A Traveler's Guide to the End of the World: Tales of Fire, Wind, and Water

Bestselling author David Gessner asks what kind of planet his daughter will inherit in this coast-to-coast guide to navigating climate crisis.

The world is burning and the seas are rising. How do we navigate this new age of extremes? In A Traveler's Guide to the End of the World, David Gessner takes readers on an eye-opening tour of climate hotspots from the Gulf of Mexico to the burning American West to New York City to the fragile Outer Banks, where homes are being swallowed by the seas. He does so with his usual sense of humor, compassion, and a willingness to talk to anyone, providing an informative and sobering yet convivial guide for the age of fire, heat, wind, and water.

Gessner approaches scientists and thinkers with a father's question: What will the world be like in forty-two years? Gessner was forty-two when his daughter, Hadley, was born. What will the world be like in 2064, when Hadley is his age now? What is the future of weather? The future of heat, storms, and fire? What exactly will our children be facing? A Traveler's Guide to the End of the World tells a story of climate crisis that will both entertain and shake people awake to the necessity of navigating this new age together.

"[ Gessner’s] books and essays have in many ways redefined what it means to write about the natural world, coaxing the genre from a staid, sometimes wonky practice to one that is lively and often raucous." The Washington Post

"A master of the art of telling humorous and thought-provoking narratives about unusual people in out-of-the way-places." The San Francisco Chronicle

"The Clash were called 'the only band that matters.' When it comes to climate, Gessner is the only writer who matters. Others write book reports on global warming, spewing statistics. Gessner immerses himself, gets to know the people most affected while telling their stories, writing from inside the crisis." Mark Spitzer, author of Monster Fishing the World and Back

For twenty-five years David Gessner has reported from climate hotspots, from the Gulf of Mexico during the BP oil spill to fracking towns and fires in the West to the fragile Outer Banks. He has been recognized for changing the face of nature writing, both in his own work and through the magazine he founded, Ecotone. Gessner is the author of twelve books that blend a love of nature, humor, memoir, and environmentalism, including the New York Times bestseller All the Wild That Remains, Leave It As It Is: A Journey Through Theodore Roosevelt's American Wilderness, and his latest, Quiet Desperation, Savage Delight: Sheltering with Thoreau in the Age of Crisis.

A professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, his magazine publications include pieces in the New York Times Magazine, Sierra, Audubon, Orion, and many other magazines, and his prizes include a Pushcart Prize and the John Burroughs Award for Best Nature Essay for his essay "Learning to Surf." He has received the Association for Study of Literature and the Environment's award for best book of creative writing, and the Reed Award for Best Book on the Southern Environment. In 2017 he hosted the National Geographic Explorer show, "The Call of the Wild." He is married to the novelist Nina de Gramont.