"Great Journeys of the World" is a collection of diary-based travel essays by internationally renowned writers and performers who have undertaken journeys of discovery in some of the most exciting parts of the globe. They are perceptive observers who combine a sense of history with an appreciation of the contemporary experience of the people they encounter. Their journeys go beyond landscape and spectacle, to insight and discovery, not only about the places they visit but also themselves. The travellers/authors are: Ernie Dingo, Australia's leading Aboriginal actor, who travels across the Kimberley region in Australia, a remote area of immense significance to Aboriginals; Sandi Toksvig, comedienne and writer, who journeys down the Zambezi from its source to the Indian Ocean with a family heirloom, a dug-out canoe said to have carried Livingstone down the same river; Juliet Stevenson, actress, follows the footsteps of Isabelle Eberhardt across the Sahara in Algeria; Tony Robinson, writer, comedian and historian examines the lure of hedonism in several of the islands in the Caribbean; Evelyn Glennie, the world's leading solo percussionist, explores the rhythm, music and religion in Korea; and Damien Gorman, Irish film maker and poet, traces the footsteps of Cortez to learn about the Spanish and the Incas in Mexico.