Bruce Northam - In Search of Adventure: A Wild Travel Anthology

Richard Bang s is founding partner of Mountain Travel Sobek, the largest adventure travel company in the world. He led expeditions that made first descents of over 30 rivers around the world, from the Zambezi to the Yangtze, the Bio-Bio, Indus, Tekeze, Euphrates, and on. He has authored 12 books and over 500 articles on adventure and international travel, produced 20 documentaries, several pioneering CD ROMs and websites, and has lectured extensively at venues such as the Smithsonian Institute, The National Geographic Society, The Explorers Club, museums, universities and such. He has won seven Lowell Thomas awards. He was editor-in-chief on Microsofts pioneering adventure magazine, Mungo Park ( www.mungopark.com ), and now serves as Editor-at-Large at Expedia.com .

Men go out into the void spaces of the world for various reasons. Some are actuated simply by a love of adventure, some have the keen thirst for scientific knowledge, and others again are drawn away from the trodden path by the lure of little voices, the mysterious fascination of the unknown.

Sir Ernest Shackleton.

Dr. D. Richard Bellamy is a dynamic speaker, author of 12 Secrets for Manifesting Your Vision, Inspiration & Purpose , consultant, training instructor and successful Chiropractor in Houston, Texas. In addition to natural healing, his true meaningful passion is in helping others discover their uniqueness and purpose through personal and professional development workshops. Dr. Bellamy is an in-demand speaker around the world and is available for consultations, keynotes and workshops.

I believe we all have a calling within us to experience all the wonders on the planet.

Andrew Bill has been driven to work many times in the course of maintaining his life-long travel habit. Under career experience his resume lists stints as a river guide, road sweeper, commercial fisherman, painter, farm hand, and construction laborer. He has also worked (briefly) in an Australian strip-joint (as a waiter), an English sewer, a French greenhouse factory and a Scottish Outward Bound camp. Failing to find his vocation in any of these professions, he turned to travel journalism nine years ago. To date he has visited over 75 countries and contributed to many of the leading magazines, guide books and anthologies. One day he will finish his novel.

The spirit of a country is like a wild animal. The more you chase it, the more it moves away. But sometimesif youre lucky, if you sit quietly in one place and waitit will come to you.

Robert W. Bone learned the fine points of syntax at the elbow of a major in the Training Literature Department at Fort Knox, and of travel reportage while failing to mix perfect martinis for Temple Fielding, the late guidebook guru. Stints as a foreign correspondent (England, Belgium, Puerto Rico, Brazil, and Spain) didnt help a heck of a lot, but marrying a New Zealander did. He now lives and writes in Honolulu. Editors, flacks, hacks and other masochists are invited to check out Bobs one-man show web site at http://members.aol.com/robertbone . One admirer dubbed it: More links than a sausage factory.

For me, travel is a natural high, produced by placing myself in an unfamiliar situation where unusual things happen. Yet I manage to find my way through this new environment and to learn a thing or two in the process. The experience is enhanced by a penchant for telling thousands of others about it.

Marybeth Bonds books include Gutsy Women, Gutsy Mamas, Travelers Tales: A Mothers World and A Womans World , which won the Lowell Thomas Gold Award for best travel book. Marybeth traveled alone around the world for two years at age 29. She has been seen on CNN, NBC, ABC, and the Travel Channel and is a regular adventure travel reporter for Outside Radio Network and a columnist and Travel Expert for ivillage.com : The Womens Network. Her latest book, A Womans World II (Travelers Tales) was published in spring 1999. The End of the Road was first published in Travelers Tales: A Womans World.

The only trips I regret are the trips I didnt take.

Tim Cahil l has been writing about (rough) travel for over twenty years now. He is the author of six books, including Pass the Butterworms; Remote Journeys Oddly Rendered and Jaguars Ripped my Flesh . He is also Editor at Large for Outside magazine, and co-writer of two IMAX documentary screenplays, Everest, and The Living Sea, which was nominated for an Academy Award. He travels approximately six months out of the year. The question he is most frequently asked is: yeah, but what do you do for a living?

His least modest reply: I create great literature that will live in the minds and hearts of men and women for time immemorial, god damn it.

Stephen Capen is a New Englander living in California. Whenever he feels himself shrinking from the rigors of travel, he takes out a Vonnegut book to remember from whence he comes, and recall Zorbas maxim: Life is trouble. Only Death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and look for trouble.

May you journey with the words.

Michael Cervieri returned to the United States after spending a year in Latin America and worked as Senior Editor for Blue magazine. When asked why he went abroad he says he doesnt really know. Ditto for returning to the States except that hed run out of money. He lives in New York City but is considering making a triumphant return to Peru as an Alpaca rancher. He is currently writing a novel and playing in a band. He is the producer and editor-in-chief of interlingo.com .

China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese. Charles de Gaulle

Ken Chaya is an artist, designer, and photographer who, over the past twenty years, has produced numerous best-selling nonfiction books for Readers Digest. He recently left the nine-to-five corporate grind to pursue a healthier lifestyle, which includes painting, writing, traveling, birdwatching, and spending time with my wife and son while I still have some snap left in my garters.

When everyone thinks the samenobody thinks. unknown

David Hatcher Childress , considered the Real-Life Indiana Jones, is best know as the Founder of the World Explorers Club and Editor of the magazine World Explorer: Far-Out Adventures in Far-Away Places. His fascinating Lost Cities series covers most of the known world in six books. Childress also developed another series of six books on what he calls the lost sciences, the scientific wisdom of those technologically advanced civilizations that existed over 15,000 years ago. His new series of books focus on the Lost Cities of the South Pacific.

Every mystery solved brings us a step closer to the big mystery.

Bryan Clayton was spawned on Isla de Long (Long Island euphemism). He left horse-drawn carriage driving to pursue storytelling. When his attempt at exporting goat-drawn carts to Japan failed, he became a Bellevue addictions counselor, and later a flight attendant.

Ladies and Gentleman, this is your dining car attendant. I had the baked chicken and it changed my life Amtrak waiter

Tom Clynes is a freelance writer, brewer and hack musician whose passion for music and travel has taken him around the world. Tom writes about travel, music, and beer for such publications as Outside, Escape, Mens Journal and the Washington Post, and is the author of Wild Planet! (Visible Ink Press), a critically acclaimed guide to the worlds extraordinary festivals and celebrations. Tom is based in New York City, but he continues to wander the world, trying to satisfy a thirst for spectacle and a fascination for the planets cultural nooks and crannies.