (Crown, 2016) The idea of spending a vacation doing grueling outdoor work with a teenager is scary enough for most parents without adding the threat of grizzly bears. But Aidan Campbell is not every teenager, and her father James Campbell isn’t every parent. In Braving It , Campbell chronicles their three trips to Alaska , including a summer spent helping family members build a log cabin in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and a fall visit to set trap lines for hunting. Their adventure culminates in a final backpacking and canoeing trip that takes them through the Brooks Range and along the Hulahula River all the way to the Arctic Ocean. If the descriptions of rugged living in the Alaskan landscape don’t keep you reading (or at least inspire you to do some image searches of the National Wildlife Refuge), the tender evolution of the relationship between a father and his teenage daughter will. And it may even offer some ideas for your next family vacation.

Patagonian Road: A Year Alone Through Latin America By Kate McCahill (Santa Fe Writers Project, 2017) Like many travelers, writer Kate McCahill found inspiration for her journey through Latin America from a book. In her case, it was Paul Theroux’s 1979 travelogue, The Old Patagonian Express . Unlike Theroux’s narrative, which relies on observations about train travel, McCahill veers thematically (if not geographically) from his itinerary. She travels from Guatemala to Argentina as Theroux did, but spends more time on buses than locomotives. Along the way, she takes on a few teaching jobs and tries to get a sense of local life. The account is introspective and personal, and the vivid descriptions transport readers to pockets of the 10 countries she visits. The work is a sound example of literature’s power to move people outside their comfort zones.

Tracks: A Woman’s Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback By Robyn Davidson (Bloomsbury, 1980) In 1977, at age 27, Robyn Davidson decided to make the long journey on foot from the central Australian town of Alice Springs west to the Indian Ocean. Her companions for the journey? Four camels and a dog. As Davidson’s adventure progressed, she was forced to confront the obstacles solo travel presents in the Outback—a harsh landscape, feelings of loneliness, the realities of the Australian codes (both social and legal) that discriminate against its Aboriginal people, and the challenges of keeping herself and her traveling unit safe. Davidson’s deeply personal narrative shows how, when someone moves from idea to action, the resulting journey can be truly transformative. Tracks went on to win the 1980 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award; a film adaptation starring Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver was released in 2013.

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Here Is Real Magic: A Magician’s Search for Wonder in the Modern World By Nate Staniforth ( Bloomsbury, 2018) After years as a professional magician, Nate Staniforth was very tired. He was tired of homesickness, of cynical hecklers, of long hours of travel, and of even longer working days. Worse, he had lost the sense of wonder that drove him to magic in the first place. So Staniforth embarked on a quest to recapture it in India, a land where ancient magic inspires its modern counterpart. At turns funny and heartfelt, his memoir Here Is Real Magic reminds readers why a childlike sense of awe is an important asset that helps us appreciate our great, big world, and how the pursuit of a long-held passion can lead to the best sorts of travel. Read a teaser .

Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage By Alfred Lansing (Hodder & Stoughton, 1959) More than 100 years ago, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew set sail to Antarctica . Their goal was a daring one: to walk across the continent. But before they reached their destination, their ship the Endurance became trapped in the ice and sank. What followed was the men’s harrowing attempt to survive on the ice floes and, thanks to a risky open-boat expedition to South Georgia, a return to land. We don’t recommend replicating the events of this book , but the true story of their will to live—and Shackleton’s leadership—is as inspiring as it is thrilling. (And if you want to see the continent for yourself, it’s considerably easier and less dangerous to travel to Antarctica these days.)

All Over the Place: Adventures in Travel, True Love, and Petty Theft By Geraldine DeRuiter (PublicAffairs, 2017) Anyone who has spent time in the travel blogosphere has likely heard of The Everywhereist , a website run by the hilarious and incisive Geraldine DeRuiter. After she was laid off from her copywriting job, DeRuiter began traveling with her husband on his work trips and writing about them on her blog. Her first book , released in May of 2017, is less a single narrative of a specific, transformative trip (she says as much in a disclaimer) than a collection of stories about getting lost, having motion sickness, and gaining a better sense of the world and her relationship as she travels with her husband over the course of more than five years. DeRuiter’s writing is laugh-out-loud funny, even when she’s tackling the tough stuff (brain tumors included), and her anecdotes will encourage you to find humor in the process of travel.

The Hundred-Year Walk: An Armenian Odyssey By Dawn Anahid MacKeen (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016) Every family has legends, but Dawn Anahid MacKeen’s was exceptional. Many times while growing up, she’d heard the story of how her grandfather, Stepan Miskjian, escaped the genocide in Armenia by crossing the Syrian desert on foot with only two cups of water. It never captured her interest until her mother discovered Miskjian’s long-lost journals. Unable to ignore her family’s remarkable history, MacKeen embarks on a singular expedition: to retrace his route to modern-day Syria and Turkey (two countries that continue to deny the Armenian genocide). Part history, part memoir, MacKeen’s story speaks to the power of family, the horrors of war, and the resilience of the human spirit.

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Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam By Alexander X. Pham (Picador, 2000) In 1977, soon after the Vietnam War ended, Alexander Pham arrived in the United States from Vietnam with his family. He was 10 years old. The rest of his childhood was spent in California, and he eventually graduated from UCLA. But 17 years after his family’s relocation to the States, his sibling’s suicide prompts Pham to quit his engineering job and begin a 4,000-mile bicycle journey. Over the course of a year, he goes up the Pacific Coast from Mexico to California, then cycles Japan and, ultimately, Vietnam, his country of birth. Moving deftly between Pham’s past (his father’s imprisonment in Vietnam during the war, his own childhood memories) and present, Catfish and Mandala is not a travel narrative with a glossy sheen. Rather, it’s an honest account of an experience written by a young man grappling with what it means to be Vietnamese American in a postwar world.

Want to read more with us? Join fellow literature lovers online at AFAReads , our digital book club.

>>Next: 10 Must-Read Books for Every Type of Summer Trip

Malibu Creek State Park

Transforming Onboarding into an Unforgettable Experience

Table of Contents

Unforgettable Onboarding Experience Transformation

Onboarding is the first real taste a new hire gets of a company’s culture and work ethos – is pivotal to employee engagement and retention . A positive onboarding experience is instrumental in setting the tone for an employee’s journey with your organization. But how do we make this process memorable, engaging, and effective? The answer lies in GFoundry, a cutting-edge digital engagement platform.

Create impactful Onboarding Journeys for your employees

The process: Simple, Powerful and Fun! GFoundry has developed an exciting feature where you can use with several modules for your onboarding and engagement needs: Digital Journeys. One journey is a structured path with a strong visual frame that can have one or more steps to be completed. Each one of these steps can be created by applying any of GFoundry’s suite modules. Example of a newcomer onboarding path using GFoundry:

  • Company tour  video  visualization, using the  Learn Module
  • Complete a who-is-who quiz, using the  Learn Module
  • Check a set of processes using Tasks Module
  • Submission of the work contract using  Surveys  Module, making this process much more agile and straight forward
  • Definition of professional goals for the short and long term using Goals Module
  • Definition of the PDP (Personal Development Plan) discussed with the manager using  Evaluation & Careers Module

All of these journeys paths can be managed through GFoundry backoffice and all the mission’s analytics can be assessed by a set of reports that can be issued for this purpose.

Making Onboarding Interactive and Engaging

Gamification for fun and learning.

GFoundry’s gamification engine brings a layer of fun and engagement to the often tedious process of onboarding. Through gamified activities, new hires can familiarize themselves with the company’s values, goals, and procedures in an interactive and enjoyable way. The use of badges, virtual coins, and leaderboards makes learning about the company a rewarding and motivational experience. This positive first impression helps to foster a sense of excitement and loyalty from the onset. Learn more about GFoundry’s Gamification’s Engine here.

Micro-Learning for Easy Assimilation

GFoundry’s Learn module enables micro-learning, allowing new hires to consume information in bite-sized, manageable chunks. This not only aids better understanding and retention of information but also reduces the overwhelm that can often come with the flood of information during onboarding. Learn more about GFoundry’s Learning & Development solutions here.

Socializing and Communicating

The GFoundry platform encourages networking and interaction among employees with its social and communication features. New hires can use the chat system, participate in interest groups, and receive news updates, fostering a sense of belonging from the get-go. This, in turn, makes the onboarding experience more human and less transactional.

Feedback for Continuous Improvement

Feedback is integral to improving the onboarding process. GFoundry’s Feedback module allows new hires to share their thoughts and opinions about their onboarding experience. This continuous loop of feedback can help organizations to continuously refine and optimize the onboarding process to ensure that it remains a positive experience for all new employees. Learn more here.

Navigating with Player Journey Maps

GFoundry’s Player Journey Maps guide new employees through their onboarding process. This interactive guide can represent steps, needs, goals, and expectations, making onboarding more structured and user-friendly. Read more here. Don’t forget also to check this article from Gallup: How to Use Onboarding to Create Brand Champions

Keep on reading

  • The Ultimate Guide for Remote Onboarding
  • Gamification
  • Employee Onboarding Journey Maps Examples
  • Navigating Digital Transformation: A Deeper Dive into Transforming Processes and Mindsets
  • The Learning Journey
  • Improving employee experience – the complete guide
  • HR Trends: What Will HR Look Like Next Year?

Ready to get started?

Take the next step and learn more about how gfoundry can help you..

rafters float down the Hulahula River rapids in Alaska

James Campbell and his daughter Aidan faced their biggest challenges in Alaska canoeing down the Hulahula River. Unlike the rafters pictured here, Campbell and Aidan shared a boat.

How Dad and Daughter Survived the Alaskan Wilderness

She learned to shoot, skin, and butcher her food. He learned to trust her.

When she was four years old, Aidan Campbell made her father, James, promise that he would take her into the Alaskan wilderness someday. When she was 15, he finally did.

At an early age, she had fallen under the spell of her father's stories from his first book, The Final Frontiersman , about his cousin Heimo Korth 's life in the Alaskan bush. A decade later, when Korth invited him to spend a summer building a cabin in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge , Campbell decided to bring Aidan along. Father and daughter set off together for one of the most isolated, and magnificent, landscapes in North America. [Find out how Arctic foxes grow their own gardens .]

In Braving It: A Father, a Daughter, and an Unforgettable Journey Into the Alaskan Wild, James Campbell describes this and two more trips to Alaska, where father and daughter faced off with grizzlies, battled clouds of mosquitos, capsized in a freezing river—and pushed the bond between them to its limits. Speaking by phone from Telluride, Colorado, Campbell explains how he used statistics on bear attacks to convince his wife to allow Aidan to go on the trip, why the hardest part for him was relinquishing control to his daughter, and why you can never fully relax in the wilderness. [Discover why six million acres might not be enough for Denali National Park .]

Your first trip involved building a log cabin in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which a friend of yours called “possibly the loneliest place on the planet for a teenage girl.” Didn’t you worry that the trip could be a disaster?

I did. Aidan and I talked a lot about it during the two months we prepared—about safety in bear country, the isolation, the loneliness—but she felt that she was as ready for it as a 15-year-old can be. I felt she was ready too. But I had to convince my wife. Virtually every person in the lower 48 thinks there’s a grizzly hiding behind every willow thicket in Alaska. So my wife was primarily worried about the grizzlies. She made me produce statistics, which showed that most of the people that went up into the Arctic were quite fine. [Laughs] But ultimately I convinced her that we were emotionally, mentally, and physically prepared. My wife made the leap of faith and said, “Alright, why don’t you all go.”

This is a story about a father facing what you call the “unfamiliar channel of middle age” and a girl coping with adolescence. Put us inside your heads as you set out.

I’ve always had a lot of wanderlust or fernweh , as my mom calls it. I’ve traveled all over the world and my body has largely not betrayed me. So part of me was looking forward to the challenge of making three trips to the Arctic, but I was worried, too, that my body might not hold up.

Confronting middle age and diminished physical abilities and dreams has been hard. We both love this little Wisconsin farm where we live. But I get itchy feet and Aidan has always had a big imagination and big dreams. Up until we went to Alaska, she was largely content with our hometown. But once she saw the beauty and magnificence of Alaska, Wisconsin just didn’t quite cut it. Her heart and imagination was in Alaska.

an unforgettable journey what work also follows

Describe some of the hardships you faced together.

They varied. On our first trip, it was the worst bug season in the Alaska interior in decades, so there were hordes of mosquitoes. You couldn’t escape them. While we were building the cabin we had to build smudge fires around the perimeter to smoke them out. The only place to bathe was in the Coleen River , which is a glacier-fed river. Aidan says she smelled like the monkey cage at the zoo. [Laughs] We were working all day long cutting and limbing trees, bucking them to size, dragging them out of the woods, peeling them, lugging them to the cabin site, and then building the cabin. At the end of the day all we wanted to do was collapse. But we had to harvest berries and go fish, build a fire, and wash dishes. It was endless work.

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You can’t just drive a camper there, can you? Give us a picture of the remoteness of the place.

It’s 20 million acres of raw wilderness, as large as the state of South Carolina. The only way to get to it is a two-hour flight by bush plane from Fairbanks. There is nobody there. It’s an empty place. The Inuit of the Arctic coast use it to occasionally hunt for caribou and fish, and there are a few nonnative homesteaders living in the refuge. But you can go hundreds of miles without seeing a soul.

One of the main characters in the book is a Siberian Yupik Eskimo named Edna. Introduce us to her.

Her Yupik name is Miti Dowin. She grew up on an island in the Bering Sea, closer to Russia than Alaska, called St. Lawrence Island, in what was then the ancient hunting village of Savoonga. When my cousin Heimo first went up to Alaska in the 70s, he would go to Savoonga in the spring and run a little dry goods store for his friend. He learned how to speak the language and hunted polar bear, walrus, and bowhead whales with the Eskimo. He fell in love with Edna Rose. She agreed to join him 1,500 miles east in the interior of Alaska.

Edna taught Aidan that women can be as competent in the wilderness as men. Edna can do everything that my cousin does—and even more, as Aidan says, because she does all that stuff he does and cooks the meals!

an unforgettable journey what work also follows

James Campbell and his daughter Aidan stop for a selfie in the midst of their Arctic trek. "I learned that Aidan was—and is—capable of much more than I imagined," says Campbell.

Aidan learned from Edna how to handle a gun, skin and butcher animals. It’s not great preparation for life in the 21st century, is it?

[Laughs] I think it is ! I don’t believe in the apocalypse or end time preppers or anything like that, but the emotional skills that Edna taught her, like self-reliance, competence, and adaptability, are all things she will use for the rest of her life. Aidan will be in uncomfortable situations many other times in her life, and I think she will be able to harken back to this experience and summon the perseverance for whatever is needed.

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What were the particular challenges you faced on your third trip, on the hulahula river .

It was the coldest summer in the Arctic in about 20 years. And we had a lot of dangers: polar and grizzly bears and canoeing on a wild river. The biggest challenge was figuring out how to maneuver the boat together. It’s something we’d prepared for but I had trouble letting go of my need to control the situation. Aidan was the bow woman. Her job was to read the river, pick a line, make a stroke and I’d make a similar stroke from the back of the boat. But sometimes she would be screaming out strokes but, because I was unable to relinquish control, I would be screaming out strokes to her from the back of the canoe. After three days of near disasters she came to me and said, “Dad, we prepared for this, and you said that you would trust me, and you’re not trusting me. This is not working. You need to have faith in me and my ability to see the river and make the right call!” That was an important realization for me. We weren’t going to make it if I didn’t relinquish control. That was really hard.

Parenting in the teenage years is all about the joy and pain of letting go. If we do the right things as parents, our children go off into life with grace and composure, but they leave us behind. We feel pride and joy, but it’s bittersweet because it represents the end of something too. As we got to the mouth of the river, I realized that this trip we’d dreamed of for so long was over, and Aidan was going to go on and enjoy her future adventures without me.

What were the highs—and lows—of your three trips together?

Oh, man! One of the best moments was on our first trip, when I noticed the change in Aidan’s whole attitude. She was no longer terrified of bears, no longer griping about the hard work; she’d come to the realization that she was in a beautiful place and she wanted to make the best of it. There was a discernable difference after that. Up until then I had been beset with uncertainty and indecision.

There were many low moments, particularly on that third trip. I had a heart arrhythmia, something I hadn’t encountered in six years. That was terrifying because I didn’t know if I was capable of walking out. And I knew we weren’t going to be able to call a bush plane, because we were in a spot where a bush plane wouldn’t be able to get us. That was a scary, scary episode.

The incident Aidan talks about when we do book readings together is when we were walking in the mountains on the way to the headwaters of the Hulahula River. She was way out in front, I was behind, lugging my pack and grumbling that my knee was aching. All of a sudden I saw this pile of bear scat. It was steaming so I knew it was really recent, so I’m screaming and whistling for her, but she didn’t hear me. I was terrified, trying to run, with a shotgun cinched to my backpack.

All of a sudden she rounded this bend and there was the grizzly in front of her. She had her bear spray and we had practiced a lot for a moment like this, but she was petrified. She couldn’t move. She was looking at the bear and the bear was looking at her. [Laughs] Then the bear turned and scampered up this mountain at a 70-degree angle. It was the last thing she expected, that a bear would actually run from her ! For me, way behind and imagining the worst, I was absolutely terrified.

What lessons did you and your daughter learn together in Alaska? And would you recommend this to our readers?

It was one of the toughest experiences of my life and certainly the toughest of Aidan’s life. But I would definitely recommend it to your readers. I would also recommend preparation. Anybody who tries the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or a similar wilderness has to hope for the best and prepare for worst.

The book is in part an exploration of the father-daughter bond, but also how adversity challenged that bond, tested, and, I hope, ultimately enhanced it. People always say what a beautiful thing for you and your daughter to have done. And it was beautiful. There were many tender moments. But there were also many moments when we weren’t getting on, where we were frustrated or angry with each other.

It’s also about the thrill of breaking out of your comfort zone. I learned that Aidan was—and is—capable of much more than I’d imagined. If you prepare and are put in difficult situations you can rise to the occasion and Aidan certainly did on many occasions. The greatest moments of the trip were when I saw her come alive and reach her potential.

The joy of being in a landscape like that is really powerful. We saw caribou, musk-ox, wolves, grizzly and polar bears, and golden eagles. But the counterpart to joy is fear. The two are inseparable and that’s necessary and really important. You can never entirely relax in the wilderness.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Simon Worrall curates Book Talk . Follow him on Twitter or at simonworrallauthor.com .

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The  AVM  Theory

Individuality makes us different, respect brings us together.

  • Sep 27, 2021

From Where it all Started- An Unforgettable Journey

I remember that English class vividly. Our teacher, with a lot of enthusiasm, proposed the idea of starting a school blog. Since no one in my class had any prior blogging experience, a few of my friends and I, who were bloggers, were given the responsibility of forming the team and taking this initiative forward. At that moment I thought, "Well it's just a blog. How hard could it possibly be?" Little did I know, just how much this experience would teach me. Here are 5 important life lessons I learned from this blogging experience:-

1. How do you get people to listen to you when they are your friends?

Think about it. We had to create a blog team with people who were our age, our friends. In a job, employees listen to the boss because they get paid. At home, you listen to your parents because, well, they are your parents. However, what about my friends? What leverage did I have over them? None. It was at this point that I learned that I needed to convince them, not by using a position of power, but by just being their friend. Whether it was asking people for their articles or photographs or even asking people to re-send things, convincing them was a lot easier when I spoke to them with respect and as a friend. What this taught me is that not everyone can be convinced using the same methods of conviction. Some people may not like being told what to do, while some people will be slightly easier to convince.

2. Conflict management

When someone proposes an idea, there will always be people who are against the idea. Nobody likes being told that their idea is not good. This leads to arguments. If the argument is taken too far, it turns into a battle of egos, where people are trying to "win" the argument, at any cost. Some of the conflicts I faced were resolved quickly, while others took slightly longer. After a few disagreements, I started understanding the art of conflict management. It also taught me that no one likes to be told that they're wrong. Sometimes just listening to and understanding different opinions can improve the idea.

3. Presentation takes practice

The blog was just an idea, which needed to be implemented. For this, we had to create a presentation for the esteemed members of the Management. The day of our presentation arrived and I had to start presenting the first few slides. Seeing all the teachers and the Principal there made me nervous. I tried to sound as confident as I possibly could but there were a lot of "Umm" and "likes" and "you knows". I knew what I had to say but I wasn't able to articulate it very well. It was then that I realized how much practice it really takes for a perfect presentation. There were so many aspects of speech to keep in mind- voice modulation, speed, tone and diction. Never again did I take presentation rehearsals for granted after that.

4. How to communicate with different people

The blog was going to be written by students from all 3 branches of our school. This meant that we had to communicate and coordinate with a lot of different students and teachers. This required a tremendous amount of confidence. We did not always agree with everyone's idea. That's when we had to come up with our own idea and offer a counterproposal. A vote would then be taken and we'd reach a consensus. That taught me how teams work in an organization. Through the blog, we met a lot of new people and made many new friends and we got to listen to better ideas. That was a huge advantage of working in a team.

5. How to motivate your team

There were a lot of times when the team wasn't as excited as I was about the blog. These were times when the team had to be motivated. It wasn't easy to motivate them but eventually, I learned that to motivate people, I had to find a way to make people enjoy it. If people enjoyed having more responsibility, we'd give them more responsibility. All the work the team did was recognized and they were praised. That was what would encourage them to keep this initiative going. I learned to recognize people's efforts and make them feel good, make them want to work and spend time. Another way of motivating the team was being optimistic, no matter what the situation. I learned that people, including me, enjoy getting credit for their work and efforts, so that was an important way to motivate the team.

In conclusion, the blog was an amazing experience that I will never forget. The lessons, the friendships and the memories are something that I will always cherish.

an unforgettable journey what work also follows

~Mallika Dasgupta

(Batch of 2020-21)

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23 Women Whose Travel Memoirs Will Inspire Your Next Journey

by Carolyn Ray | May 18, 2021

senior woman read a paper book at home

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Last updated on March 8th, 2023

Featured image: Woman relaxing and reading a book on couch by @5m3photos on twenty20

Travel the world through the eyes of these women

The allure of travel for self-discovery, for adventure, for work and for pleasure grants us the privileged opportunity to expand our understanding of the world we share. Travel feeds our imagination, enriches our vocabulary, validates our values and enlists our contribution to protect the physical and emotional benefits that discovery yields.

It’s no surprise that there is an overabundance of travel memoirs. The question is: how do you choose? We asked our readers to share their best selections, and while some, like Dervla Murphy, Mary Morris, Dame Freya Stark and Cheryl Strayed might already be on your list, I made some new discoveries courtesy of our JourneyWoman book club members that might pique your interest and stimulate new adventures.

1. Dervla Murphy

Born in Ireland in 1931, Murphy is an Irish touring cyclist and author of adventure travel books for over 40 years. She is best known for her 1965 book  Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle , about an overland cycling trip through Europe, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.

Black and white photo of Dervla Murphy with a bicycle

Photo credit: CN Traveler

an unforgettable journey what work also follows

The Island that Dared: Journeys in Cuba (2009)

“The Island That Dared” is a passionate book from the pen of Dervla Murphy, which begins with a three-generational family holiday in Cuba. Led by their redoubtable hard-walking grandmother, the trio of young girls and their mother soon find themselves camping out on empty beaches beneath the stars with only crabs and mosquitoes for company. This pure Swallows and Amazons experience confirms Dervla in her quest to understand the unique society that has been created by the Cuban Revolution.

Purchase “The Island that Dared” on bookshop.org , amazon.ca or amazon.com .

an unforgettable journey what work also follows

Eight Feet in the Andes: Travels with a Mule from Ecuador to Cuzco (1983)

Ecuador to Peru

The eight feet belong to Dervla Murphy, her nine-year-old daughter Rachel and Juana, an elegant mule, who together clambered the length of Peru, from Cajamarca on the border with Ecuador, to Cuzco, the ancient Inca capital, over 1300 miles to the south. With only the most basic necessities to sustain them and spending most of their time above 10,000 feet, their journey was marked by extreme discomfort, occasional danger and even the temporary loss of Juana over a precipice. Yet mother and daughter, a formidable duo, were unflagging in their sympathetic response to the perilous beauty and impoverished people of the Andes.

Purchase “Eight Feet in the Andes” on Indigo , amazon.ca or amazon.com .

2. Freya Stark

Freya Stark, in full Dame Freya Madeline Stark (1893 – 1993) was a British travel writer who is noted for two dozen highly personal books in which she describes local history and culture as well as everyday life. Many of her trips were to remote areas in Turkey and the Middle East where few Europeans, particularly women, had traveled before.

Freya Stark

3. Mary Morris

Mary Morris  (born May 14, 1947 in  Chicago ) is an American  author  and a professor at  Sarah Lawrence College . Morris published her first book, a collection of short stories, entitled  Vanishing Animals & Other Stories , in 1979 at the age of thirty-two and was awarded the  Rome Prize  in Literature by the  American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters .

Mary Morris

Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of A Woman Traveling Alone (1998)

Guatemala, Honduras and Northern Mexico

I picked this book up some 20yrs ago and it’s been my “Bible”. I still carry a copy when I travel and read it for inspiration. I doubt the author knows the effect this little paperback had on my life. It tells the story of a woman traveling alone in Guatemala, Honduras and Northern Mexico – from Mexico City to San Miguel De Allende (where I now live) and the things she goes though throughout her travels – her words inspired me to take more risks and new adventures. I loaned my copy to a friend and never got it back, as the book is no longer in print, it took me years of hunting through used bookstores to find a new copy – actually became an adventure to find the book again. Today it’s the first thing I pack and when I am having a bad day I take it out and read it again.

Purchase “Nothing to Declare” on amazon.ca or amazon.com .

an unforgettable journey what work also follows

All the Way to the Tigers (2020)

Published 2020, this covers two journeys in one: Morris’ recovery from a devastating injury and her subsequent trip to India in search of tigers. Morris offers both inspiration and insight in this beautifully written book.

Purchase “All the Way to the Tigers” on bookshop.org , Booksamillion , Indigo , amazon.ca or amazon.com .

4. Lynsey Addario

Lynsey Addario  (born November 13, 1973) is an American photojournalist. Her work often focuses on conflicts and human rights issues, especially the role of women in traditional societies.

Lynsey Addario

It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War (2008)

Afghanistan, Congo and Libya

“An unflinching memoir . . . [that] offers insight into international events and the challenges faced by the journalists who capture them.” — The Washington Post War photographer Lynsey Addario’s memoir is the story of how the relentless pursuit of truth, in virtually every major theater of war in the twenty-first century, has shaped her life. What she does, with clarity, beauty, and candor, is to document, often in their most extreme moments, the complex lives of others. It’s her work, but it’s much more than that: it’s her singular calling.

Purchase “It’s What I Do” (book or audiobook) on bookshop.org , Booksamillion , Indigo , Audiobooks.com , amazon.ca or amazon.com .

5. Sylvia Fraser

Sylvia Fraser is a Canadian novelist, journalist and travel writer.  Her first novel, Pandora, appeared in 1972. I n  The Rope in the Water: A Pilgrimmage to India  (2001), she documents her quest for enlightenment in a continent teeming with humanity; and in  The Green Labyrinth: Exploring the Mysteries   of the Amazon  (2003), she investigates the Peruvian rainforest and the hallucinatory properties of ayahuasca.

Sylvia Fraser

The Rope in the Water: A Pilgrimage to India (2001)

At Kovalam beach on India’s southwestern shore I plunge into the Arabian Sea, the same soft temperature as the air…Looking shoreward, I see lifeguards gesturing. Since I’m much further than I imagined, I begin a determined swim toward them…The lifeguards continue to blast and gesture, but I’m powerless against the riptide irresistibly sweeping me out to sea. Though my situation appears hopeless, I’m about to undergo the most remarkable and mysterious event of my life….” So begins The Rope in the Water, the story of Sylvia Fraser’s three-month pilgrimage to India in search of “something larger than myself, something deeper, something more.”

Travelling 12,000 kilometers across deserts and through jungles, Fraser visits sacred sites such as the twilight city of Varanasi on the Ganges, dense with the smoke of hundreds of funeral pyres; north to the glittering Golden Temple of the Sikhs; up Mount Abu where she stays with a Hindu sect called the Brahma Kumaris; south to a Buddhist retreat where she meditates eleven hours a day for ten days while observing a vow of silence; and to the Kovalam beach where her life is saved by a miracle.

Purchase “A Rope in the Water” on amazon.ca or amazon.com .

6. Samantha Wood

Samantha began her writing career with a travel piece for the Qantas In-Flight magazine. From then on, she travelled extensively between Mexico and Australia before writing the memoir, Culua: My Other Life in Mexico.

Samantha Wood

Culua:  My Other Life in Mexico (2017)

One of Samantha Wood’s earliest childhood memories is of her grandfather giving her a wobbly rubber map of Mexico that pulled apart like a jigsaw puzzle. He told her of the nomadic Culua-Mexica, who built a great empire in the valley of Mexico and became known as the Aztecs. Suddenly, the wanderers were a people with a new identity, a home…

Like her ancestors, Samantha yearns to find a place she can call home. Raised on the enticing glimpses of a dark and magical land conjured up by her Mexican mother’s bedtime stories – a land oozing Latin rhythms, full of passion and fire, from bullfights to family feuds and bloody revolutions, roasted iguana and beans, to sugar skeletons – what begins as a visit to her enigmatic grandmother becomes a quest to find out what it means to be Mexican.

But as she learns to embrace Mexico verdadero – the real Mexico – she discovers a people who give a new meaning to larger than life, the fabulous strong women who rule the roost, the colourful macho men who think they do, and the invincible bonds between family, food, and the spirit world.

Purchase “ Culua:  My Other Life in Mexico ” on amazon.ca or amazon.com .

7. Hadani Ditmars

Author, journalist, and photographer Hadani Ditmars has reported from Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, and Iraq, often examining the human costs of sectarian strife as well as cultural resistance to war, occupation and embargo.

Hadani Ditmars

Dancing in the No-Fly Zone: A Journey in Iraq (2005)

When Hadani Ditmars first went to Iraq in 1997 for the New York Times , she was shocked at what she saw. Six years of the worst sanctions ever inflicted on a modern nation had brought the people to their knees. Yet there was so much more to the “cradle of civilization” than misery and suffering. In the midst of despair she found art, beauty, architecture, music. She discovered orchestras who played impassioned symphonies on wrecked instruments, playwrights who pushed the limits of censorship, artists who spent their last dinars on paint and canvas, families who still celebrated weddings by dancing to maqam-traditional love songs.

Ditmars travelled to Iraq again and again, reporting on every aspect of life. In September 2003, she returned to Baghdad to find the people she had met over the years and see what had become of them since the U.S. “liberation.” Dancing In The No-Fly Zone is the story of that trip, interwoven with tales from her earlier visits and of the people she met along the way: actors and artists, mercenaries and businessmen, street kids and sufis, even the “king in waiting.” It includes a visit to Abu Ghraib prison, in which Ditmars is given a tour of the Saddam-era execution chamber by the U.S. general who was later dismissed after the abuse scandal broke.

Purchase “Dancing in the No-Fly Zone” on bookshop.org , amazon.ca or amazon.com .

Alienor Salmon dancing with an instructor in Cuba

Travelling the World Through Dance: How Aliénor Salmon Found Happiness by Taking the First Step

In Finding Rhythm: An International Dance Journey , Aliénor Salmon embarks on a dance journey around the world, discovering how beautiful life can be when you take the first step.

8. Mary Settle

Mary  Lee  Settle  (July 29, 1918 – September 27, 2005) was an American writer. She won the 1978 National Book Award for her novel Blood Tie. She was a founder of the annual PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

Mary Settle

Turkish Reflections: A Biography of a Place (1991)

Mary Settle offers us an intimate portrait of a Turkey rarely seen-a land where the cutting of a tree is a crime, where goats are sacrificed to launch state-of-the-art ships, and where whole towns emerge at dusk to stroll in the streets. She finds ancient monasteries converted into discos, underground cities carved out of rock, and sleek jet-set yachts alongside camels piled high with copper pots. She follows in the footsteps of emperors and nomads, sultans and shepherds; explores the trails blazed by Alexander the Great, Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, and Ataturk. “Turkish Reflections” is a cross-country odyssey into history, legend, mystery, and myth.

Purchase “Turkish Reflections” on bookshop.org , Booksamillion , Indigo , amazon.ca or amazon.com .

9. Kathryn Harrison

Kathryn Harrison is the author of the novels ‘The Binding Chair’, ‘Exposure’, ‘A Thousand Orange Trees’ and ‘Envy’, as well as two volumes of memoirs, ‘The Kiss’ and ‘Seeking Rapture’, all available from Fourth Estate. She lives in New York with her husband, the novelist Colin Harrison, and their children.

Kathryn Harrison

The Road to Santiago (2003)

Santiago de Camino

Displaying her “real talent for conjuring far-flung times and places,” Kathryn Harrison tells the mesmerizing story of her 200-mile pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. In the spring of 1999, Kathryn Harrison set out to walk the centuries-old pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela.

“Not a vacation, ” she calls it, “but a time out of time.” With a heavy pack, no hotel reservations, and little Spanish, she wanted an experience that would be both physically and psychically demanding. No pain, no gain, she thought, and she had some important things to contemplate. But the pilgrim road was spattered with violets and punctuated by medieval churches and alpine views, and, despite the exhaustion, aching knees, and brutal sun, she was unexpectedly flooded with joy and gratitude for life’s gifts. “Why do I like this road?” she writes. “Why do I love it? What can be the comfort of understanding my footprint as just one among the millions? … While I’m walking I feel myself alive, feel my small life burning brightly.” 

Throughout this deeply personal and revealing memoir of her journey, first made alone and later in the company of her daughter, Harrison blends striking images of the route and her fellow pilgrims with reflections on the redemptive power of pilgrimages, mortality, family, the nature of endurance, the past and future, the mystery of friendship. The Road to Santiago is an exquisitely written, courageous, and irresistible portrait of a personal pilgrimage in search of a broader understanding of life and self.

Purchase “The Road to Santiago” on amazon.ca or amazon.com .

10. Dina Bennett

Dina Bennett was born in Manhattan. In 1998 she abandoned corporate life for a hay and cattle ranch. Since then she has untangled herself from barbed wire just long enough to get into even worse trouble in old cars on over 100,000 miles of far-off roads. She resides in France.

Dina Bennett

Peking to Paris (2013)

Chine to Paris

In May 2007, leaving China’s Great Wall is Car 84, one of 128 antique autos racing in the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge. It’s guided by one Dina Bennett, the world’s least likely navigator: a daydreamer prone to carsickness, riddled with self-doubt, and married to a thrill-seeking perfectionist who is half-human, half – racecar. What could possibly go wrong? Funny, self-deprecating, and marred by only a few acts of great fortitude,  Peking to Paris  is first and foremost a voyage of transformation. The reader is swept on a wild, emotional ride, with romance and adversity, torment and triumph. Starting in Beijing, Dina and her husband, Bernard, limp across the Gobi, Siberia, Baltic States, and south to Paris in a 1940 Cadillac LaSalle, while Dina nurses the absurd hope that she can turn herself into a person of courage and patience. Writing for every woman who’s ever doubted herself and any man who’s wondered what the woman traveling with him is thinking, Dina brings the reader with her as she deftly sidesteps rock-throwing Mongolians and locks horns with Russians left over from the Interpol era—not to mention getting a sandstorm facial and racing rabbits on a curvy country road. Come along for the ride with a dashboard diva!

Purchase “Peking to Paris” on bookshop.org , Indigo , amazon.ca or amazon.com .

11. Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

Barbara Grizzuti Harrison  (1934 – 2002) was an American journalist, essayist and memoirist. She is best known for her autobiographical work, particularly her account of growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness, and for her travel writing.

Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

Italian Days (1998)

Italian Days  is one of the richest and most absorbing travel books ever written a journey down the Italian peninsula that immerses us in the inexhaustible plenty of that culture and the equally bountiful intelligence and sensibility of its author.

Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, noted essayist, journalist, and fiction writer, brings us a fascinating mixture of history, politics, folklore, food, architecture, arts, and literature, studded with local anecdotes and personal reflections. From modern, fashionable Milan; to beautiful, historic Rome with its modern traffic and, even today, its sudden displays of faith; to primitive, brooding Calabria, Barbara Grizzuti Harrison reveals in all its glory and confusion her Italy, the country of her origins, where the keys to her past are held by those who never left.

Beautifully and eloquently rendered, Italian Days  is a deeply engaging travelogue, but it is much more as well. It is the story of a return home” of friends, family, and faith” and of the search for the good life that propels all of us on our journeys wherever we are.

Purchase “Italian Days” on bookshop.org , Indigo ,  amazon.ca or amazon.com .

12. Sally Gable

Sally Gable ,  author  of Palladian Days and a church music director by training, has served on the boards of Radcliffe College, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and other educational and musical organizations. She divides her time between Atlanta and Villa Cornaro in Italy.

an unforgettable journey what work also follows

Palladian Days: Finding New Life in a Venetian Country House (2006)

“Palladian Days is nothing short of wonderful–part adventure, mystery, history, diary, and even cookbook. The Gables’ lively account captures the excitement of their acquisition and restoration of one of the greatest houses in Italy. Beguiled by Palladio and the town of Piombino Dese, they trace the history of the Villa Cornaro and their absorption of Italian life. Bravo!” –Susan R. Stein, Gilder Curator and Vice President of Museum Programs, Monticello

In 1552, in the countryside outside Venice, the great Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio built Villa Cornaro. In 1989, Sally and Carl Gable became its bemused new owners. Called by Town & Country  one of the ten most influential buildings in the world, the villa is the centerpiece of the Gables’ enchanting journey into the life of a place that transformed their own. From the villa’s history and its architectural pleasures, to the lives of its former inhabitants, to the charms of the little town that surrounds it, this loving account brings generosity, humor, and a sense of discovery to the story of small-town Italy and its larger national history.

Purchase “Palladian Days” is (book or audiobook) on bookshop.org , audiobooks.com , Indigo , amazon.ca or amazon.com .

13. Georgeanne Brennan

G eorgeanne Brennan is an award-winning author, journalist and entrepreneur who is nationally recognized for her work. Her expertise ranges from gastronomy, history, travel and food lore to gardening and farming. In 2014 she launched her online store, La Vie Rustic – Sustainable Living in the French Style, www.lavierustic.com  which reflects her long-time love affair with France and especially Provence, where she has a home.

Georgeanne Brennan

A Pig in Provence: Good Food and Simple Pleasures in the South of France (2008)

From the publisher of  Under the Tuscan Sun  comes another extraordinary memoir of a woman embarking on a new life this time in the South of France. Thirty years ago, James Beard Award-winning author Georgeanne Brennan set out to realize the dream of a peaceful, rural existence  en Provence . She and her husband, with their young daughter in tow, bought a small farmhouse with a little land, and a few goats and pigs and so began a life-affirming journey. Filled with delicious recipes and local colour, this evocative and passionate memoir describes her life cooking and living in the Provenal tradition. An entrancing tale that will whet the appetite and the spirit. Perfect for foodies, Francophiles, or anyone who’s dreamed of packing their bags and buying a ticket to the good life.

Purchase “A Pig in Provence” on bookshop.org , Booksamillion , amazon.ca or amazon.com .

14. Tembi Locke

Tembekile “Tembi” Locke is an American actress who has appeared in television shows and film. She is best known as Dr. Grace Monroe on Syfy’s series Eureka and as Dr. Diana Davis in Sliders and has appeared in such shows as The Mentalist, Castle and Bones. Locke’s memoir, From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily and Finding Home is about her transracial romance with her Italian husband and her grief after his untimely death.

Tembi Locke

From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home (2019)

A poignant and transporting cross-cultural love story set against the lush backdrop of the Sicilian countryside, where one woman discovers the healing powers of food, family, and unexpected grace in her darkest hour. It was love at first sight when Tembi met professional chef, Saro, on a street in Florence. There was just one problem: Saro’s traditional Sicilian family did not approve of him marrying a black American woman, an actress no less. However, the couple, heartbroken but undeterred, forges on. They build a happy life in Los Angeles, with fulfilling careers, deep friendships and the love of their lives: a baby girl they adopt at birth. Eventually, they reconcile with Saro’s family just as he faces a formidable cancer that will consume all their dreams. In Sicily, it is said that every story begins with a marriage or a death—in Tembi Locke’s case, it is both. Her story is about loss, but it’s really about love found. Her story is about travel, but it’s really about finding a home. It is about food, but it’s really about chasing flavor as an act of remembrance.  From Scratch  is for anyone who has dared to reach for big love, fought for what mattered most, and needed a powerful reminder that life is…delicious.

Purchase “From Scratch” (book or audiobook) on bookshop.org , Booksamillion , audiobooks.com , Indigo , amazon.ca or amazon.com .

15. Rita Golden Gelman

Rita Golden Gelman is the author of more than seventy children”s books, including Inside Nicaragua, which was one of the ALA”s Best Young Adult Books of 1988, and More Spaghetti, I Say!, a staple in every first grade classroom. As a nomad, Rita has no permanent address. Her most recent encampments have been in Mexico and New York City. 

Now 80 years old, she spent 30 years of her later life without a permanent residence. Rita has literally traveled around the world – living in often rural places in Mexico, Indonesia, Africa, Laos, Thailand, Guatemala, Colombia, India, Tanzania and more. Trained in Anthropology at UCLA, Rita mostly lived with families, immersing herself in local culture as much as possible.

Mary Settle

Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World (2001)

Mexico, Bali, Southeast Asia

“I move throughout the world without a plan, guided by instinct, connecting through trust, and constantly watching for serendipitous opportunities. ” —From the Preface Tales of a Female Nomad  is the story of Rita Golden Gelman, an ordinary woman who is living an extraordinary existence. At the age of forty-eight, on the verge of a divorce, Rita left an elegant life in L.A. to follow her dream of connecting with people in cultures all over the world. In 1986 she sold her possessions and became a nomad, living in a Zapotec village in Mexico, sleeping with sea lions on the Galapagos Islands, and residing everywhere from thatched huts to regal palaces. She has observed orangutans in the rain forest of Borneo, visited trance healers and dens of black magic, and cooked with women on fires all over the world. Rita’s example encourages us all to dust off our dreams and rediscover the joy, the exuberance, and the hidden spirit that so many of us bury when we become adults.

Purchase “Tales of a Female Nomad” (book and audiobook) on bookshop.org , Booksamillion , Indigo , audiobooks.com , amazon.ca or amazon.com .

Read more in our book club!

16. Kate Harris

As a teenager, Kate Harris realized that the career she most craved–that of a generalist explorer, equal parts swashbuckler and philosopher–had gone extinct. From her small-town home in Ontario, it seemed as if Marco Polo, Magellan and their like had long ago mapped the whole earth. So she vowed to become a scientist and go to Mars.

To pass the time before she could launch into outer space, Kate set off by bicycle down a short section of the fabled Silk Road with her childhood friend Mel Yule, then settled down to study at Oxford and MIT. Eventually the truth dawned on her: an explorer, in any day and age, is by definition the kind of person who refuses to live between the lines. And Harris had soared most fully out of bounds right here on Earth, travelling a bygone trading route on her bicycle. So she quit the laboratory and hit the Silk Road again with Mel, this time determined to bike it from the beginning to end.

Kathryn Harrison

Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road  (2018)

In between studying at Oxford and MIT, Harris set off by bicycle down the fabled Silk Road with her childhood friend Mel. Pedaling mile upon mile in some of the remotest places on earth, she realized that an explorer, in any day and age, is the kind of person who refuses to live between the lines. Forget charting maps, naming peaks: what she yearned for was the feeling of soaring completely out of bounds. The farther she traveled, the closer she came to a world as wild as she felt within.

Lands of Lost Borders, winner of the 2018 Banff Adventure Travel Award and a 2018 Nautilus Award, is the chronicle of Harris’s odyssey and an exploration of the importance of breaking the boundaries we set ourselves; an examination of the stories borders tell, and the restrictions they place on nature and humanity; and a meditation on the existential need to explore—the essential longing to discover what in the universe we are doing here.

Purchase “Lands of Lost Borders” (book and audiobook) on bookshop.org , Indigo , Booksamillion , audiobooks.com , amazon.ca or amazon.com .

17. Alice Morrison

Alice Morrison

Adventures in Morocco: From the Souks to the Sahara  (2019) 

When Alice Morrison headed out to Morocco, it was to take on one of the most daunting challenges: to run in the famous Marathon des Sables. Little did she expect to end up living there. But once she settled in a flat in Marrakech, she was won over by the people, the spectacular scenery and the ancient alleyways of the souks. Soon she was hiking over the Atlas mountains, joining nomads to sample their timeless way of life as they crossed the Sahara desert, and finding peace in a tranquil oasis.

Morocco to Timbuktu: An Arabian Adventure (2017) 

Alice Morrison sets out on a journey from Morocco to the ancient city of Timbuktu to learn about the region’s rich history and culture.

Purchase “Morocco to Timbuktu” on bookshop.org , amazon.ca or amazon.com .

Read more on our book club!

18. Erika Fatland

Erika Fatland was born in 1983 and studied Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo. Her 2011 book,  The Village of Angels , was an  in situ  report on the Beslan terror attacks of 2004 and she is also the author of  The Year Without Summer , describing the harrowing year that followed the massacre on Utoya in 2011. She speaks eight languages and lives in Oslo with her husband.

Erika Fatland

Sovietistan: Travels in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan (2020)

Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan

An unforgettable journey through Central Asia, one of the most mysterious and history-laden regions of the world. Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan became free of the Soviet Union in 1991. But though they are new to modern statehood, this is a region rich in ancient history, culture, and landscapes unlike anywhere else in the world. Traveling alone, Erika Fatland is a true adventurer in every sense. In  Sovietistan , she takes the reader on a compassionate and insightful journey to explore how their Soviet heritage has influenced these countries, with governments experimenting with both democracy and dictatorships.

“ Besides getting some basic knowledge about these five countries I knew nothing about, I gained very specific information about their differences (they are all quite different!), and the different ways they still relate to their former occupying power, Russia. I also liked that, as a woman, Erika Fatland got the stories I was looking for: how were women faring in countries where most men migrate elsewhere to send home money, what’s being done about “bride snatching” in Kyrgyzstan, how are women, living out on the open plains, or struggling with poverty and traditions that do not benefit them, making a life in these newly established countries in regions with thousands of years of history and tradition? I haven’t been able to put this book down!

Purchase “Sovietstan” on bookshop.org , Booksamillion , amazon.ca or amazon.com .

19. Wanda St. Hilaire

Wanda St. Hilaire is a three-time breast cancer survivor with a predilection for research and a passion for delving into the psychology of wellness.

After a second diagnosis in 2010, she made lifestyle changes that contributed to her healing and supported her philosophy that our lives are meant to be lived doing what we love in places that make our hearts sing.

Through writing, St. Hilaire shares what she’s learned through the high peaks of adventure and love and from the dark valleys of illness and heartbreak. Her mission is to help people overcome the self and tap into their wise inner guidance system. Her wish is to inspire others to live true to their unique and beautiful nature.

Wanda St. Hilaire

The Cuban Chronicles: A True Tale of Rascals, Rogues, and Romance (2011)

In the infancy of Cuba’s tourism, Wanda St. Hilaire takes a trip to the tiny island. In spite of her love of all things Latin, she puts herself on a travel ban to Castro’s Cuba, one that lasts 20 years. When she is forced to cancel a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico at the last minute, she finds herself in Cuba twice, on back-to-back trips. Walking into the backstreets of Havana, eyes wide open, she finds herself pulled into a dalliance with a charismatic cubano.

Underneath the facade of Cuba’s tourism lies the desperation of a society living mostly in abject poverty. When tourists mingle with locals, we get a glimpse of what underlies the frivolity of Cuban entanglements. St. Hilaire speaks with an authentic voice and doesn’t mince words; she recounts her own activities, emotions and opinions with refreshing honesty.

With each solo adventure, the author reaches a deeper understanding of human nature and the world. At the same time, she conducts a journey of self-discovery, learning about her own entrenched beliefs, biases and blemishes. 

Purchase “The Cuban Chronicles” on bookshop.org , Indigo , amazon.ca or amazon.com .

20. Anne Mustoe

Anne Mustoe (1933 –2009) was an English schoolteacher, a touring cyclist, author of travel books and former headmistress of Saint Felix School, Southwold, Suffolk. She fell ill and died in a hospital in Aleppo, Syria in 2009.

Anne Mustoe

12,000 miles Around the World: A Bike Ride (1992)

When ex-headmistress Anne Mustoe gave up her job, bought a bike and took to the road, she couldn’t even mend a puncture. 12,000 miles and 15 months later, she was home. Her epic solo journey took her around the world, through Europe, India, the Far East and the United States. From Thessaloniki to Uttar Pradesh, from Chumphon to Singapore, she faced downpours, blizzards and blistering deserts, political turmoil and amorous waiters – alternated with great kindness from strangers along the way. A Bike Ride  is the first in the series of Anne Mustoe’s successful and inspiring travelogues.

Purchase “A Bike Ride” on amazon.ca or amazon.com .

21. Cheryl Strayed

Cheryl Strayed is an American memoirist, born on   September 17, 1968 in Spangler, Pennsylvania. She is a novelist, essayist and podcast host. The author of four books, her writing has been published widely in anthologies and major magazines.

Cheryl Strayed

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (2013)

United States

At 22, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and she would do it alone. Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor,  Wild  powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

Purchase “Wild” (book or audiobook) on bookshop.org , Booksamillion ,  amazon.ca or amazon.com .

22. Donna Leon

Donna Leon is the American author of a series of crime novels set in Venice, Italy, featuring the fictional hero Commissario Guido Brunetti. In 2003, she received the Corine Literature Prize. 

Donna Leon

My Venice and Other Essays (2013)

Donna Leon has won a huge number of passionate fans and a tremendous amount of critical acclaim for her international bestselling mystery series featuring Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti. These accolades have built up not just for her intricate plots and gripping narratives, but for her insight into the culture, politics, family-life, and history of Venice, one of the world’s most-treasured cities, and Leon’s home for over thirty years. Readers love how Leon opens the doors to a private Venice, beyond the reach of the millions of international tourists who delight in the city’s canals, food, and art every year. My Venice and Other Essays  will be a treat for Leon’s many fans, as well as for lovers of Italy and La Serenissima. For many years, Leon, who is a perennial #1 bestseller in Germany, has written essays for European publications. Collected here are the best of these: over 50 funny, charming, passionate, and insightful essays that range from battles over garbage in the canals to the troubles with rehabbing Venetian real estate. She shares episodes from her life in Venice, explores her love of opera, and recounts tales from in and around her country house in the mountains. With pointed observations and humor, she also explores her family history and former life in New Jersey, and the idea of the Italian man.

Purchase “My Venice and Other Essays” on bookshop.org , Booksamillion , Indigo , amazon.ca or amazon.com .

23. Jane Christmas

Jane Christmas is a Canadian travel writer, who was a shortlisted nominee for the Stephen Leacock Award and the Word Awards in 2014 for her memoir And Then There Were Nuns. She has published five books of what has been categorised as travel writing but of which she prefers to call journey memoir.

Jane Christmas

What the Psychic Told the Pilgrim:  A Midlife Misadventure on Spain’s Camino de Santiago de Compostela (2007)

Who knew that a bottle of wine, an airline steward, and a rash of goosebumps would direct me to a 780-kilometre trek across Spain, despite the fact I had never backpacked or laced up hiking boots? I believe that every physical journey we take has a metaphysical one (or six) going on inside us simultaneously; for me, that year, those side journeys included healing a broken heart, grappling with the politics of female friendships, and trying not to be a whining middle-aged woman. Then, in the midst of it all, something wonderfully unexpected sprang up, and altered my universe. Never underestimate the power of goosebumps, but if it ends up involving 14 other women don’t say you weren’t warned.

Purchase “What the Psychic Told the Pilgrim” (book or audiobook) on bookshop.org , Indigo , audiobooks.com , amazon.ca or amazon.com .

Carolyn Ray

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As the CEO and Editor of JourneyWoman, Carolyn is a passionate advocate for women's travel and living the life of your dreams. She leads JourneyWoman's team of writers and chairs the JourneyWoman Women's Advisory Council and Women's Speaker's Bureau. She has been featured in the New York Times, Toronto Star and Zoomer as a solo travel expert, and speaks at women's travel conferences around the world. In March 2023, she was named one of the most influential women in travel by TravelPulse and was the recipient of a SATW travel writing award in September 2023. She is the chair of the Canadian chapter of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW), a member Women's Travel Leaders and a Herald for the Transformational Travel Council (TTC). Sometimes she sleeps. A bit.

14 Comments

Sarah Welliington

Great selection!!! Am planning to read several.

Gail Meyer

Thank you, I’ve read some and am looking forward to reading many more.

Kathie Kurtz

Hi Carolyn, Glad you picked so many that I recommended! I have written down all the books I don’t have for future reading. Looking forward to more Book Club meetings and hearing which books are selected for the second half of the year.

Helen

An amazing selection to add to my must read list. Thank you for this.

K. Lang-Slattery

I was very excited to see that Pig in Provence, by my friend and High School classmate, Georgeanne Brennan, was listed among the travel books by women in this article! It’s one of my favorites and the included recipes make it extra special. I’ve read a few others on the list and am just now finishing Lands of Lost Borders, by Kate Harris. Her writing is superb! Though I have no desire to try her type of journey, it is a joy to read. Thanks for a great selection that has added several new books to my must read list.

For readers looking for a travel tale about newlyweds in 1972 living in a VW van for 2 years while traveling across 4 continents, my memoir, Wherever the Road Leads, A Memoir of Love, Travel, and a Van, was awarded a silver medal from Independant Book Publishers Assoc. in the travel literature category.

Ursula Maxwell-Lewis

Intriguing selection. Well done!

Anita B

Thank you, a brilliant selection. I have just purchased five off Ebay!

Mihal Indyk

Wow! What a list of writers , inspiring tales allows me to reminisce as I won’t be able to travel much for next few years, this is the reason I joined journeywomen and was priviliged to meet Evelyn Hannon z”l on one of her visits to Israel i read CITY OF JOY many years ago before a trip to India and have travelled extensively until 7 years ago when last i visited Monaco, and Cote d’zur in France as a gift for my 50th a year after a trip with my young son back to Australia where I grew up.Unfortunately now i will rarely be able to travel but might catch a book or two. Thank you.

Jules Torti

You had me at Dervla Murphy! Thank you for curating this edible list, Carolyn. I nodded along with your picks from Kate Harris to Jane Christmas and have made note of a few new ones that slipped through my bookshelf cracks! I’d add everything by Alexandra Fuller, Kuki Gallmann’s I Dreamed of Africa, Carol Drinkwater’s The Olive Farm, Sara Dykman’s Bicycling with Butterflies and French Milk by Lucy Knisley.

Rupi Mangat

Thank you for the exciting selection of boks by new faces – although l have read Dervla Murphy’s The Ukimwi Road – from Kenya to Zimbabwe – set around the 1990s – an amazing read. I’m Kenyan – so it was interesting to read from another traveller’s perspective.

Karen Rushen O'Brien

Erika Fatland’s other travel book, “The Border”, tells of her visiting every country whose border touches Russia–as well as visiting the Arctic Sea, Russia’s longest “border”. It’s a great read from a really fabulous author!

Kate A

Thank you for putting together such an inspiring list! Always searching for my next read, a number of these are now on my list to hunt down and add to my collection of travel writers.

Heidi

Great list, Any you can add for 2021 to present?

Jasmine Thompson

Thanks for your extensive list of compelling novels…a challenge to know where to start but “here we go”…Although, I do not engage in solo or extensive travel, I do living through other people’s experiences in their novels. Thanks for this opportunity!

We always strive to use real photos from our own adventures, provided by the guest writer or from our personal travels. However, in some cases, due to photo quality, we must use stock photography. If you have any questions about the photography please let us know. Disclaimer: We are so happy that you are checking out this page right now! We only recommend things that are suggested by our community, or through our own experience, that we believe will be helpful and practical for you. Some of our pages contain links, which means we’re part of an affiliate program for the product being mentioned. Should you decide to purchase a product using a link from on our site, JourneyWoman may earn a small commission from the retailer, which helps us maintain our beautiful website. JourneyWoman is an Amazon Associate and earns from qualifying purchases. Thank you! We want to hear what you think about this article, and we welcome any updates or changes to improve it. You can comment below, or send an email to us at [email protected] .

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  • The 700 Club

Book Excerpt

An unforgettable journey, by angela hunt author, the nativity story.

CBN.com – (Excerpt from The Nativity Story , a Tyndale House novelization based on the motion picture)

One family. One journey. One child who would change the world forever.

As the first shadows of night drifted over the eastern plain, Joseph pressed on, eager to reach Bethlehem before the watchman closed the city gates. Mary had fallen silent on the donkey. He wondered if she dozed, until he heard the sound of a quiet cough.

A cough—not a good sound. He glanced over his shoulder, saw her huddled beneath her mantle, and glimpsed her drawn face. She could not ride much farther.

He looked ahead and saw a glimmer of light by the side of the road. Another shepherd, an old man, sat in front of a small fire, but he would have nothing to offer.

Joseph intended to nod and continue walking, but the old man spoke to him. “Your woman is cold.” With an eye on the disappearing sun, Joseph ignored the comment; then he heard Mary’s voice. “Just for a moment? Can we . . . stop?”

They stopped. Joseph helped Mary from the donkey and watched, anxious about the late hour, as she held her hands before the crackling fire. A few feet away, a sheep bleated from within its protective hedge of stones and piled brush.

From out of the twilight gloom, a lamb appeared at Mary’s side, seeking the warmth of her cloak.

The old man leaned forward. “Go on now. You already have a warm coat.”

The lamb bleated again and scampered away.

“The little ones.” The shepherd linked his hands. “They slip through the cracks. That one got herself lost only yesterday. I was lucky to find her.”

Joseph waited by the donkey and studied Mary’s face as she lowered her hands and smiled. “I will tell our child about you,” she said, daring to touch the shepherd’s shoulder. “About your kindness.”

The weather-beaten man only stared into the fire, but as Mary turned to Joseph, he spoke again. “My father told me long ago that we are all given something. A gift.” The old man smiled as fire shadows lit his face. “Your gift is what you carry inside.”

“And what,” Mary answered, “is yours?”

The old man shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing but the hope of waiting for one.”

Joseph extended his hand toward his wife. “We must go. If we’re to reach Bethlehem by dark, we need to hurry.”

Mary looked at him with compassion in her eyes. “You need to rest.”

“I can rest in Bethlehem.”

He was afraid she would disagree, but she accepted his hand and let him lead the way.

More about The Nativity Story on CBN.com

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an unforgettable journey what work also follows

Unforgettable Journeys: Behind the Book

Meet becky flynn, project editor at dk eyewitness.

Our new book  Unforgettable Journeys: Slow Down and See the World  is a celebration of taking the scenic route. Project Editor Becky Flynn talks about putting the book together, what slow travel really means, and other behind-the-scenes insights into what it takes to put together a travel book. 

an unforgettable journey what work also follows

Q: Can you explain the concept of “slow travel” and how it’s integrated into this book?

an unforgettable journey what work also follows

Q: How did you and the team pick the journeys featured?

Q: what is your favorite spread and why.

an unforgettable journey what work also follows

Q: What did you like most about working on this title?

Unforgettable Journeys

Unforgettable Journeys

Enjoy the journey, slowly! This breathtaking travel book celebrates taking the scenic route. Explore 200 inspirational j...

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Shaquille O'Neal Biography: An Unforgettable Journey From Life Before Fame To Post-NBA Career

S haquille O'Neal is one of the most recognizable names in basketball and a true legend in the sport. Known to his fans as "Shaq," he rose to fame in the early 1990s as a dominant center for the Orlando Magic. 

Over the years, he became a household name, playing for several other NBA teams and earning four championships. However, Shaq's journey didn't end with his retirement from professional basketball.

In this article, we'll take a look at his life before fame, his rise to stardom, and his post-NBA career. From his childhood in Newark, New Jersey, to his successful career in music, film, and television, this is the story of Shaquille O'Neal, one of the most beloved and respected athletes of all time.

Shaquille O'Neal: The Beginning

Shaquille O'Neal, also known as Shaq, was born on March 6, 1972, in Newark, New Jersey, to Lucille O'Neal and Joe Toney. Shaq's father was an all-star high school basketball player who earned a scholarship to Seton Hall University.

Unfortunately for Toney, he would fall into drugs, which eventually leads to him going to prison. This occurred when Shaq was just a baby. Once Toney was released from prison, he didn't want any part of Shaq or his mother and eventually signed over his parental rights to Shaq's stepfather, Phillip Harrison.

Harrison was a sergeant in the Army, and this led to Shaq moving to Germany. Eventually, the family moved back to the States, settling down in San Antonio, Texas.

Harrison helped Shaq develop his killer mentality at a young age. “Sarge” as Harrison was often called, even by Shaq, taught the young O'Neal a valuable lesson when it came to his trophies.

Shaq once shared this lesson in an interview on The Dan Patrick Show.

(Starts at 5:40)

“He used to always take my trophies and put them in a box,” Shaq said. “Never displayed them. So finally, when I got older, I asked him, Why did you do that? He said, I never wanted you to be satisfied . So after he passed away several years ago, I retrieved all the trophies. I made a trophy room dedicated to him in his honor, and I am doing the same thing to my children.”

Shaq was a big teenager, standing at 6'10" when he was 16. This naturally led to Shaq picking up the game of basketball. Shaq attended Robert G. Cole High School, and he had a very successful high school basketball career.

Shaq averaged an insane 32 points, 26 rebounds, and 8 blocks while leading his team to a 68–1 record. This includes a single-game stat line of 26 points, 36 rebounds, and 26 blocks!

Shaq's dominant play in high school led to many colleges taking notice of his skills. The young big man eventually settled on Louisiana State University.

Now, Shaq would dominate the basketball world on the collegiate level. Would there be anyone who could stop him?

Shaquille O'Neal's Dominant Run At LSU

Shaquille O'Neal had an impressive career in college, playing for the LSU Tigers from 1989 to 1992. Shaq's college career was unforgettable for many reasons.

In three seasons, Shaq averaged 21.6 points, 13.5 rebounds, 1.7 assists, and 4.6 blocks on 61.0% shooting. Shaq won the SEC Player of the Year award twice, was named a First-Team All-American twice, First-Team All-SEC in 1990, and the 1991 National Player of the Year as chosen by the Associated Press (Rupp Award), and the United Press International.

Beyond his incredible stats and accolades, Shaq's larger-than-life personality and charisma made him a fan favorite. He was a dominant force on the court, standing at 7'1" and weighing over 300 pounds, but his warm smile and upbeat attitude made him a beloved figure both on and off the court.

His combination of athleticism and personality was truly unforgettable, and it helped to solidify his status as one of the greatest players in college basketball history. Unfortunately for Shaq, he would never win an NCAA championship.

Shaq's next stop would be the NBA, and his hunger to win a championship would only grow larger.

Orlando Welcomes Shaq To The NBA

Shaq skipped his senior year to enter the 1992 NBA Draft, where he'd be selected first overall by the Orlando Magic. Even though Shaq left LSU early, he'd continued with his education in a big way...

As for Shaq's NBA career, it started off with a bang. In his first week, Shaq became the first player to be named Player of the Week in his first week in the NBA. Shaq was named an All-Star starter, the first rookie since Michael Jordan to earn a start in an All-Star Game.

Shaq would go on to win the Rookie of the Year Award with averages of 23.4 points on 56.2% shooting, 13.9 rebounds, and 3.5 blocks per game.

Despite Shaq's great play as a rookie, the Magic finished with a 41-41 record, missing the playoffs. By Shaq's third year, not only did the Magic make the playoffs, but they reached the NBA Finals, as well.

Shaq had a great year in the 1994-95 season. He won his first NBA scoring title with a 29.3 points per game average. Shaq also averaged 11.4 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game.

The Magic won 57 games that season, which was the best in the Eastern Conference. After storming through the Eastern Conference, defeating each team that stood in their way, including the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls, Shaq helped Orlando reach the franchise's first NBA Finals.

Shaq played great in the Finals, averaging 28.0 points, 12.5 rebounds, 6.3 assists, and 2.5 blocks per game. The problem was their opponents, the Houston Rockets, were led by Hakeem Olajuwon, who had a dominant series as well, as he appeared to be unstoppable.

The Magic were swept 0-4 by the Rockets, and Shaq would only play one more season in Orlando, getting swept once again, this time in the 1996 Eastern Conference Finals by the Chicago Bulls. After the season, Shaq would join the Los Angeles Lakers as a free agent, setting up one of the best duos the game has ever seen.

Shaq Goes To Hollywood And Becomes A Champion

Shaq signed with the Lakers, opening up an entire list of possibilities for his career. First, it allowed Shaq to work more on his acting career, in which Shaq has appeared in many movies, including Blue Chips , Steel, and Kazaam.

On the basketball court, Shaq saw his first year with the Lakers become a bit of a disappointment. The team finished with a 56-26 record and lost in the second round of the playoffs to the Utah Jazz. 

However, Shaq's impact on the team was undeniable. He averaged 26.2 points, 12.5 rebounds, and 2.9 blocks per game in his first year with the Lakers.

Despite the disappointing end to the season, Shaq's first year with the Lakers gave fans a glimpse of what was to come. Shaq's arrival had breathed new life into a struggling team, and it was clear that the Lakers were on the path to greatness.

The first year Shaq joined the Lakers was also the year the Lakers made a draft day trade to bring in high school phenom Kobe Bryant. Shaq's partnership with Kobe was one of the most dominant and controversial in NBA history.

Together, they formed one of the greatest one-two punches the league has ever seen. However, their partnership was not without its challenges. The dynamic between Shaq and Kobe was often described as a love-hate relationship.

On the court, they were unstoppable. Shaq's brute force and dominance in the paint, combined with Kobe's finesse and skill on the perimeter, made them nearly impossible to defend against. However, off the court, their relationship was often fraught with tension and conflict.

Their differing personalities and egos clashed at times, leading to public spats and reported feuds. Despite this, they were able to put their differences aside and come together on the court, which ultimately led to success.

Their partnership ended in 2004 when Shaq was traded to the Miami Heat, and Kobe remained with the Lakers. While their relationship may have been tumultuous at times, you cannot deny their legacy, as what they accomplished was incredible.

In the 1999-00 season, Shaq was named the NBA MVP for the first time in his career. Shaq won his second scoring title with 29.7 points per game average. He also averaged 13.6 rebounds and 3.0 blocks per game during his MVP run.

As for the NBA playoffs, there was no stopping MVP Shaq as he and Kobe led the Lakers back to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1991. Shaq would dominate the Indiana Pacers as he averaged 38.0 points, 16.7 rebounds, and 2.7 blocks during the NBA Finals.

The Lakers won their first championship since 1988, with a 4-2 series victory over the Pacers, and Shaq was named the Finals MVP. In the following season, the Lakers repeated as champions, as they defeated the Philadelphia 76ers 4-1.

Once again, Shaq won his second consecutive NBA Finals MVP award. His performance in the 2001 NBA Finals was equally impressive, as he averaged 33.0 points, 15.8 rebounds, 4.8 assists, and 3.4 blocks per game.

Shaq's presence in the paint proved to be the difference-maker in the series. Shaq's impact on the Lakers' championship runs was not limited to his on-court performance, however.

His leadership and work ethic were instrumental in creating a winning culture in Los Angeles. He pushed his teammates to work harder, and his confidence and swagger gave the Lakers a sense of invincibility that opponents found intimidating.

Shaq would lead the Lakers to a third straight title in 2002 by sweeping the New Jersey Nets 4-0. Once more, Shaq was named Finals MVP with averages of 36.3 points, 12.3 rebounds, and 2.8 blocks per game.

Shaq would lead his Lakers to one more Finals in 2004, but Los Angeles would fall 1-4 to the Detroit Pistons. This would be the last series Shaq ever played with the Lakers before asking to be traded.

In the end, Shaq's legacy with the Lakers is one of unparalleled dominance and success. His impact on the team cannot be overstated, and his contributions to the Lakers' championship runs will be remembered for generations to come.

Shaq Wins A Title In Miami And Ends His Playing Career

Shaq would find success in just his second season with his new team, the Miami Heat. It was the 2005–06 season, and after Shaq's Heat fell in a 0-2 hole against the Dallas Mavericks, Miami stormed back to win the series and the title 4-2.

Shaq's new dynamic running mate, Dwyane Wade, won the Finals MVP, but this didn't mean Shaq had a bad series. At age 33, Shaq still managed to average 13.7 points and 10.2 rebounds per game.

This would be the last time Shaq would win a championship. Shaq would play five more seasons after winning his fourth title, and he'd play for three other teams after the Heat. These teams were the Phoenix Suns, Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Boston Celtics.

Finally, after the 2010-11 season, Shaq would retire from the game after playing 19 seasons in the NBA. Shaq finished his career with averages of 23.7 points, 10.9 rebounds, 2.5 assists, and 2.3 blocks per game on 58.2% shooting from the field.

Shaq was a poor free throw shooter for his career, finishing with just 52.7% from the line. This led to teams purposely fouling Shaq to send him to the line, and it was dubbed “Hack-a-Shaq.”

During his 19-year career, Shaq earned many accolades, which helps to prove his case as the most dominant player to ever step foot on an NBA court. Here is a list of Shaq's accolades:

- 4x NBA Champion (2000, 2001, 2002, 2006)

- 3x NBA Finals MVP (2000, 2001, 2002)

- 15x NBA All-Star (1993-1998, 2000-2007, 2009)

- 2x NBA scoring champion (1995, 2000)

- NBA Most Valuable Player (2000)

- NBA Rookie of the Year (1993)

- 8x All-NBA First Team (1998, 2000-2006)

- 2x All-NBA Second Team (1995, 1999)

- 4x All-NBA Third Team (1994, 1996-1997, 2009)

- 3x NBA All-Defensive Second Team (2000, 2001, 2003)

- NBA All-Rookie First Team (1993)

- FIBA World Championship MVP (1994)

- Olympic Gold Medalist (1996)

- 3x NBA All-Star Game MVP (2000, 2004, 2009)

- 50 Greatest Players in NBA History (1996)

- Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (2016)

For some NBA players, retirement is the end of their time in the public spotlight. This would not be the case for Shaquille O'Neal. Not only would he have success in a TV career, but Shaq would have many different careers.

All of these careers match Shaq's unique personality, and it shows how amazing of a person the Big Fella really is.

Shaq's Post-Playing Career

After retiring from the NBA, Shaq became a sports analyst for TNT. You can watch Shaq's personality spill out on the show, as he's always joking around and having fun with his co-hosts.

This isn't the only job Shaq has had, though. Shaq has also dabbled in acting, rap music, and even law enforcement.

Yes, Shaq was officially sworn in as a member of the Miami Beach police force as a reserve officer in 2005. He's also worked with several other police departments over the years.

In 2012, Shaq received his doctoral degree in education from Barry University, which he had been working on for over four years… I told you earlier Shaq continued with his education in a big way. This was not only a goal for Shaq but for his mother as well.

“This is for my mother, who always stressed the importance of education,” O’Neal said of obtaining his doctoral degree . “I am proud to have achieved a doctoral degree and wish to thank my professors and Barry University for helping make this dream a reality. I’m smart enough to know that, even at my tender age, my pursuit of education is never finished.”

Dr. O'Neal has since authored a number of children's books and even started his own vodka line. Shaq's post-playing career has also seen him become a successful entrepreneur.

He has invested in a number of well-known brands and even owns his own businesses, such as Big Chicken and Shaq's Fun House. Shaq is also a successful DJ known as “DJ Diesel.”

DJ Diesel is not Shaq's only nickname. In fact, he has many nicknames. A few of his famous nicknames are “Shaq Diesel”, “Wilt Chamberneezy”, “The Big Shaqtus”, “Manny Shaq-iaou”, “Shaqovic”, “Big Fella”, and “Shaq Daddy”.

Aside from his business ventures (and endless list of nicknames), Shaq also continues to give back to his community through his philanthropic work. In 2019, he founded The Shaquille O'Neal Foundation, which aims to help children in need.

Shaq loves to help children out, as there are always videos popping up on the interview of him buying toys for children he just so happens to run across in a store. This just proves that Shaq's heart is just as big as he is.

Shaq has six children of his own, four being with his ex-wife, the star of the show Basketball Wives , Shaunie Nelson. His son, Shareef O'Neal, is currently playing with the NBA G League Ignite.

Overall, Shaq's post-playing career has been just as successful and impactful as his time in the NBA. Shaq has proven to be more than just a basketball player but a true champion both on and off the court.

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Larry Bird Biography: The Boston Celtics Legend That Dominated The NBA

Magic johnson biography: how the nba's greatest passer defeated a deadly illness to become a successful businessman, lebron james: the biography of the nba's king, the biography of the g.o.a.t.: michael jordan, wilt chamberlain biography: the life, career, and legend of the most dominant nba player ever.

Shaquille O'Neal Biography: An Unforgettable Journey From Life Before Fame To Post-NBA Career

Whales: An Unforgettable Journey (1997)

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An Unforgettable Journey

The grief of a parent when a child meets with an accident is deep and on-going.

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Lessons In Forgetting

an unforgettable journey what work also follows

DIRECTOR: Unni Vijayan

CAST: Adil Hussain,Maya Tideman,Roshni Achreja,Raghav Chanana

Rating: ***1/2

The grief of a parent when a child meets with an accident is deep and on-going. That is the strongest thread in Lessons In Forgetting (winner of the National Award for the Best English film,and out in a limited release),and that is what keeps it,and us,going when the storytelling bobs a little confusedly in the past and present.

JA Krishnamurthy (Hussain) finds that his daughter Smrithi (Tideman) has been rendered comatose on the beach in a tiny Tamil Nadu village. He brings her home and tends to her grievous wounds as a ventilator breathes for her,but his desperate need to find out how it happened leads him into a labyrinth. On his journey,he meets Meera (Achreja) who is wrestling with a dead marriage,a younger self-obsessed suitor (Chanana) and a complicated home life,and both,as they go down parallel paths before joining the threads,find kinship and solace.

A great sense of place works in favour of the film. The village on the coast where the accident happens hides a terrible secret. Girls are aborted in the womb,and maternal deaths are given up to the ocean. Smrithi stumbles upon one such funeral and ends up having to pay: she is brutalised by a gang of drunken louts,and left for dead.

Lessons In Forgetting is based on a book of the same name by Anita Nair. The fine Hussain leads an able cast,which proves that an Indian film in English doesn’t have to sound like an extended elocution class: the villagers speak in home-grown Tamil,not in accented English. Tideman plays her part well,too: she is vital and bright and what is done to her shocks and saddens us. Lessons In Forgetting is a cautionary tale,but holds out a hint of optimism: girls are not always for the killing. SG

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Oscars 2024 Live: The 96th Academy Awards ceremony concluded with flair in Los Angeles on Monday. Christopher Nolan's epic biographical thriller Oppenheimer swept seven awards

The 96th Academy Awards ceremony, set to take place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, is highly anticipated with a star-studded lineup. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer leads with 13 nominations. India too has something to look forward to as the documentary To Kill a Tiger, directed by India-born Canadian filmmaker Nisha Pahuja, has received a nod in the Documentary Feature Film category.

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  3. Work Hard... 🔥🧠 #luxury #motivation #inspiration #success #mindset

  4. The Unforgettable Journey Of LALA Official Teaser Trailer

  5. Unforgettable Train Journey Really Terrible Experience

  6. [Unforgettable Journey] The World Showcase

COMMENTS

  1. The first answer

    The Answer is : Yes. been a while since I read the odyssey and all that xD so I had sorta forgot it xD. You don't need to have read The Odyssey, because odyssey's dictionary meaning is 'an epic journey'. If the translation was better, you probably wouldn't have had any hesitance. I write fic.

  2. How can I write a creative essay titled "An Unforgettable Journey

    Either way, you can interpret the idea of a journey in many ways. For example, a journey can be a trip to a physical location, or it can also be a metaphorical journey. Examples of a metaphorical ...

  3. Essay on An Unforgettable Journey

    And if you're also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic. Let's take a look… 100 Words Essay on An Unforgettable Journey The Beginning of the Journey. My unforgettable journey began when I boarded a train to visit my grandparents. The bustling station, filled with people, was exciting.

  4. An Unforgettable Journey: "The Help" book Review

    "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett is a masterful novel that has touched the hearts of countless readers, and the audiobook version offers an equally powerful experience that transports listeners ...

  5. An Unforgettable Journey

    An Unforgettable Journey Science Scope—March/April 2021 (Volume 44, Issue 4) ... What are the paths the objects follow? From west to east. ... It is important to note that by this time in the unit, students had also done extensive work with an eclipse simulator and had gained a fairly solid understanding of how the Moon moves around the Earth ...

  6. 5 ways to craft an unforgettable customer experience

    1. Curate your online presence to be easy and unforgettable. Your customer experience begins the moment a potential customer searches for — or stumbles upon — your business online. Make that ...

  7. Embarking on an Unforgettable Journey

    Recounting my recent journey, filled with learning, self-discovery, and moments that will forever be etched in my memory. The Initial Feelings As I embarked on this journey, I couldn't help but ...

  8. 9 True Adventure Stories That Will Inspire You to Travel

    Braving It: A Father, a Daughter, and an Unforgettable Journey Into the Alaskan Wilderness By James Campbell (Crown, 2016) The idea of spending a vacation doing grueling outdoor work with a teenager is scary enough for most parents without adding the threat of grizzly bears.

  9. Digital Journeys for an Unforgettable Onboarding Transformation

    Unforgettable Onboarding Experience Transformation. Onboarding is the first real taste a new hire gets of a company's culture and work ethos - is pivotal to employee engagement and retention. A positive onboarding experience is instrumental in setting the tone for an employee's journey with your organization.

  10. How Dad and Daughter Survived the Alaskan Wilderness

    In Braving It: A Father, a Daughter, and an Unforgettable Journey Into the Alaskan Wild, James Campbell describes this and two more trips to Alaska, where father and daughter faced off with ...

  11. Top 5 Books That Will Take You on an Unforgettable Journey

    This enchanting tale follows the journey of Santiago, a young shepherd boy who sets out on a quest to find his personal legend. Along the way, he encounters various characters and experiences life ...

  12. From Where it all Started- An Unforgettable Journey

    I learned to recognize people's efforts and make them feel good, make them want to work and spend time. Another way of motivating the team was being optimistic, no matter what the situation. I learned that people, including me, enjoy getting credit for their work and efforts, so that was an important way to motivate the team.

  13. An Unforgettable Journey. Visualizing my Experience

    Our journey with the Amal Academy has come to an end with our heaviest hearts and unforgettable memories. The journey which I'll never be going to forget, the journey full of ups and downs, and the…

  14. An Unforgettable Journey by Lena Kovadlo

    Join me on an unforgettable journey of life that is filled with love and heartbreak, happiness and sorrow, death, personal struggles and more. I hope that each creation, whether it is in poetic, lyrical, or prose form, will bring forth a connection to your heart and soul for we all go through the same things in life regardless of which journey ...

  15. 23 Women Whose Travel Memoirs Will Inspire Your Next Journey

    The Island that Dared: Journeys in Cuba (2009) "The Island That Dared" is a passionate book from the pen of Dervla Murphy, which begins with a three-generational family holiday in Cuba. Led by their redoubtable hard-walking grandmother, the trio of young girls and their mother soon find themselves camping out on empty beaches beneath the ...

  16. An Unforgetable Journey

    Book Excerpt An Unforgettable Journey By Angela Hunt Author, The Nativity Story CBN.com - (Excerpt from The Nativity Story, a Tyndale House novelization based on the motion picture) . One family. One journey. One child who would change the world forever. As the first shadows of night drifted over the eastern plain, Joseph pressed on, eager to reach Bethlehem before the watchman closed the ...

  17. Unforgettable Journeys: Behind the Book

    Meet Becky Flynn, Project Editor at DK Eyewitness. Our new book Unforgettable Journeys: Slow Down and See the World is a celebration of taking the scenic route. Project Editor Becky Flynn talks about putting the book together, what slow travel really means, and other behind-the-scenes insights into what it takes to put together a travel book.

  18. Shaquille O'Neal Biography: An Unforgettable Journey From Life ...

    Shaquille O'Neal, also known as Shaq, was born on March 6, 1972, in Newark, New Jersey, to Lucille O'Neal and Joe Toney. Shaq's father was an all-star high school basketball player who earned a ...

  19. Whales: An Unforgettable Journey (1997)

    "Whales: An Unforgettable Journey" is a 45-minute nature documentary on the animals mentioned about the title. Yes, whales are fast swimmer, but because of their huge size, this seems like a very slow movie. This is not a criticism, it's just how things are.

  20. Unforgettable Journeys : Slow Down and See the World

    Escape the frenetic modern world and embark on a journey of a lifetime. Ever dreamed of walking the Camino de Santiago, driving Route 66 or riding the Trans-Siberian Railway? It may sound clichéd, but sometimes it really is all about the journey, rather than the destination and what better way to see the world than by moving through it.If setting out on an adventure is on your bucket list ...

  21. Jennifer Irwin on Instagram: "The podcast @seektreatmentpod always asks

    jenirwinauthor on October 21, 2023: "The podcast @seektreatmentpod always asks their guests the following questions: Who were you? Who are you? Who do you want to be? This feels apropos as I celebrate the 5th anniversary of my debut novel, A DRESS THE COLOR OF THE SKY. The beautiful cover was designed by @annette_stevens__ who optioned the film rights. Amazon found it too salacious and banned ...

  22. Symphony Series: An Unforgettable Journey

    Closing the evening's exploration of colorful soundscapes are the rich melodies and harmonic mastery of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's epic Symphony No. 5 in E minor. From the tender horn melody in the second movement to the triumphant finale, you will experience an unforgettable musical journey." - Antoine T. Clark

  23. An Unforgettable Journey

    An Unforgettable Journey ... Written by Shubhra Gupta April 20, 2013 01:16 IST. Follow Us Lessons In Forgetting. DIRECTOR: Unni Vijayan . CAST: Adil Hussain,Maya Tideman,Roshni Achreja,Raghav Chanana. ... Craig Fulton's vision of control over chaos is a work in progress as India edge out Ireland;

  24. Watch U2

    From their humble beginnings in a Dublin classroom to becoming the most influential band on the planet, U2 are without doubt the most important rock act of the past twenty years. These four friends have remained together against the odds, constantly reinventing the music that has inspired millions of fans around the world. 'An Unforgettable Journey' goes behind the scenes to discover what it ...