The Grand Tour. The Golden Age of Travel

<p>Global travel can be a wearying business: mass tourism, overcrowded planes, chaotic airports, heightened security, cookie-cutter hotel chains, well-worn tourist trails. Finding even a sliver of adventure can sometimes feel impossible. But take heart: for all of us with an unfulfilled spirit of wanderlust, <strong><em>The Golden Age of Travel</em> evokes an era when traveling the world was a thrilling new possibility</strong> for those with the resources, time, imagination, and daring.<br /> <br /> This richly illustrated volume <strong>charts the travel heyday of 1869 to 1939</strong>. Bedecked with ephemera and precious turn-of-the-century photochromes, it follows <strong>six classic tours</strong> favored by Western adventurers in the prewar era, including such famous traveler-writers as <strong>Charles Dickens, Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and Goethe</strong>. From the <strong>Grand Tour of Europe</strong>, a traditional rite of passage for young English aristocrats, to the <strong>Far East</strong>, barely touched by Western influence, to the famous <strong>Trans-Siberian Railway</strong>, we follow each journey through its itinerant stops and various modes of transport: trains, boats, cars, planes, horses, donkeys, and camels.<br /> <br /> With pages brimming with <strong>archival travel posters, guides, tickets, leaflets, brochures, menus, and luggage stickers</strong>, the book evokes all the romance, elegance, not to mention the sheer sense of novelty, that enthralled these golden-age passengers. Through decadent new cities, or wild, rugged terrains, this is your <strong>passport to a long-lost epoch of adventure and wide-eyed wonder at the world</strong>.</p>