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Two Years Before the Mast is an 1840 memoir by the author Richard Henry Dana. A Harvard graduate, he spent the years 1834 to 1836 as a sailor on a merchant ship on a voyage from Boston to California. The journey took them past Cape Horn on the Tierra del Fuego archipelago where the Pacific and Atlantic oceans meet. Dana provides detailed descriptions of ship life and the technical aspects of sailing. A chapter on California and its inhabitants offers valuable historical insights on the state which was then a foreign land.

Our National Parks by John Muir is a brilliant guide and introduction to Yosemite and several other magnificent parks by the man who helped to create them through his advocacy for the preservation of wilderness areas. The author provides detailed observations of the animals, birds, glaciers, streams, fountains, sights, scents, and sounds of Yosemite, Yellowstone, Mount Rainier, Sequoia, and other forest reservations of the West.

Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, composer, essayist, and adventure writer. "The Silverado Squatters" is a travelogue of his honeymoon in the Napa Valley. "Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes" (1879), one of his earliest published works, is considered a milestone of outdoor literature. The short story "A Lodging for the Night" (1877) was Stevenson's first published fiction, at the age of 27, while Kidnapped (1886) is an historical novel set in 18th-century Scotland, about the Appin Murder.

Washington Irving (1783-1859) was a short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat. The short story "The Devil and Tom Walker" is about a miserly man who makes a deal with the devil. Irving’s fictional character Diedrich Knickerbocker is a Dutch-American historian and narrator of "The Conspiracy of the Cocked Hats" and the “golden age” of Wouter van Twiller, the Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam.

Around the World in Seventy-Two Days, the 1890 book by Nellie Bly, chronicles her sensational 72-day trip around the world for the tabloid newspaper, New York World. On November 14, 1889, she boarded the steamer Augusta Victoria on her journey of 23,899 miles with the goal of finishing in 75 days. Her journey took her through England, France, Italy, the Suez Canal, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan to San Francisco where she boarded a private chartered train which brought her to New York on January 25, 1890, 72 days and six hours after leaving.

Thoreau gives an account of three canoe and hiking journeys - by himself and with others - through the mostly uninhabited forests of Maine in the 1850s. Identifying birds, trees and plants by their botanical as well as their common names, he also records the Indian names of lakes, rivers and plants. He investigates the connections between waterways and trails, and provides detail on camping, fishing and hunting in the woods, using whatever is at hand. Extolling the beauty of the wilds that he encounters, Thorough’s narrative is also imbued with elements of his philosophy.

The Land of Little Rain by Mary Hunter Austin, first published in 1903, contains a series of interrelated essays about the American Southwest. A theme of environmental conservation and a philosophy of regional culture loosely link the narratives. The first essay covers the "Country of Lost Borders," an area between Death Valley and the High Sierras. In "Water Trails of the Ceriso", the author describes the many animals that travel along the trails, including coyotes and quails. "The Scavengers" deals with carrion feeders like buzzards and crows.

John Muir (1838 -1914) was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness areas in the United States. In the late 1800s, Muir made several trips to the relatively unexplored territory of Alaska. Travels in Alaska, originally published in 1915, describes the beauty of the Alaskan wilderness and its inhabitants as observed during his travels between 1879 and 1890. In poetic prose, he describes the area’s magnificent glaciers and its animals like bears, bald eagles, wolves and whales.

"The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp" was published in 1908 by the Welsh author W. H. Davies (1871-1940). Most of the narrative describes the way of life of the tramp in Britain and North America in the last decade of the 19th century. At the age of 22, Davies sailed to America, which was the first of more than a dozen Atlantic crossings. From 1893 to 1899 the author traveled the highways and railways, living day to day by riding trains, staying in prisons, and even managing to fund himself to repeatedly cross the ocean.

Ostensibly written by an English knight, The Book of Marvels and Travels claim to recount his experiences in Egypt, the Levant, India, and China. It describes a journey from Europe to Jerusalem and further into Asia, and the many weird and wonderful peoples and practices of the East. The author claims to have traveled in land populated by Amazons, dog-headed people, cannibals, one-footed tribes, and Pygmies.

The Silverado Squatters is Robert Louis Stevenson's travel memoir of his 1880 honeymoon trip with his bride and her son Lloyd Osbourne to Napa Valley, California. On May 19, 1880, he married Fanny Vandegrift, and they decided to spend their honeymoon in a three-story bunkhouse at an abandoned mining camp called "Silverado" in the Mayacamas Mountains. The book offers fascinating historical views of late 19th-century California. During their two-month honeymoon, Stevenson visits a petrified forest, encounters some wine growers, and meets various colorful characters.

Pigafetta's book on Magellan’s travels is an engaging travel narrative honoring the legendary explorer. But it is much more: an accurate ethnographic and geographical account of the circumnavigation of the globe. Pifagetta describes the peoples, countries, goods, and even the languages that were spoken in every area.

Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada is an engrossing blend of scientific exploration and personal adventure. Clarence King describes the ascent of Mounts Tyndall, Shasta, and Whitney with a scientific poet’s eye, and makes the grandeur of the cliffs, the peaks, the glaciers, and the meadows of Yosemite Valley come alive through his remarkable gifts of portrayal. King describes nature like a master painter while his portrait of the people of California 20 years after the Gold Rush finds engaging expression in a subtle shift of style.