num_pages: 184
description: A collection of 13 of Burns’s most popular travel essays, The Shoes of Kilimanjaro &amp; Other Oddventure Travel Stories is filled with entertaining stories about adventure travel in Africa, Asia, North and South America, Australia, Great Britain, and the Caribbean. Each essay offers Burns's unique, often weird, views about the earth, society, and human achievement (of lack thereof). In the introduction, Burns explains his thesis that adventure travel can mean any kind of travel, as long as it challenges the "There are two definitions that most of us from the latter 20th century/early 21st century agree upon when it comes to adventure. The first is that we generally think of adventure as having to be outdoors, preferably in a wilderness setting. The other thing about adventure is that we generally associate it with an activity that can be life-threatening, where someone has the potential to be seriously injured or die. Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language [1962 edition] defines it in about five different ways, most of which center around taking risks, i.e. "1. the encountering of danger," and "2. an exciting and dangerous un-dertaking, etc. " Adventure can be much more subtle. Adventure, I believe, should focus more on Webster’s third "an unusual, stirring experience, often of romantic nature."
language: English
title: The Shoes of Kilimanjaro & Other Oddventure Travel Stories
titlecomplete: The Shoes of Kilimanjaro & Other Oddventure Travel Stories
publisher: Hard Pressed Books