Books like Eastward to Tartary by Robert D. Kaplan

Bill Bryson humorously chronicles a two–person hike along the Appalachian Trail, mixing lively anecdotes with insightful looks at its history, ecology, and the people who live along the route.

A series of contemporary letters by Mark Twain that chronicle his 1867 steamship voyage across Europe and the Levant, offering humorous and candid observations of the places visited.

Journeying through Nepal’s Dolpo highlands, Peter Matthiessen and biologist George Schaller track the elusive snow leopard while exploring Buddhist spirituality and Himalayan wilderness.

The book recounts a successful 3500 mile journey from Peking, China to Kashmir, India in 1935. He was accompanied on this journey by Ella Maillart (Kini). The journey started on 16 February 1935 and took seven months to complete. The objective of the journey was, as contained within the title of the book, to ascertain what was happening in Tunganistan, a region of Sinkiang (also known as Chinese Turkestan), in the aftermath of the Kumul Rebellion. Fleming met with Ma Shaowu and Ma Hushan while in Xinjiang. Peter Fleming still ranks as a favorite writing traveler, but he slips a few cogs with this book, which follows conventional lines more closely (in matters of handling) than one has come to expect of his light-hearted writing. Central Asia is his stamping ground, with Peking as a starting point, with Sinkiang, Kashmir and all sorts of unspellable places en route. There is something of the troubled background of Chinese Turkistan, concretely and indirectly, something of the evasive situation in which neither China nor Russia quite comes to the fore. Rival correspondents, bent on the same game -- Peter Fleming and Ella Maillart (remember Turkistan Solo?) are virtually compelled to join forces, and shared the enormous difficulties and inconveniences and dangers (minimized as always by Fleming) of the seven months trek. Humor -- originality -- spirited story telling characterize this, but there isn't quite the sparkle of his earlier books.

An illuminating portrait of the people of the Levant by former ABC News Chief Middle East Correspondent Charles Glass providing much-needed insight into a land so frequently in the news. Tribes With Flags is a chronicle of Glass' journey from the southern Turkish coast to Lebanon, and includes the 62 days he was held captive by pro-Iranian terrorists in Beirut.

At once a grand tour of the battlefields of North America and an unabashedly personal tribute to the military prowess of an essentially unwarlike people, *Fields of Battle* spans more than two centuries and the expanse of a continent to show how the immense spaces of North America shaped the wars that were fought on its soil.