Notes: Moore set off on the Tour de France course several weeks before the actual race began, just to see if he could finish all 2,256 miles of it. Moore, and the reader, develop a greater understanding of what it takes to be a true tour cyclist: equal parts determination, stamina, and lunacy. His descriptions of the places he visits make these small towns and villages seem instantly familiar; the people he encounters become as real as our closest friends.

Notes: Arranged loosely by region, the book bounces between Canberra and Melbourne, the Outback and the Gold Coast. Bryson revels in the beauty of this country, home to ravishing beaches and countless unique species. He glorifies the country, alternating between awe, reverence and fear, and he expresses these sentiments with frankness and candor, via truly funny prose and a conversational pace that is at once unhurried and captivating.

Notes: Jewish author Feiler offers himself here as a pilgrim, walking through biblical lands and interviewing individuals from many religious traditions and walks of life. He reads the stories of the Pentateuch in the places they are thought to have happened, he records the latest archaeological understandings of the Bible, and he wrestles with his own faith. Of course, contemporary politics sneaks into the story, too; Arab-Israeli conflicts are hard to avoid when one is writing about the biblical Canaan.

Notes: Not naive about popular Western misconceptions of Iran, Bird sets out to debunk them in this book. Still, she is surprised by encounters with her own assumptions. This travelogue affords fascinating portraits of people of many social circumstances, while not sugarcoating the gritty realities of life in Iran.

Notes: Ferguson was teaching English in Japan when he decided to follow the cherry blossoms as they bloomed from south to north. To get to know the Japanese people better, he opted to hitchhike the whole way. He not only provides some insight on Japanese manners and mores, but really captures what it is like to be a foreigner in Japan.

Notes: Plagued with despair after a nasty divorce, the author, in her early 30s, divides a year equally among three dissimilar countries, exploring her competing urges for earthly delights and divine transcendence.

Notes: In this luminous volume, Mayes and her husband visit southern Spain, Portugal, Sicily, southern Italy, Morocco, Greece, Crete, Scotland, Turkey, and places in between.

Notes: This is Morris' account of leaving her deskbound publishing job and joining her broadcaster mother to form Adventure Divas to track down "unsung visionaries," women who changed the world in Cuba, India, New, Zealand, and Iran, for what became an award-winning PBS series. (Between diva searches, to replenish company coffers, Morris takes jobs hunting headhunters in Borneo, climbing the Matterhorn, and crossing the Sahara.)

Notes: Based on his syndicated column, "Continental Drifter" details the author's experiences traveling across six continents in the space of a year, spending just $60 a day. It's a romp with an adventurer who rarely becomes jaded or travel weary, and has a way of falling into amusing situations.

Notes: Jilted by his fiancee mere days before the wedding and demoted at work, Wisner collared his brother, Kurt, a Seattle Realtor, to celebrate his Costa Rican nonhoneymoon. That experience, with the help of a Saab purchase in Sweden, grew into subsequent lengthy trips to Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa.