Travel

Hit the road for new destinations.

In honor of World Refugee Day, browse the titles below and find stories that will take you on a journey to a new place. Some fiction, some nonfiction, all focus on a story of leaving somewhere behind for a new life.

Click on the titles for location and availability. Additional media formats included below.

 

90 miles to Havana by Enrique Flores-Galbis
Also available in: e-audiobook

When unrest hits the streets of Havana, Cuba, Julian's parents must make the heartbreaking decision to send him and his two brothers away to Miami via the Pedro Pan operation. But when the boys get to Miami, they are thrust into a world where bullies seem to run rampant and it's not always clear how best to protect themselves.

The bone sparrow by Zana Fraillon

"Subhi's contained world as a refugee in an Australian permanent detention center rapidly expands when Jimmie arrives on the other side of the fence and she asks him to read her late mother's stories to her"--.

Summer is here and we hope these are the best 62 days of your year! To help engage you in some good reading, the following is a list of chapter books about summer vacations and adventures with new and favorite book characters.

A delightful exploration of France's quirky, literary, and culinary heritage. From absinthe and catacombs to former French soccer player Zinedine Zidane, Eatwell leaves no stone unturned, taking readers off the beaten path to explore the kind of information that gets missed in guidebooks and 'official' information sources.

On the road this month?   National Institute on Aging's Go4Life suggests travelers:

Pack your fitness clothes. Be prepared. Take your sneakers or walking shoes, exercise clothing, and bathing suit. If you’re taking your laptop, you might also include your favorite exercise DVD.

Stop along the way. If you’re traveling by car, take frequent breaks; get out and stretch or walk around. Not only will it help you feel better, it will help you stay more alert while driving. If you’re flying, walk around the airport while waiting for your flight.

Stick to your routine as much as possible. Being active is one of the most important things you can do each day. If you’re a morning person, exercise before going out for the day. Work out at lunch time. Or, if your day is too hectic, unwind with a workout in the afternoon or early evening.

...and take along a good read.

A loving and hilarious--if occasionally spiky--valentine to Bill Bryson's adopted country, Great Britain. Prepare for total joy and multiple episodes of unseemly laughter. Twenty years ago, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to discover and celebrate that green and pleasant land. The result was Notes from a Small Island, a true classic and one of the bestselling travel books ever written. Now he has traveled about Britain again, by bus and train and rental car and on foot, to see what has changed--and what hasn't. Following (but not too closely) a route he dubs the Bryson Line, from Bognor Regis in the south to Cape Wrath in the north, by way of places few travelers ever get to at all, Bryson rediscovers the wondrously beautiful, magnificently eccentric, endearingly singular country that he both celebrates and, when called for, twits. With his matchless instinct for the funniest and quirkiest and his unerring eye for the idiotic, the bewildering, the appealing, and the ridiculous, he offers acute and perceptive insights into all that is best and worst about Britain today. Nothing is more entertaining than Bill Bryson on the road--and on a tear. The Road to Little Dribbling reaffirms his stature as a master of the travel narrative--and a really, really funny guy. From the Hardcover edition.

Two Centuries After James Cook's Epic Voyages of Discovery, Tony Horwitz takes readers on a wild ride across hemispheres and centuries to recapture the captain's adventures and explore his embattled legacy in today's Pacific. Horwitz, a Pulitzer Prize -- winning journalist, works as a sailor aboard a replica of Cook's ship, meets island kings and beauty queens, and carouses the South Seas with a hilarious and disgraceful travel companion, an Aussie named Roger. He also creates a brilliant portrait of Cook: an impoverished farm boy who became the greatest navigator in British history and forever changed the lands he touched. Poignant, probing, antic, and exhilarating, Blue Latitudes brings to life a man who helped create the global village we inhabit today. Book jacket.
 

 

Look through another's eyes with a book translated from another language. Scroll to the bottom for chapter books and teen fiction.

Picture Books

Over the ocean by Tarō Gomi

A young girl gazes out over the horizon, and wonders what lands lie beyond the ocean, and what the people are like who live in those lands.

Check out some of these titles to take a trip from wherever you may find yourself this summer!

Also available in: e-book | audiobook | e-audiobook | video

After living abroad, Bryson decided to reacquaint himself with America by walking the famed Appalachian Trail, which traverses 14 states and stretches 2,100 miles. Bryson's book offers a marvelous description and history of the trail and the mountains.

Also available in: audiobook | e-audiobook | video

In her early thirties, Elizabeth Gilbert had everything a modern American woman was supposed to want—husband, country home, successful career—but instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she was consumed by panic and confusion. This wise and rapturous book is the story of how she left behind all these outward marks of success, and set out to explore three different aspects of her nature, against the backdrop of three different cultures: pleasure in Italy, devotion in India, and on the Indonesian island of Bali, a balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence.

Descriptions of 40 of the greatest recreational rides in the Detroit and Ann Arbor areas. Road rides, rail trails, bike paths, and single-track mountain bike rides all get included. Most rides are in the 5 to 35 mile range, allowing for great afternoon outings and family adventures.

Blue highways : a journey into America by William Least Heat Moon

Hailed as a masterpiece of American travel writing, Blue Highways is an unforgettable journey along our nation's backroads. William Least-Heat-Moon set out with little more than the need to put home behind him and a sense of curiosity about "those little towns that get on the map--if they get on at all--only because some cartographer has a blank space to fill: Remote, Oregon; Simplicity, Virginia; New Freedom, Pennsylvania; New Hope, Tennessee; Why, Arizona; Whynot Mississippi." His adventures, his discoveries, and his recollections of the extraordinary people he encountered along the way amount to a revelation of the true American experience.

Assassination vacation by Sarah Vowell

A tour of key historic sites in America where incidents of political violence have occurred reveals lesser-known points of interest pertaining to each and shares information about how history has been shaped by popular culture and tourism.

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