After so many miles, misadventures and meat pies, I'm delighted to be launching my 9th book, The Great Australian Bucket List , available October 9th online and in bookshops throughout Australia and New Zealand.   It's been a very long and very wild ride, packing in years of travel into six crazy months, and years of writing into the same. As for bringing along my family, two kids under five can only make the intense travel and writing easier right?   Right. 

As with my previous books, I believe that essay-style stories inspire, and are best read on a printed page illustrated with beautiful photography.  But I believe that practical information is important too, best accessed online where it can be easily and frequently updated.   The Great Australian Bucket List follows this successful formula:  a stunning, inspiring book supported by an extensive companion website - www.aussiebucketlist.com 
With any luck, both will have the same impact in Australia as the The Great Canadian Bucket List had in Canada: inspiring millions of locals and visitors to explore unique, one-of-a-kind destinations and activities around the nation (and becoming a smash bestseller as a result).    From jungle surfing in the world's oldest rainforest to swimming with giant tuna, chasing ghosts in haunted prison cells to hiking the remote outback, Australia has buckets of amazing stuff to explore.  

Here's a quick peek at what I got up to: 

The book is published by Affirm Press, the fastest growing publisher in Australia, driven by passionate readers who believe in stories as much as I do.  I have to give a shout out to my amazing sponsors and partners:   Presenting Partner Ford Motors Australia, Oaks Hotels and Resorts, Jetstar Airways, World Expeditions, Journey Beyond, Discovery Holiday Parks, Move Yourself, Sunshades Eyewear, Tourism Tasmania and Queensland Tourism and Events.  Thank you!  

Check out The Great Australian Bucket List videos on Youtube! 

The family travel project was an entirely different trip altogether.  You can check it out at the online trip journal we custom-designed to record the adventure:  www.esrockingkids.com.  Along with our partners above, special thanks to Valco Baby, Keen, Footwear, Britax and Victorinox. 

I met so many wonderful people on my journey, and as always, the people I met (and the family I travelled with) shaped my experience.  I learned so much about Australia, and myself.  This is what travel does:  new places stoke new emotions, new people stoke new ideas, new landscapes inspire new life stories.  

There's no word as yet if/when The Great Australian Bucket List will be available on shelves outside of Australia and New Zealand.  I'd love nothing more than my Canadian, Global and Australian books to find their way to stores worldwide, but that's up to the gods, agents, and the publishing industry.    In the meantime,  you can buy it online anywhere through Book Depository (with free shipping worldwide) and in Australia online through Booktopia,  Dymocks, Collins, Big W, KMart, Newslink, QBD or fine indie bookstores.  As always, it's the perfect gift for everyone from kids to grandparents, and will appeal to all ages and interests. 
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Thanks as ever for the support, and may your travels continue to be rich and fruitful. 
​Robin

Just when I thought I’d seen something of the world, along comes a book about 45 remarkable places…  and I’ve been to exactly one of them.     Chris Fitch, a senior staff writer at the Royal Geographical Society’s Geographical magazine, has assembled an impressive collection of little known spots from all seven continents, divided into sections of Extreme Environments, Untouched Lands, Human Activity, Weird Worlds, Isolated Realms and Nature’s Wilderness.    Illustrated with clear maps and black and white photography, it is an atlas of destinations so remote, rugged and bizarre that many chapters could be describing locations on alien planets.
 
A mysterious lake appears out of nowhere in the Tunisian desert.   Off the coast of Croatia, a steep rocky island consisting almost entirely of volcanic magnetite sends navigational equipment haywire, and more than few sailors to their doom.  In China, the world’s largest tidal bore draws thousands of people each year to watch a wall of water racing up the Qiantang estuary.   On North Sentinel Island in the Andaman Islands, an uncontacted tribe of hostile islanders continue to shower arrows (and occasionally death) on anyone who approaches their shores.   The world’s largest cave system in Georgia, an accidental coal fire that burns beneath a town in Pennsylvania,  the -93°C extremes of Dome Argus Antarctica, a hidden valley of impenetrable rainforest in Borneo – most of the short chapters had me reaching for Wikipedia and falling down an online rabbit hole.  Google Mount Mabu Rainforest  in Mozambique, Mexico’s Cave of Crystals, or Colorado’s Rocky Mountain Arsenal Refuge, and try not to annoy your friends by dropping the tremendous trivia of your discoveries. 
 
This is the kind of book that inspires lunatics like me to actually run off and find these places.  Sure, it could all be researched online (along with similar books like Atlas Obscura), but it does take a twisted genius to assemble these untamed places into something cohesive, and talent to write concise chapters that explain just enough to make you scratch your head,  say “Whoa!” and desire to know more.  As for the one place in the book I’ve actually visited?   Chernobyl’s Zone of Alienation, a chapter in my own book, The Great Global Bucket List.   Books like these, which belong on the coffee table of the more eclectic traveller, forever ensuring that your bucket list continues to grow.  
 
Atlas of Untamed Places
By Chris Fitch
​with maps by Martin Brown
Published by Aurum Press
US$29.99  / $38.99 CAN
ISBN: 9781781316771
Buy it on Amazon. 

VANCOUVER – For over a decade, bestselling author, TV host and travel expert Robin Esrock has sought out the extraordinary, visiting 110 countries on 7 continents in search of the adventures, destinations and cultural spectacles that make life worth living.

HarperCollins Canada is thrilled to announce the publication of The Great Global Bucket List, Esrock’s personal journey to discover the world’s very best experiences. Continuing Esrock’s trailblazing vision to re-invent the guidebook, this inspiring, fascinating, and frequently funny book is accompanied by rich digital media, including an up-to-date website, dozens of videos, galleries, a blog, and social channels for readers to share their own experiences.
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 From cruising down the Amazon River to camping in Zanzibar, Robin’s bucket list is full of characters, trivia, history and humour, proving that modern travel is so much more than over-trafficked tourist attractions.
 “Bucket Listers are chasing unique, authentic experiences, along with real moments and meaningful connections to the world around them,” explains Robin, a former travel columnist for The Globe and Mail, MSN and Outpost, “That includes ancient wonders, but also swimming in mud volcanoes, tracking wildebeest, and sampling local dishes that don’t always taste like chicken.” 

The Great Global Bucket List will be on shelves nationwide in September 2016, shortly after the launch of the companion site, globalbucketlist.com. For more about Canada’s #1 selling travel author, visit www.robinesrock.com.

​For further information, please contact:
Kelsey Marshall, Publicist
HarperCollins Canada
Tel: 416.256.3383
Email: kelsey.marshall@harpercollins.com

Praise for Robin Esrock
 “When it comes to bucket lists, he’s kicked that travel bucket so many times it doesn’t know what hemisphere it’s in. Esrock has done it!”
– Canadian Traveller Magazine

 “One of Canada’s top travel writers and definitely one of our bigger personalities.”
– The Globe and Mail

 “Robin Esrock, hitherto known as the Evel Knievel of Travel, knows what’s he’s writing about.”
– Canadian Living
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 “One crucial thing sets Robin Esrock’s book apart. It’s full of accounts written by someone who’s actually explored these places.”
– The Georgia Straight

THE GREAT GLOBAL BUCKET LIST BY Robin Esrock
Patrick Crean Editions | 9781443442367 | On Sale September 1, 2016 | $19.99 CAN | TPB