Beastly Journeys : Unusual Tales of Travel with Animals

David Attenborough, Dion Leonard (Finding Gobi), Dervla Murphy and Brian Jackman are just four of the authors whose work features in this remarkable anthology of true stories about travelling with animals. In Beastly Journeys, there are 46 tales of extraordinary animal travel experiences, from hilarious holidays with pets to journeys on which wild animals somehow came along for the ride.

Highlights include David Attenborough trying to get an armadillo through Paraguayan customs; adventurer Ash Dykes taking a white cockerel to Maromokotro to ward off evil spirits; Mike Gerrard sharing a car journey from Belsize Park to Canvey Island with a python; Brian Jackman riding, walking and swimming with Abu the elephant; Bradt New Travel Writer of the Year Dom Tulett rowing with a kingfisher; and John Rendall travelling to Africa with Christian, the lion he bought at Harrods and raised in west London. Also included is a brand new piece of writing from ultramarathon runner Dion Leonard about his experience with Gobi, the stray dog who accompanied him for 80 miles over the treacherous Tian Shian mountains.

A mix of new, previously unpublished writers and old favourites are included, with extracts from writers such as Mark Shand (Travels on my Elephant), Dervla Murphy (Eight Feet in the Andes) and Robert Louis Stevenson (Travels with a Donkey), not to mention Gerald Durrell, 19th-century explorer Isabella Bird and renowned publisher Michael Joseph. Compelling, engaging, surprising, humorous and entertaining, if this book proves one thing it's that travel with animals is every bit as unpredictable as you would expect it to be.