A guide for visitors to Malawi. It provide readers with advice on planning their itinerary, wildlife and bird species identification, conservation areas, national parks and a history of the country.

Two major trends have recently swept the travel world: the first, an overwhelming desire (thanks to Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestseller, Eat, Pray, Love) to write one’s own memoir; the second, an explosion of social media, blogs, twitter and texts, which allow travelers to document and share their experiences instantaneously. Thus, the act of chronicling one’s journey has never been more popular, nor the urge stronger. Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler, will inspire budding memoirists and jetsetting scribes alike. But Writing Away doesn’t stop there—author Lavinia Spalding spins the romantic tradition of keeping a travelogue into a modern, witty adventure in awareness, introducing the traditional handwritten journal as a profoundly valuable tool for self-discovery, artistic expression, and spiritual growth. Writing Away teaches you to embrace mishaps in order to enrich your travel experience, recognize in advance what you want to remember, tap into all your senses, and connect with the physical world in an increasingly technological age. It helps you overcome writer’s block and procrastination; tackle the discipline, routine, structure, and momentum that are crucial to the creative process; and it demonstrates how traveling—while keeping a journal along the way—is the world’s most valuable writing exercise.

This volume offers annotated texts with biographical and historical introductions of four previously unpublished travel journals from the period 1775-1874. The first of these is the journal of a participant in a Spanish expedition sent from Mexico to explore the north-west coast of America. From the outset, difficulties plagued the voyage. Bodega's ship, a small schooner named Sonora, was not designed for open-ocean voyaging. A landing party was attacked and killed; midway into the voyage the Sonora became separated from her flagship; and later she was nearly capsized by a massive wave. Bodega's journal records the voyage's travails, hardships, discoveries, and eventual return. Next comes the journal of Commander Stokes, who served in command of HMS Beagle, under Captain P. P. King during the survey of the Straits of Magellan in 1827. This is an account of a detached operation, in very difficult weather conditions, in the western part of the strait. It is introduced by remarks on the expedition and the hydrographic history of the strait from its discovery to the inception of the survey and supplemented by remarks from Captain King's account and also that of the clerk, Macdouall. The third text is the journal of a young midshipman in HMS Chanticleer, a small vessel commanded by Henry Foster, RN, who had recently been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for his scientific work in the Arctic. The voyage of 1828-31 was to make observations in the South Atlantic to determine the shape of the Earth and to ascertain the longitudes of a number of ports. Kay's lively diary describes the Chanticleer's encounters with warships of the Brazilian navy, largely manned by Englishmen. He records his struggle to take observations at Deception Island during gales and snowstorms, and near Cape Horn in fierce squalls and constant chilling rain, nevertheless remaining cheerful in the company of his fellow midshipmen. The final piece is the diary of Jacob Wainwright.

The world's most acclaimed travel writer journeys through western Africa from Cape Town to the Congo.

This book explores the culture of migration that emerged in Malawi in the early twentieth century as the British colony became central to labour migration in southern Africa. Migrants who travelled to Zimbabwe stayed for years or decades, and those who never returned became known as machona – ‘the lost ones’. Through an analysis of colonial archives and oral histories, this book captures a range of migrant experiences during a period of enormous political change, including the rise of nationalist politics, and the creation and demise of the Central African Federation. Following migrants from origin to destination, and in some cases back again, this book explores gender, generation, ethnicity and class, and highlights life beyond the workplace in a racially segregated city. Malawian men and women shaped the culture and politics of urban Zimbabwe in ways that remain visible today. Ultimately, the voluntary movement of Africans within the African continent raises important questions about the history of diaspora communities and the politics of belonging in post-colonial Africa.