Mary Jane Walker hails from New Zealand. She has been traveling the rest of the world, and her native country, since early youth. She first experienced serious world travel as part of the crew on a small Chinese junk which was being sailed from China to France. Her memoirs are unconventional, historically well-informed and lavishly illustrated. In celebration for Independence Day you A Maverick Way USA is FREE! Enjoy!
A Maverick Traveller: Discover the world in the incredible way Kiwi solo traveller Mary Jane Walker first did, on the crew of a Chinese junk bound for France (with 93 images)
by Mary Jane Walker
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs | Sports & Outdoors
A Maverick Traveller is the first in a series of books by the Kiwi adventurer Mary Jane Walker. A Maverick Traveller begins with an account of an epic voyage on a Chinese junk, followed by Mary Jane’s early life in New Zealand and her later adventures worldwide. Whether she was eating dog unintentionally in Indonesia, meeting the rapper 50 Cent before he was famous at a back-packers, or kicking a US nuclear submarine in New Zealand, it’s all there in A Maverick Traveller, a book filled with Mary Jane’s unique stories and experiences. She has travelled to all corners of the globe: to large cities, rural villages and tiny unknown islands off the coasts of continents.
The junk Mary Jane joined as a budding explorer had a French name, La Dame de Canton. It was built in the old way, to revive dying crafts. La Dame sailed from Canton, now Guangzhou, to Paris in the early 1980s. Just as in the old days of exploration by sail, the voyage took a couple of years to complete, with many stops along the way for fresh water and supplies, and, yes, for repairs as well.
Mary Jane joined the junk expedition because she had fallen in love with the captain, a young man from a family of famous artists named Niels. Before long, they found themselves sailing into the secretive American mid-ocean base of Diego Garcia under a flag of emergency. They had run out of food apart from rice and had had to drink salt-contaminated water for ten days. The sails were ripped, and everything was soaked.
A Maverick Traveller is the first in Mary Jane’s series of nine travel memoirs, of which six have so far been published, with three more forthcoming.
Mary Jane travels with no real plans and decides where to go and see next when she gets there. She likes to explore the culture and history of places that are off the beaten track as well as places that are well known, and to talk to the local people.
By the time she sat down to write her books, Mary Jane had travelled the world, from the Arctic Circle to working as a park ranger on an uninhabited island administered by New Zealand’s Department of Conservation. She had spanned two years (mostly naked) on La Dame de Canton; drunk hallucinogenic tea in the Amazon rainforest; and got so lost she ended up at Robin Hood’s hiding-place.
Among other adventures, Mary Jane has also walked to Mount Everest Base Camp and seen the work and life of Sherpas; respectfully observed the life of many churches, temples and mosques; traversed various parts of the pilgrimage trails of Europe; explored the stunning landscapes of New Zealand; visited remote parts of the Arctic while pulled by a team of dogs; travelled around Cuba the hard way; examined the downfall and renewal of the American inner city, and interviewed protestors at Standing Rock. All the while, meeting amazing people along the way.
These books contain an abundance of photographs and geographically-organised chapters. But they are not travel guides. Instead, they are more readable narratives, that complement the standard travel guides. You couldn’t read a travel guide for very long on a plane, or in a café, without becoming distracted. But any one of Mary Jane’s books will while away the hours, while imparting knowledge of new destinations: of ‘a new dawn, a clear horizon, and an open sea’.
Click here to get this book for $1.99
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A Maverick New Zealand Way: The essential Kiwi travel companion! A New Zealand adventurer’s engrossing memoir of journeys in her own land, with 625 images.
by Mary Jane Walker
Genre: Sports & Outdoors | Travel
FINALIST IN THE TRAVEL CATEGORY, INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS, MAY 2018
This is not a travel guide. Why? Because you can’t read a travel guide from cover to cover. But you can read Mary Jane’s personal account of her lifelong adventures in New Zealand. In a flowing narrative that comes with more than 600 photos and maps, Mary Jane will make you feel like you have already arrived. And perhaps even that you have known her and her country for years.
In Mary Jane’s highly readable and affordable Kindle, which can be read in color on color screens, you, too, can discover the stunning back country of New Zealand, through walks, treks, mountain ascents and even a spot of mountain biking. Mary Jane, a self-proclaimed ‘Maverick Traveller’, sets out on many of the walks and mountain ascents throughout New Zealand’s North and South Islands.
Mary Jane shares her love of travel, trekking and adventure through this thrilling book. Whether you are a beginning trekker, intermediate or advanced you will find something in this book for you.
Learn about native bush and wildlife nestled among a variety of landscapes – glaciers, volcanoes, grassy plains, waterfalls, lakes, vast stretches of ocean and geothermal areas, as well as areas of special significance to M?ori, and cityscapes both modern and colonial.
An interesting account of New Zealand history in town and country as well as a memoir of modern experiences, A Maverick New Zealand Way is the perfect read to inspire you to get outdoors in New Zealand.
Click here to get this book for $2.99
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A Maverick Cuban Way: Discover how the largest Caribbean island is coping after Fidel, with Kiwi solo traveller Mary Jane Walker . . . (247 images)
by Mary Jane Walker
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs | Travel
FREE for a limited time
This is not a travel guide. Why? Because you can’t read a travel guide from cover to cover. But you can read Mary Jane’s travel memoir of Cuba just after Fidel Castro. In a flowing narrative that comes with 247 photos and maps, Mary Jane begins with a particularly strong and well-informed historical chapter, which sets the scene for more contemporary descriptions that follow.
Mary Jane spoke to many local people, staying in casas particulares (guest-houses) and travelling on local buses. Containing some guidance for travellers, but not a guidebook, A Maverick Cuban Way describes Mary Jane’s journey from Havana around the island, via:
• the beach resort of Varadero
• the French-founded city of Cienfuegos
• Playa Girón, beside the historically notorious but ecologically significant Bay of Pigs
• the old-fashioned town of Trinidad
• the city of Bayamo, honoured in Cuba’s national anthem La Bayamesa
• Fidel’s 1950s hideout in the Sierra Maestra
• Pico Turquino, the highest mountain in Cuba
• Santiago de Cuba, the second city of the island
• Guantánamo, the site of the American base, a Cuban town, and the Guantánamera
• Baracoa, a once-isolated coastal town with a strong Haitian influence; and
• Camagüey, an inland city of the plains.
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A Maverick Pilgrim Way: Get to know the Old World one step at a time, with a Kiwi adventurer’s engrossing tale of family roots and ancient trails (with 581 images).
by Mary Jane Walker
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs | Sports & Outdoors | Travel
This is not a travel guide. Why? Because you can’t read a travel guide from cover to cover on the plane. But you can read Mary Jane Walker’s personal account of her adventures in Europe and Turkey. In a flowing narrative that comes with more than 580 photos, maps and other images, Mary Jane will make you feel like you have already arrived. And perhaps even that you have travelled the by-ways of the Old World for years.
Ancient pilgrim trails still in use today traverse nations and mountain ranges across Europe and into the eastern Mediterranean region. Mary Jane uses the pilgrim trails of Europe and Turkey to introduce less well-known destinations and hikes, as well some that are better-known.
Join Mary Jane as she treks along the winding ancient roads of Old World pilgrims. All across Europe, and beyond into Turkey and the Middle East, there is a maze of walks on which to make incredible discoveries and have plenty of adventures. The best-known is the Camino de Santiago, or St James’s Way, along which a symbolic scallop shell marks the way. Mary Jane hopes to complete it in its entirety, one section at a time.
So, strap on your backpack, your walking boots and come along for the ride. Discover little-known walkways and pilgrim trails dating back hundreds of years, as Mary Jane sets out to cover as much ground as she can.
Pilgrim ways aren’t just for the religious. People of all ages and walks of life come to walk them. The journey becomes one of learning about other cultures and their interconnected histories and stories. Mary Jane shares her experiences of this in A Maverick Pilgrim Way.
Racking up many a mile all over Europe, and east of Istanbul, Mary Jane sets out along the way from Ireland and Portugal in the west to Russia and Turkey in the east. The landscapes and jaw-dropping scenery are one thing – while the people, cultures and histories are another.
These histories include the history of Mary Jane’s own Scottish ancestors and their surviving descendants in Edinburgh and Dundee.
Walking through cities and over the countryside has been a humbling experience, one in which Mary Jane has met the people and got up close and personal with each of the cultures and countries she visited.
Follow Mary Jane and learn about the people she meets, the experiences of her journey and a history of pilgrimages across Europe and the Mediterranean.
Click here to get this book for $0.99
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A Maverick USA Way: Ride the Amtrak rails with Kiwi adventurer Mary Jane Walker, and see America from the outside as well as the inside! (with 407 images)
by Mary Jane Walker
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs | Sports & Outdoors | Travel
FREE for a limited time
This is not a travel guide. Why? Because you can’t read a travel guide from cover to cover. But you can read Mary Jane’s travel memoir of the USA for fun as well as information. The book begins with a guest historical chapter, and then tumbles directly into a flowing narrative of Mary Jane’s travels around the continental USA and Hawai?i.
Mary Jane has been visiting the USA since the 1990s and travelled right around the continental USA by Amtrak train in the autumn and winter of 2016 and 2017. Not only was she confronted by politics during the height of the 2016 election season, but also discovered environmental and social issues along the way.
• Mary Jane took the train to the Glacier, Grand Teton, Yosemite and Rocky Mountains National Parks before the snow hit.
• She loved the Smithsonian museums and after seeing a dance at the Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC, she decided to go to Standing Rock.
• Standing Rock was a protest over land rights and drinking water, at 30 below zero!
• Mary Jane was awed by Chicago architecture, by an Art Deco Detroit which is reverting into a park, by Galveston and by Birmingham, Alabama.
• She was in America for the election and was not surprised Trump won.
• She was tired of being mistaken for a homeless person because she wore a back pack, and left San Francisco because of it.
• And she took in Hawaii (the northernmost apex of the Polynesian Triangle) on the way back to her home in New Zealand, the southernmost.
Click here to get this book for FREE
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