EXPLORE adds 18 well-selected tales of adventure to the Adrenaline series. They blend of humor, like Tim Cahill's Peruvian expedition with two eccentric companions; dangerous adventure, including A.N. de Vaca's exploration of America in the early 1500's; and more scholarly accounts, such as David Roberts' search for lost cliff dwellings in New Mexico. The best feature of this book, and the series as a whole, is that it exposes us to writings that we would otherwise never see. Ms Schwamm has cast her net widely and hauled in four centuries of engaging exploration stories. Some are excerpted from works out of print, but the bibliography makes it possible to track these books down if you must hear the rest of the story. So why only four stars? As a collector of the entire series, I find this volume less spine-tingling than the rest, with fewer stories of death-defying danger, which is okay - not all exploration involves a struggle to survive if you go about it properly. If you like National Geographic and the Discovery Channel, this is a book for you.

Tim Cahill is a very entertaining travel writer. Every step of the journey is interesting, from mundane details like packing to the return home. Cahill refuses to travel first-class and pays for everything himself, which makes for an unbiased look at the "real" destination, not the one tourists see. He's also got a great sense of humor. This book, and his others, seemed to turn its own pages

I bought this book in the Toronto (Canada) airport, right before I departed for Greece and Turkey. I wanted a travel book that would be interesting and I don't know the travel-writing genre too well. So, I grabbed this; it looked light and amusing. So, as I traveled, I read a couple stories every night. I have to say that there were only a few stories that were amusing.

The Good Ones:

How I Killed Off MY Ex-Wife <- How a lie spiraled into crazy proportions...

Benuvenuto in Italia! <- a confused traveler arrives in Italy and has an "encounter" with some Government officials.

The Dentist in Cameroon <- This is definitely more on the "misadventure," side of things... An African dentist acts like a mechanic.

Called on the Carpet in Marrakech <- Opening line: "Somebody with more experience in these things than I once warned that every glass of 'free' mint tea you drink in a Moroccan carpet shop ends up costing you $600." The best salesmen in the world are not American used car salesmen; these Moroccans may just have the title.

A Past Life <- An interesting encounter in India. Reincarnation and theft come together in an amusing combination.

My thoughts about the book are that it did not really live up to its title. However, it is light reading that one needs after a long day of hiking up ancient sites. From somebody that doesn't know travel writing too well, I think there are probably better books out there.

This wasn't quite as funny as it sounded, but it was still worth reading.

This book is just what it sounds like - brief stories of travel disasters. The authors range from the usual suspects (travel writers like Bill Bryson) to humorists (Dave Barry) to other well-known authors (Anne Lamott) to a few I'd never heard of but will look into now (Nigel Barlow and Luis Alberto Urrea). The stories were mostly credible and all pretty funny when you got past cringing. I also really like the interpositioning of comics and short shorts. If there's another installment, I'll definitely read it. My only negative comment is that it seemed the funniest pieces were at the front, or maybe one should just read it in small doses.