Five Great Adventures
Lonely Planet’s brand new coffee table book Great Adventures is packed with awe-inspiring photography and practical information on how you can embark on some of the world’s most thrilling adventures. We have picked five exciting journeys from the book to get your adrenalin pumping…
1. White-water sledge in New Zealand
If white-water rafting has you yearning for something more individual, white-water sledging might be just the ticket. Known variously as hydrospeeding, river surfing, riverboarding or white-water sledging, it’s rafting for one, clinging to the grips of a sledge as the river tries to have its wicked way with you. The classic white-water sledging river in New Zealand is the Kawarau, which flows midway between Queenstown and Wanaka after draining out of Lake Wakatipu. This river pitches sledgers through grade III rapids with inviting names such as Man-eater, Rollercoaster and Roaring Meg, the latter named for a prostitute who once worked the nearby gold fields.
Flea is the world’s smallest Intrepid traveller on the world’s tallest Mountain, in a new e-book called 
Yvonne Wakefield is a spirited artist with a can-do attitude, which helps explain her decision in 2004 to leave behind a secure life in the Pacific Northwest and head to the desert state of Kuwait. Over the course of six years she taught art to university aged Muslim women, earned their trust and learned the consequences of freedom of expression. Yvonne shares her extraordinary experiences in her new book, Suitcase Filled with Nails: Lessons Learned from Teaching Art in Kuwait, and this excerpt gives us an inkling of the riveting, revealing and enlightening read…
If you don’t have the time, fitness or inclination to scale a mountain, then these book recommendations from Sean Jones will make you feel like you are taking each step with the authors…
Who better to recommend travel books than real Intrepid travellers. Darren White reflects on a great read that was an inspiration…
We had to include this book in our holiday reading list, as it’s one of the most frequently recommended by Intrepid travellers. And Lisa Connor is amongst those who give it the big thumbs up…
Colour – Travels Through the Paintbox, by Victoria Finlay, is a great kaleidoscope of colour, tales and travels. It chronicles Finlay’s pursuit of colour, not just colour but its alchemists, its villains and its conquests. Finlay spans the globe, delivering to the reader adventures in the name of a rainbow of colour from the ancient lands of Arnhem Land in Northern Australia to regional Spain and Taliban-occupied Afghanistan.
My Intrepid Thailand trip was an amazing experience – thanks for the great time and good memories. I took several books with me, but the tour was so good that I had barely a chance to read at all. The one book I did read and enjoyed while on the tour was The Travels of Marco Polo.
Megan Hinge recommends a book that challenges us to look inwards, at the same time as considering the lives of those around us…