Extreme Classics: The 100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time

Given by National Geographic

104 Works 115,856 Books 2,206 Reviews 4.0

Extreme Classics: The 100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time

"A list we had hoped our readers would enjoy turned out to be one of the most popular features in Adventure's five-year history. You show more asked for it—repeatedly—now you got it: the 100 Greatest in all their glory."

National Geographic Adventure Magazine (April 2004) show less
Categories:
WorkCategoryOrder Label
The Worst Journey in the World (1922) by Apsley Cherry-Garrard
001
Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1905) by Reuben Gold Thwaites
002
Wind, Sand and Stars (1939) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
003
The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons (1875) by John Wesley Powell
004
Arabian Sands (1959) by Wilfred Thesiger
005
Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness (1968) by Edward Abbey
007
West with the Night (1942) by Beryl Markham
008
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster (1996) by Jon Krakauer
009
The Travels of Marco Polo (1298) by Marco Polo
010
Farthest North (1897) by Fridtjof Nansen
011
The Snow Leopard (1978) by Peter Matthiessen
012
Roughing It (1872) by Mark Twain
013
Two Years Before the Mast (1840) by Richard Henry Jr. Dana
014
South: The Endurance Expedition (1919) by Ernest Shackleton
015
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush (1958) by Eric Newby
016
Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft (1948) by Thor Heyerdahl
017
Travels in West Africa (1897) by Mary Kingsley
018
The Spirit of St. Louis (1953) by Charles A. Lindbergh
019
Seven Years in Tibet (1952) by Heinrich Harrer
020
The Explorations of Captain James Cook in the Pacific (1949) by James Cook
021
The Home of the Blizzard: A True Story of Antarctic Survival (1930) by Douglas Mawson
022
The Voyage of the Beagle (1839) by Charles Darwin
023
Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922) by T. E. Lawrence
024
Travels in the Interior of Africa (1799) by Mungo Park
025
The Right Stuff (1979) by Tom Wolfe
026
Sailing Alone around the World (1900) by Joshua Slocum
027
The Mountain of My Fear (1968) by David Roberts
028
First Footsteps in East Africa or An Exploration of Harar (1856) by Richard F. Burton
029
The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men against the Sea (1997) by Sebastian Junger
030
The Oregon Trail (1849) by Francis Parkman
031
Through the Dark Continent or The Sources of the Nile Around the Great lakes of Equatorial Africa and Down the Livingstone River to the Atlantic Ocean (1878) by Henry M. Stanley
032
A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879) by Isabella L. Bird
033
In the Land of White Death: An Epic Story of Survival in the Siberian Arctic (1917) by Valerian Albanov
034
Endurance (1999) by Frank Worsley
035
Scrambles Amongst the Alps (1893) by Edward Whymper
036
Out of Africa (1937) by Isak Dinesen
037
Scott's Last Expedition: The Journals (1913) by Robert Falcon Scott
038
Everest: The West Ridge (1965) by Thomas F. Hornbein
039
Journey Without Maps (1936) by Graham Greene
040
Starlight and Storm (1956) by Gaston Rébuffat
041
My First Summer in the Sierra (1911) by John Muir
042
My Life as an Explorer (1925) by Sven Hedin
043
In Trouble Again: A Journey Between the Orinoco and the Amazon (1988) by Redmond O'Hanlon
044
The Man Who Walked through Time: The Story of the First Trip Afoot through the Grand Canyon (1968) by Colin Fletcher
045
K2, the Savage Mountain (1954) by Charles S. Houston
046
Gypsy Moth Circles the World (1967) by Francis Chichester
047
Man-Eaters of Kumaon (1944) by Jim Corbett
048
Alone (1938) by Richard E. Byrd
049
Stranger in the Forest: On Foot Across Borneo (1988) by Eric Hansen
050
Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888) by Charles M. Doughty
051
The Royal Road to Romance (1925) by Richard Halliburton
052
The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom (1956) by Sławomir Rawicz
053
Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada (1872) by Clarence King
054
My Journey to Lhasa (1927) by Alexandra David-Néel
055
Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile (1863) by John Hanning Speke
056
Running the Amazon (1989) by Joe Kane
057
Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (1974) by Piers Paul Read
058
Voyages and Discoveries: Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques & Discoveries of the English Nation (1972) by Richard Hakluyt
059
Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan (1841) by John Lloyd Stephens
060
The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex (1984) by Owen Chase
061
Life in the Far West (1601) by George F. Ruxton
062
My Life as an Explorer (1927) by Roald Amundsen
063
News from Tartary (1936) by Peter Fleming
064
Annapurna: A Woman's Place (1980) by Arlene Blum
065
The Mutiny on Board HMS Bounty (1792) by William Bligh
066
Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea (1986) by Steven Callahan
067
Cabeza de Vaca's Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America (1542) by ÁLVAR NÚÑEZ CABEZA DE VACA
068
Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival (1988) by Joe Simpson
069
Tracks (1980) by Robyn Davidson
070
The Adventures of Captain Bonneville (1837) by Washington Irving
071
Cooper's Creek (1963) by Alan Moorehead
072
The Fearful Void (1974) by Geoffrey Moorhouse
073
No Picnic on Mount Kenya (1946) by Felice Benuzzi
074
Through the Brazilian Wilderness (1914) by Theodore Roosevelt
075
The Road to Oxiana (1937) by Robert Byron
076
Minus 148 Degrees: The First Winter Ascent of Mount McKinley (1969) by Art Davidson
077
The Travels of Ibn Battutah (1355) by Ibn Battutah
78
Jaguars Ripped My Flesh (1987) by Tim Cahill
079
Journal of a Trapper (1955) by Osborne Russell
080
Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle (1965) by Dervla Murphy
081
Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica (1996) by Sara Wheeler
082
We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance (1955) by David Howarth
083
Kabloona (1941) by Gontran de Poncins
084
Conquistadors of the Useless: From the Alps to Annapurna (1961) by Lionel Terray
085
Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journey (1974) by Michael Collins
086
Adventures in the Wilderness (Adirondack Museum) (1970) by William H. H. Murray
087
The mountains of my life (1995) by Walter Bonatti
088
Great Heart: The History of a Labrador Adventure (1988) by James West Davidson
089
Journal of the Voyage to the Pacific (1931) by Alexander Mackenzie
090
The Valleys of the Assassins: and Other Persian Travels (1934) by Freya Stark
091
Silent World (National Geographic Adventure Classics) (1953) by Jacques-Yves Cousteau
092
Alaska Wilderness: Exploring the Central Brooks Range (1970) by Robert Marshall
093
North American Indians (1995) by George Catlin
094
I Married Adventure: The Lives of Martin and Osa Johnson (1940) by Osa Johnson
095
The descent of Pierre Saint-Martin (1954) by Norbert Casteret
096
The Crystal Horizon: Everest-The First Solo Ascent (1989) by Reinhold Messner
097
Narrative of a Journey Across the Rocky Mountains, to the Columbia River, and a Visit to the Sandwich Islands, Chile, etc., With a Scientific Appendix. (1839) by John Kirk Townsend
098
Grizzly Years: In Search of the American Wilderness (1990) by Doug Peacock
099
One Man's Mountains (1971) by Tom Patey
100
The Darkest Jungle: The True Story of the Darien Expedition and America's Ill-Fated Race to Connect the Seas (2003) by Todd Balf
new short list
Where the Mountain Casts its Shadow: The Personal Costs of Climbing (2003) by Maria Coffey
new short list
At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig: Travels Through Paraguay (2003) by John Gimlette
new short list
Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, The U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 (2003) by Nathaniel Philbrick
new short list
To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight (2003) by James Tobin
new short list

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