Writer, wife of famed explorer John C. Frémont, and political activist Jessie Benton Frémont was one of the most remarkable women of the 19th century. Closest aide and confidant to her ambitious husband, she penned this tale of her family's western migration. "I saw back into the time when I had learned to know how painful is the process of founding a new country. What loneliness, what privations, what trials of every kind, went to the first steps of even that rich and lovely country of California." It was not gold that drew Jessie Frémont to California in 1848. Gold had not yet been discovered when she left on her journey. The Frémonts were there to make a new life. When bad investments bankrupted the Frémonts, Jessie turned to writing to help support the family. Sharing her husband's anti-slavery feelings, she personally went to Abraham Lincoln to plead to restore her husband's position after he was dismissed for issuing an edict of emancipation in Missouri. She was helpful in getting protection for Yosemite Valley during the Lincoln administration. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE or download a sample.

Jessie Benton Frémont (1824-1902), the daughter of a Missouri Senator and wife of explorer John Charles Frémont, first came to California in 1849, when she and her young daughter spent six months at her husband's newly-acquired ranch at Mariposas, 140 miles east of San Francisco. The Frémonts also spent the years 1851-1852 and 1857-1861 at the Mariposas ranch before moving to St. Louis during the Civil War. They returned to California in 1887 and made Los Angeles their home for the rest of their lives. A year of American travel (1878) was written by Mrs. Frémont to earn badly-needed money for her family after her husband went bankrupt in 1873. Here she describes her first trip to California in 1849: the voyage and crossing at Chagres, life on the Mariposas ranch, visits to San José and Monterey, the life of women in California, the plight of the Mission Indians, the slavery controversy in the territory, and the Monterey Constitutional Convention of 1849. The book closes with the Frémonts' return to the East when Frémont assumed his seat in the U.S. Senate.

The year's best travel writing, as chosen by series editor Jason Wilson and guest editor Robert Macfarlane. Writing, reading, and dreaming about travel have surged, writes Robert MacFarlane in his introduction to the Best American Travel Writing 2020. From an existential reckoning in avalanche school, to an act of kindness at the Mexican-American border, to a moral dilemma at a Kenyan orphanage, the journeys showcased in this collection are as spiritual as they are physical. These stories provide not just remarkable entertainment, but also, as MacFarlane says, deep comfort, "carrying hope, creating connections, transporting readers to other-worlds, and imagining alternative presents and alternative futures." The Best American Travel 2020 includes HEIDI JULAVITS - YIYUN LI - PAUL SALOPEK - LACY JOHNSON - EMMANUEL IDUMA - JON MOOALLEM - EMILY RABOTEAU and others

A collection of the year's best travel writing selected by Padma Lakshmi

The Negro Motorist Green Book was a groundbreaking guide that provided African American travelers with crucial information on safe places to stay, eat, and visit during the era of segregation in the United States. This essential resource, originally published from 1936 to 1966, offered a lifeline to black motorists navigating a deeply divided nation, helping them avoid the dangers and indignities of racism on the road. More than just a travel guide, The Negro Motorist Green Book stands as a powerful symbol of resilience and resistance in the face of oppression, offering a poignant glimpse into the challenges and triumphs of the African American experience in the 20th century.

A stimulating overview of American journeys from the eighteenth century to the present.

A collection of the best travel writing published in 2019, selected by Alexandra Fuller.