Famous Explorers in Africa – Travel in Africa – Expeditions

Discovery and Exploration of Africa – Collection

About 50 free Discovery and Exploration of Africa books at the Internet Archive. Some books: Exploration of Africa, Africa in the Days of Exploration, Livingstone and the Exploration of Central Africa, The European Exploration of Africa, Atlas of Exploration, The Saga of Exploration in Southern Africa, Stanley and Livingstone and the Exploration of Africa in World History, Lady Florence Baker and the Exploration of Central Africa, First Footsteps in East Africa, African Discovery: an anthology of exploration, With Stanley in Africa, many more.

Africa Description and Travel Books – Collection

About 150 free Africa Description and Travel Books at the Internet Archive. Some books: Illustrated Travel Guide to South Africa, Victorian Women Travel Writers in Africa, Sarah Anderson’s Travel Companion, Geldof in Africa, The Myth of Africa, Read this First: Africa, Lonely Planet East Arica, Geography of Modern Africa, Inside Africa, A Tourist in Africa, On Foot Through Africa, Africa and the Islands, A Passage to Africa, Travels in West Africa, Travels into the Interior of Africa, Focus on Africa, many more.

Accounts of 19th & Early 20th Century Africa – Collection

A Hathi Trust collection of 86 books about Africa, published from about 1800 to the early 20th Century, with a few exceptions. Most appear to be first-hand accounts by travelers or by Europeans living there.

CORE BOOKS – Famous Explorers in Africa – Travel in Africa

Men of Salt: Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold

Benanav, Michael

Lyons 2006

The author followed a camel caravan across the Sahara desert to the salt quarries of Taoudenni, and back.

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Chasing the Devil: A Journey through Sub-Saharan Africa in the Footsteps of Graham Greene

Butcher, Tim

Norton 2011

Butcher used Greene’s little-known 1935 travel book, Journey Without Maps, as his guide on the 350-mile trek from Freetown, on the coast of Sierra Leone, to the coast of Liberia.

Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787-2005

Campbell, James T.

Penguin 2006

“From the repatriation of former slaves in the early years of the U.S. to the recent heritage tourism featuring Goree Island and other slave-trading sites, Campbell provides an artful reconstruction of the often bittersweet experience of return and reunion.” -NY Times Book Review.

Crazy River: A Plunge into Africa

Grant, Richard

Abacus 2013

“The Malagarasi River in Tanzania had not been fully traveled by either westerners or Africans. Grant set out to do so. But his adventures on the river – disease and disappointment, danger from crocs, hippos and bandits – bacame part of his larger story about what Africa is and how to make sense of it. Dyspeptic, disturbing and brilliantly realized, Grant’s account of Africa is literally unforgettable.” – Kirkus Reviews.

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Explorers of the Nile: The Triumph and Tragedy of a Great Victorian Adventure

Jeal, Tim

Yale University 2011

Nothing obsessed explorers of the mid-nineteenth century more than the quest to discover the source of the White Nile. It was the planet’s most elusive secret, the prize coveted above all others. Between 1856 and 1876, six larger-than-life men and one extraordinary woman accepted the challenge. Jeal weaves the story with authentic new detail—and examines the tragic unintended legacy of the Nile search that still casts a long shadow over the people of Uganda and Sudan.

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Sahara Unveiled: A Journey Across the Desert

Langewiesche, William

Pantheon 1996

William Langewiesche came to the Sahara to see it as its inhabitants do, riding its public transport, braving its natural and human dangers, depending on its sparse sustenance and suspect hospitality. From his journey, which took him across the desert’s hyper-arid core from Algiers to Dakar, he has crafted a contemporary classic of travel writing.

South from the Limpopo: Travels through South Africa

Murphy, Dervla

Overlook 2001

“This three-part journey of more than 6000 miles (before, during, and after the elections of 1994) took Murphy through all nine provinces of the new South Africa. She stayed in remote impoverished ex-‘homeland’ villages, the luxurious homes of rich whites and the simple homes of poor whites. This book places the complex and apparently insoluble problems of South Africa in a new light, and exhibits the great love she and the people she met share for the country.” -Publisher

Dervla Murphy has written more than twenty books recounting her adventures all over the world on foot, mule, bicycle, and just about every other conveyance imaginable.

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Africa and its Explorers: Motives, Methods and Impact

Rotberg, Robert I., ed.

Harvard 1974

Chapters by various authors on Heinrich Barth, David Livingstone, Richard Burton, John Hanning Speke, Samuel White Baker, Gerhard Rohlfs, Henry Morton Stanley, Verney Lovett Cameron and Joseph Thomson.

In Search of King Solomon’s Mines

Shah, Tahir

Arcade 2003

King Solomon, the Bible’s wisest king, possessed extraordinary wealth. He built a temple in Jerusalem that was purportedly covered in gold. Intrigued by a map he finds in a shop near the site of that temple, Tahir Shah sets out to find the wise king’s gold mines. A multitude of clues points him across the Red Sea to Ethiopia, the land of the Queen of Sheba. This is not just a travel book, it is a rollicking adventure that keeps you glued to the page, as much as H. Rider Haggard’s classic novel, King Solomon’s Mines. Though Shah is always humorous, he also gives a very accurate portrait of the country, with all its hardships and contradictions.

To the Heart of the Nile: Lady Florence Baker and the Exploration of Central Africa

Shipman, Pat

Morrow 2004

A portrait drawn from historical documents discusses the nineteenth-century adventurer’s rescue from slavery, her education under and marriage to English adventurer Sam Baker, and her life in the uncharted interior of Africa. “To the Heart of the Nile is an unforgettable portrait of an unforgettable woman: a story of discovery, bravery, determination, and love, meticulously reconstructed through journals, documents, and private papers, and told in the inimitable narrative style that has already won Pat Shipman resounding international acclaim.” -Publisher.

Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown

Theroux, Paul

Houghton Mifflin 2003

The author recounts his odyssey down the length of Africa, from Cairo to South Africa, describing the bad food, many delays, discomforts, and dangers of his trip, along with the people and places of the real Africa.

VINTAGE BOOKS – Famous Explorers in Africa – Travel in Africa

Jungle Portraits

Akely, Delia J.

MacMillan 1930

Contents: Our Primitive Neighbors – Apes and Mondeys – Elephants in the Fog – Congo Resthouses – Crocodiles – Flamingos of Lake Hannington – In Quest of the Pygmies – Jungle Rescue. Zoology–Africa. Hunting–Africa. Africa–Description and travel. Africa–Social life and customs.

Author: Delia Julia Akeley, commonly known by her nickname, Mickie, was an American explorer. She was born in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, a daughter of Irish immigrants. -Wikipedia.

In the Niger Country

Bindloss, Harold

Edinburgh: Blackwood 1898

Harold Edward Bindloss was an English novelist who wrote many adventure novels set in western Canada.

Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa, in the Years 1822, 1823 and 1824

by Major Denham, Captain Clapperton, and the late Doctor Oudney, extending across the Great Desert to the tenth degree of northern latitude, and from Kouka in Bornou, to Sackatoo, the capital of the Fellatah Empire

Denham, Dixon and Clapperton, Hugh

John Murray 1826

Dixon Denham was an English soldier, explorer of West Central Africa, and ultimately Governor of Sierra Leone. Bain Hugh Clapperton was a Scottish naval officer and explorer of West and Central Africa. Walter Oudney was a Scottish physician, budding naturalist, and briefly an African explorer. -Wikipedia.

Travels in West Africa, Congo Francais, Corisco and Cameroons

Kingsley, Mary H.

MacMillan 1897

Mary Henrietta Kingsley was an English ethnographer, scientific writer, and explorer whose travels throughout West Africa and resulting work helped shape European perceptions of African cultures and British imperialism. -Wikipedia.

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Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries, and of the discovery of the lakes Shirwa and Nyassa 1858-1864

Livingstone, David and Charles

London: Murray 1865

David Livingstone was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, and pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, an explorer in Africa, and one of the most popular British heroes of the late 19th-century Victorian era. -Wikipedia.

A Popular Account of Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa

Livingstone, David, M.D.

London: Murray 1861

PDF book by Africa explorer.

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Up the Niger. Narrative of Major Claude MacDonald’s Mission to the Niger and Benue Rivers, West Africa

to which is added a chapter on native musical instruments, by Cpt. C. R. Day

Mockler-Ferryman, A. F., Cpt.

London: Philip 1892

New Light on Dark Africa; Being the Narrative of the German Emin Pasha Expedition

Its Journeyings and Adventures among the Native Tribes of Eastern Equatorial Africa, the Gallas, Massais, Wasukuma, etc. etc. on the Lake Baringo and the Victoria Nyanza

Peters, Carl

London: Ward, Lock 1891

Carl Peters was a German colonial ruler, explorer, politician, and author, and a major promoter of the establishment of the German colony of East Africa. -Wikipedia.

Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile

Speke, John Hanning

Blackwood 1863

First-hand account of the grueling expedition in East Africa by Speke and Richard Burton that made them famous.

John Hanning Speke was an English explorer and officer in the British Indian Army who made three exploratory expeditions to Africa. He is most associated with the search for the source of the Nile and was the first European to reach Lake Victoria. -Wikipedia.

Through Masai Land: A Journey of Exploration Among the Snowclad Volcanic Mountains and Strange Tribes of Eastern Equatorial Africa

Being the narrative of the Royal Geographical Society’s expedition to Mount Kenia and Lake Victoria Nyanza, 1883-1884

Thomson, Joseph

London: Sampson Low 1887

Joseph Thomson was a Scottish geologist and explorer who played an important part in the “Scramble for Africa” [Colonization of much of Africa in the late 19th Century by several European countries]. Thomson’s gazelle and Thomson’s Falls, Nyahururu, are named after him. -Wikipedia.