The Adventurer's Handbook - Mick Conefrey

What makes a good explorer? Survival skills, being able to plan and motivate, and a good sense of humour. Packed with practical advice, stories of endurance, serious lessons and witty anecdotes, The Adventurer's Handbook is perfect for the armchair traveller or would-be strategist.

This book is packed full of useful information - such as what to do if you are attacked by an anaconda (you wait until it has swallowed you up to your knees and then you reach up and cut its head off *), how to always have a fresher pair of underpants, how to deal with a charging lion, and how to find water in the desert. At its heart are the tales of derring-do, survival, and endurance such as Wilfred Thesiger's crossing of the Empty Quarter, an enormous, little-explored stretch of desert in Southern Arabia, the Kon-Tiki expedition, the search for the source of the Nile, Freya Stark's travels with the Bedouin in the 1940s, or Shackleton's antarctic expedition.
Tales of mutiny, solitude, leadership, crisis management, and the spirit of competition make this a fascinating and entertaining read.

Contents include:
Getting Started: What makes an explorer? Raising funds, equipment, and preparation
Getting Going: Leaving home, enduring heat, cold, altitude, wet and the sea, clothing, animals that can kill you, animals you can eat
Getting Along: Leadership, teamwork, living together, crisis management, mutiny, solitude, meeting natives, tips for travellers
Getting There: What makes an expedition succeed?
Getting Back: Telling your story, proving what you've done, what next? And the million dollar question - why?

* Note: have knife handy.

Mick Conefrey is a filmmaker who has made award-winning documentaries on Arctic exploration and Himalayan mountaineering. He produced the BBC's anniversary film to commemorate the first ascent of Everest in 1953. This is his third book.

"An amazing collection of epic adventures and the lessons we can all learn from them." Peter Hillary

"A brilliant and original guide to getting back!" George Band

"A book rich in entertaining quotes" Descent