Travels Along the Edge: 40 Ultimate Adventures for the Modern Nomad–From Crossing the Sahara to Bicycling Through Vietnam
Product Description
A travel writer describes in detail forty of the world’s most singular and offbeat travel adventures, from paddling by sea kayak around the fjords of Greenland to an elephant safari through Botswana, detailing tour outfitters, gear, health tips, and more. Original. 25,000 first printing. Tour.”Amazon.com Review
Adventure travel has become big business; in 1996 alone, 15 million Americans spent roughly $8 billion on adventure travel and related gear, leading outfitters and packagers to carve up the globe into customized adventures. In this compilation of challenging outings to remote corners of the globe, Noland attempts to help adventure travelers hook up with the trips of their dreams.
Three brief sections prime us for travel, advising how to make the basic choices of what trip and how to prepare. What sorts of details does Noland discuss in “Getting Ready”? Not the stuff of Travel 101–more like helicopter evacuation insurance and malaria pills.
Forty arduous adventures across seven continents follow; there are those to inspire fear and trembling– “The Arctic: Skiing to the North Pole”; “Venezuela: Living with the Fierce People”; and “Nepal/Tibet: Climbing Mount Everest”–as well as those for the more sensuously inclined–”Belize: Kayaking the Offshore Islands” and “Portugal: Cycling in Wine Country.” Each excursion is followed by recommendations of appropriate outfitters and reading material, a brief dispatch on what to expect, and a rating of the challenges that lie ahead.
Blessed with an enormous capacity for risk-taking, a sense of humor, and an impressive knowledge of the remote corners of the world, Noland has designed both a paean to the art of travel and, for the daring, an informative how-to guide.
5 Responses to “Travels Along the Edge: 40 Ultimate Adventures for the Modern Nomad–From Crossing the Sahara to Bicycling Through Vietnam”
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Pretty much all of these adventures are for the wealthy who utilize guides and outfitting services. This is not a book of independent adventures. In some cases the traveler sounds like they’d be just along for the ride. Still, there are some spectacular routes, on foot, bike, vehicle and boat. Just know what you’re getting…
Rating: 3 / 5
Noland combines a thorough knowledge of his subject with rapier-sharp writing to produce Travels Along The Edge. As somewhat of a sheltered world traveler myself — I’ve been overseas a mere four times, and one of those was only to the Caribbean
— I found Noland’s tips on packing light and situational awareness to be invaluable. Upon completing the book, I found myself burning to engineer the funds and time to complete some of these travels and expand my understanding of our amazing planet. If you’ve ever looked around at your mundane surroundings and muttered, “there’s gotta be more to life than this,” Travels Along the Edge will stoke you to do something about it. Or at least, to dream.
Rating: 4 / 5
David Nolan’s guidebook is described as “40 ultimate adventures for the modern nomad — from crossing the Sahara to bicycling through Vietnam.” And there’s a chapter on Hawaii.
Nolan, a writer for Outside magazine, says a true travel adventure should have the traveler asking himself, at least once, “What the (blank) am I doing here?”
But that standard, the Hawaii chapter turns out to be pretty small beer. Nolan drives up Haleakala Highway on Maui, admires the dawn, then hikes down Sliding Sands Trail. He does not say how he got out, so I assume he went back up Sliding Sands.
If he had seen either Kaupo Gap or Switchbacks (Halemau`u), he probably would have mentioned it.
Or perhaps not. This is a man who has hiked Nepal and Kilimanjaro. He has seen scenery.
Though he says you can have fun in Hawaii “hiking the out islands” (Where did he get that? The local term is “Neighbor Islands.”), he rates it low on challenge.
On his scale of one to five, hiking in Hawaii rates only a two or three for physical challenge, one to three for mental challenge and one for skills needed.
So take the Hawaiian hiking vacation first. Put off the rafting trip down the Omo River in Ethiopia for later, in case you pick up blackwater fever and don’t make it back.
Actually, hiking in Hawaii can be exciting, though the guided tours are safe enough. Nolan does not mention the unguided hikers who vanish, whose bones are found in the tops of tall trees or whose bodies are found by accident by searchers looking for somebody else.
“Travels Along the Edge” doesn’t do much to give Hawaii a reputation as an exotic land of danger, but it has a frank introductory section on traveling outside the resort system.
Parts of it appear to be pitched to morons. While advising edge travelers to bring hiking boots, Nolan tells a tale of a woman who showed up for a trek in Nepal without them.
Well, I’ve seen a German go down Switchbacks (a sheer cliff about 1,500 feet high) in slippahs (zoris), running.
That’s an adventure.
Rating: 3 / 5
Loved it! Noland makes “adventure travel” real for the armchair explorer. In the spirit of Redmond O’Hanlon, this book describes the ups and downs of moving beyond the conveniences of the 20th century.
Rating: 5 / 5
I immediately returned this book. First, there are very few backpacking/hiking trips described in this book. The range of adventures described is all over the place, with some you might need specific skills in like skiing or climbing. Second, and worse, is that all of the trips described require the use of spending big bucks to hire an outfitter to take care of everything, not exactly and adventure as even the author admits.
Rating: 1 / 5