Adventurers, Explorers & Survival

From the creators of the New York Times bestselling audio series Campfire Stories and MeatEater’s American History comes a new audiobook original that plunges listeners into the untamed world of a celebrated and misunderstood group of nineteenth-century outdoorsmen: the Mountain Men.

In August of 1914, the British ship Endurance set sail for the South Atlantic. In October 1915, still half a continent away from its intended base, the ship was trapped, then crushed in the ice

Driven by a passion for travel and history and a love of ships and the sea, former Monty Python stalwart and beloved television globe-trotter Michael Palin explores the world of HMS Erebus, last seen on an ill-fated voyage to chart the Northwest Passage....

From New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides, an epic account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook’s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day....

A victim of her mother’s Munchausen by proxy and child abuse survivor, Gypsy-Rose Blanchard’s unique and controversial case made headlines across the world. Now, she’s finally free to start living her life on her terms—and to tell her own story as only she can.

Aged just seven, Suzanne Heywood set sail with her parents and brother on a three-year voyage around the world. What followed turned instead into a decade-long way of life, through storms, shipwrecks, reefs and isolation, with little formal schooling....

Two friends, zero preparation, one dream. From the author of the beloved bestseller The Emerald Mile comes a rollicking and poignant account of an epic 750-mile odyssey, on foot, through the heart of America’s most magnificent national park and the grandest wilderness on earth.

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley....

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood....

Even among iconic frontiersmen like John C. Fremont, Kit Carson, and Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger stands out. A mountain man of the American West, straddling the fur trade era and the age of exploration, he lived the life legends are made of....

Meriwether Lewis and his partner, William Clark, endured incredible hardships and witnessed astounding sights on their 1803 cross-country trip to unexplored West....

I was born and broken in Birkenhead, abused from infancy by a network of every kind of pervert from ‘thinks it’s love’ to ‘show it hurts’. I was unwanted, beaten, sold, swapped, photographed, filmed, left for dead, corrupted, blamed, betrayed, ignored and orphaned....

The River of Doubt brings alive extraordinary events in a powerful nonfiction narrative thriller that happens to feature one of the most famous Americans who ever lived....

In the predawn hours of July 10, 2014, 27-year-old Cody Roman Dial, the son of preeminent Alaskan scientist and National Geographic Explorer Roman Dial, walked alone into Corcovado National Park, an untracked rainforest along Costa Rica’s remote Pacific Coast....

Gather around for campfire stories with the MeatEater crew as they share 16 harrowing true tales of survival, grit, and misfortune in the great outdoors - an immersive audio experience from the host of the long-running Netflix series and top-ranked wilderness podcast....

National Outdoor Book Award-winning author Buddy Levy's presents a thrilling narrative of polar exploration via airship―and the men who sacrificed everything to make history.

From Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring—and surviving—an attempt on his life thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him.

In Campfire Stories: Narrow Escapes & More Close Calls, storytellers take us from Florida to the Northern Rockies to the Arctic Ocean with wild and true stories, a reminder that the natural world is rugged and unpredictable....

Martha Sherrill brings us to a world that Americans know very little about---the snow country of Japan during World War II....

As thrilling as any novel, as taut and exciting as any adventure story, Peter Hathaway Capstick’s Death in the Long Grass takes us deep into the heart of darkness to view Africa through the eyes of one of the most renowned professional hunters.

A memoir of the author's journey from an office job to restoring a cabin in the Pacific Northwest, Cabin is based on his wildly popular Outside Magazine piece.

438 Days is the miraculous account of the man who survived alone and adrift at sea longer than anyone in recorded history....

Fatal Forecast chronicles a dramatic fight for survival aboard two small fishing boats that were ambushed by a horrific surprise storm just southeast of Cape Cod....

Three friends, women in their fifties, set out to hike "the most beautiful long-distance trail in the world," the John Muir Trail....

One of the highest-ranking defectors from Scientology exposes the secret inner workings of the powerful organization in this remarkable memoir.

Steven Rinella (The MeatEater Podcast) brings to life the legendary wilderness exploits of men such as Jim Bridger, Jedidiah Smith, and Hugh Glass, who headed out to the Rocky Mountains to trap beavers in the decades following the Louisiana Purchase. Living off the land and dodging grizzly bears, these colorful characters carved out an existence defined by their relationships with Native people, their capacity to endure the most trying conditions, and their intimate knowledge of the western landscape.

When Tara Roberts first caught sight of a photograph at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History depicting the underwater archaeology group Diving With a Purpose, it called out to her. Here were Black women and men strapping on masks, fins, and tanks to explore Atlantic Ocean waters along the coastlines of Africa, North America, and Central America, seeking the wrecks of slave ships long lost in time. Inspired, Roberts joined them—and started on a path of discovery more challenging and personal than she could ever have imagined.

Arctic explorer and American visionary Walter Wellman pioneered both polar and trans-Atlantic airship aviation, making history’s first attempts at each. Wellman has been cast as a self-promoting egomaniac known mostly for his catastrophic failures. Instead he was a courageous innovator who pushed the boundaries of polar exploration and paved the way for the ultimate conquest of the North Pole—which would be achieved not by dogsled or airplane, but by airship.

When Nazi forces entered Kraków, Poland in 1939, unexpected and unresisted, Josef Lewkowicz's life became a nightmare overnight as he and his family were rounded up and sent to concentration camps across German-occupied territory. It wasn't long before Josef found himself face-to-face with SS kommandant Amon Goeth, whose brutality was made infamous by the film Schindler's List. As Josef struggled to survive the violence, horror, and degradations of one prison camp after another—he was kept alive only by his faith and his profound sense of justice.

When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Victoria Amelina was busy writing a novel, taking part in the country’s literary scene, and parenting her son. Now she became someone new: a war crimes researcher and the chronicler of extraordinary women like herself who joined the resistance. These heroines include Evgenia, a prominent lawyer turned soldier, Oleksandra, who documented tens of thousands of war crimes and won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, and Yulia, a librarian who helped uncover the abduction and murder of a children’s book author.

The North Pole looms large in our collective psyche—the ultimate Otherland in a world mapped and traversed. It is the center of our planet’s rotation, one of the places that is most vulnerable in an epoch of global climate change. Its sub-zero temperatures and strange year of one sunset and one sunrise make it an eerie, utterly disorienting place that challenges human endurance and understanding.

Not Your Average Drug Addict Whore follows the threads linking the extraordinary, oftentimes intense, events of a journey to self-realizing. It is a witness to truth, that a life is never broken, it is purely a singular life on its singular journey.

In rural Victoria, Arnold Dix is known to locals as a farmer and a part-time truck driver. But his name reached global recognition when he played a pivotal role in rescuing forty-one Indian workers trapped after a deadly tunnel collapse. What many don’t know is that Arnold is also a barrister, scientist, engineer—a ‘quirky’ Aussie bloke who proves that extraordinary courage can come from the most unexpected places. In vivid detail, Arnold recounts the unlikely rescue that transformed him into a global hero.

If you’ve ever studied a foreign language, you know what happens when you first truly and clearly communicate. As Zora O’Neill recalls, you feel like a magician. If that foreign language is Arabic, you just might feel like a wizard. Join O’Neill for a grand tour through the Middle East, to laugh with her in Egypt, delight in the stories she passes on from the Gulf region, and find yourself transformed by her experiences in Lebanon and Morocco.

This is my story of survival during and after Hurricane Helene in Burnsville, North Carolina. It was a time when there was no power, water, cell phones, or outside communication at all. We were trapped in a seven-mile radius. All the roads to leave were destroyed.

On September 11th, 1974, a commercial airliner operated by Eastern Airlines crashed in the fields outside the Charlotte International Airport. 72 people perished in this crash which was attributed to pilot error on approach. 10 passengers survived the crash and went on to recount their stories of that day. This account is Richard's personal experiences leading up to, during and after that fateful crash.

From addiction recovery to divorce, yoga studios to psychic readings, this raw and inspiring memoir follows one woman's quest for inner peace across three continents. When her marriage crumbles, former wellness instructor Kirchner faces her deepest fears: relapse, family trauma, and losing faith in life itself. Her journey through meditation retreats, Manhattan spirituality, and an unexpected encounter with an Indian guru challenges everything she thought she knew about healing.

A personal story of how Vicki, in her late 40's from Midhurst, Sussex, found walking in nature around the South Downs gave her positive energy, a new self-confidence, inner strength and a stronger passion for walking. After overcoming the trauma of life changing surgery back in Feb 22, which left her relearning to walk over 9 months, she shares with you her emotional heart warming journey about how she fought her physical and mental demons.

Matt Dawson is a six-time world-record-holding endurance and adventure athlete who, within a twelve-month period, climbed the highest peak on every continent, skied to the South Pole, trekked solo and unsupported across the Mojave Desert and Death Valley, and rowed across the Atlantic Ocean. Performing in the planet’s harshest environments, he learned that his greatest obstacles don’t originate in the outside world, but within himself. That life doesn’t have to be a relentless battle against his deepest fears and shortcomings.

Gone Bush is about a lifetime of walking the backcountry. It tells stories of the eccentric characters he met along the way, some of the 1200 huts he's visited, and his most unforgettable journeys, including his 'long walk home' from deepest Fiordland to the top of Golden Bay. It's also a book about the powerful effects of being in the natural environment, doing what matters and living authentically.

In the summer of 1972, the open road beckoned best friends, nineteen-year-old Barry Johnson and twenty-year-old Bobby Young. Carrying backpacks with the essentials, staples of Kraft Mac and Cheese, dressed in jeans, Frye boots, with $100 each, they set off from their homes in Massachusetts. And so their cross-country adventure began during a time when the bond of trust between driver and hitchhiker was rarely questioned. Little did they know that this journey would shape their lives in ways they could never imagine.

Based on diary entries, news articles, published sources, interviews, and personal memories from the author and other family members, Crossing the Yellowstone: The Saga of a Montana Ranch Family is a classic American drama of challenges met and legacies left. In 1894, Andy Mercer journeyed on horseback from Missouri to the Great Plains, with plans to homestead in the West.

After undergoing well over 30 major surgeries, including skin grafting and plastic surgery, she is healing and progressing into a fierce warrior. Even with a very long road still ahead, Rawkee’s energetic and resilient spirit continues to thrive. Her contagious laugh and captivating eyes will leave you warmed, charmed, and inspired to do and be more in your own trials and hardships.

Join the captivating world of Unraveled Chaos, a memoir that takes you on an exhilarating ride through Kersten's tumultuous life. In this audio experience, Kersten shares her story with raw honesty and infectious energy, recounting her adventurous childhood filled with fast cars, reckless escapades, and the complexities of family dynamics.

Sie war ein Wunschkind und hatte scheinbar die besten Voraussetzungen für ein glückliches Leben. Trotzdem tauchen bei ihr immer wieder schwerwiegende körperliche und psychische Symptome auf, die sie sich lange nicht erklären konnte und die sie stark beeinträchtigten: Sie war seit ihrer Jugend depressiv, litt unter schlimmen Schmerzen oder war in heftige Unfälle verwickelt, hatte Beziehungsschwierigkeiten, stieß schnell an ihre Belastungsgrenze, erlebte Todesangst.

Michael Macray has a story-telling gift carefully honed in the bars of Sanibel Florida, his tales are infused with his hilarious humor and highly tuned enjoyment of life and living. A dare-devil of the old kind, working Disaster Logistics, he lived through narrow escapes in Africa, bomb blasts in Yemen, and the burning Oil fields of Kuwait.

Imagine sharing a cell with thieves, sex offenders, murderers and other nefarious criminals. Imagine the type of accident insurance does not cover. Imagine being maimed by an IED ... well thanks to me, you don't have to. "When I got into the explosives business, I never dreamed I'd find myself personally working with the Joint Counter Terrorism Task Force." I'm Josh Keith. This is my side of the story.

Sometimes enough is enough. And after suicide claimed three people from different parts of Evan “Sweet” Hansen’s life, he decided to do something about it. Motivated by the losses surrounding him, Evan set out to pick a fight with suicide. But instead of throwing punches, he chose to take steps. An experienced backpacker and outdoorsman, Evan came up with a plan: He would carry a little, yellow canoe on his shoulders for 313 miles as part of a suicide prevention awareness campaign called, “Portage for a Purpose.”

My Beautiful Black Butterfly is a gripping and heartfelt memoir of survival, resilience, and hope. From enduring the unthinkable to finding the courage to reclaim her life, the author takes listeners on a deeply personal journey through years of abuse, trauma, and self-discovery.

In The Sailor’s Compass, listeners are invited to chart the remarkable journey of Michael Moore—a dedicated hospital corpsman whose life reflects courage, sacrifice, and resilience. From his modest beginnings in a small-town community where hard work and family values were paramount, to his transformative years serving in the Navy during the Vietnam War, Michael’s story is one of unwavering dedication and grit.