Duncan Minshull, brings together the recorded footfalls of more than fifty walker-writers who have travelled the world’s seven continents. From the 1500s to current times come a memorable band of explorers and adventurers, scientists and missionaries, pleasure-seekers and literary drifters recalling their experiences and asking themselves a compelling question—why travel this way in the first place? With contributions from Herman Melville, Edith Wharton, Mark Twain, Anthony Trollope, Thomas Jefferson, Charles Darwin, Vernon Lee, Sarah H. Bradford, and many more, this book takes us across the streets of London, Rome, Melbourne, Cairo, Kiev and Kabu; through the frozen wastes of Antarctica; along the pilgrim paths of Japan; into the jungles of Ghana; and around the Great Wall of China.