About Hidden Travel
Everything you ever wanted to know about Stephen W. Brock and Hidden Travel: The Secret to Extraordinary Trips. Well, almost everything...
Hidden Travel Book Summary (short):
Hidden Travel: The Secret to Extraordinary Trips is "a different species of travel book." It doesn't tell you where to go or what to do. It shows you how to travel. Not in the ordinary way. But in an extraordinary manner that will help any traveler, from beginner to road warrior, get more out of each trip—and their life. Whether on a trip around the world or just around the corner, Hidden Travel provides surprising insights, tips, resources and exercises to help you discover and experience fully what matters most to you, wherever you go, even at home.
Hidden Travel Book Summary (medium):
Hidden Travel: The Secret to Extraordinary Trips helps you to experience your best trip—and more.
Have you ever had a magic moment on a trip that moved you so much, you knew you’d remember it forever? Hidden Travel will show you how to experience more of such moments anywhere you go. In this book, you’ll discover a form of travel — and living — many long for, but few find. While most guidebooks reveal sights that matter to others, Hidden Travel teaches you how to find what matters to you—on trips around the world or just around the corner.
Discover hidden places of wonder and hidden wonder in ordinary places to transform your trips — and your life.
Hidden Travel Book Summary (long):
Have you ever had a magic moment on a trip that so moved you, you knew you'd remember it forever? Hidden Travel: The Secret to Extraordinary Trips shows you how to experience more such moments anywhere, even at home. While most guidebooks reveal sights that matter to others, Hidden Travel: The Way to More teaches you how to find what matters to you, on trips around the world or just around the corner. It's about using travel to get enough distance from your ordinary life to realize just how extraordinary it is. In so doing, you’ll also discover more: more meaning, adventure, relationships, purpose, creativity, fulfillment, joy or whatever you want more of in your life.
Through stories, insights, research findings and exercises gleaned from 40 years of travel to over 50 countries, you'll learn how to:
- Experience a different, more meaningful kind of travel many long for but few find.
- Discover hidden places of wonder and hidden wonder in ordinary places.
- Turn your trip into a learning laboratory to try out new interests and personas.
- Use unusual quests and questions to connect deeply with locals — even if you’re an introvert.
- Grow your confidence and courage on a trip in safe, fun, and exciting ways.
- Know what the happiest part of any trip is and how to cultivate more joy.
- Turn the inevitable bad times on a trip into great moments and memories.
- Develop new ways of seeing that involve all your senses.
- Do a volunteer vacation in a way that helps rather than hurts.
- Pack better by leaving behind unhelpful baggage, both physical and emotional.
- Experience and even create magic moments for you and others anywhere.
- End any trip well by practicing this one secret.
- Apply your trip to your life so that each day at home feels more like an adventure.
Whether you're just beginning or are into adventure travel, family travel, slow travel, sustainable travel or your own form of independent travel, this book offers a refreshingly different way to approach travel and life. It’s an inspiring perspective that works even when you can’t travel.
With short, easy-to-read sections and inspiring photos, this book makes the perfect gift for you or that special traveler in your life who desires both a better way to travel and a more adventurous way to live.
You can get a copy of Hidden Travel: The Secret to Extraordinary Trips here:
Amazon (or if you're outside the US, use this link to get to your Amazon store)
About the author
Stephen W. Brock bio (short)
Writer, photographer and branding expert Stephen W. Brock is the author of Hidden Travel: The Secret to Extraordinary Trips and has written for National Geographic, Matador and many others, in addition to his popular website on the intersection of travel and creativity, www.ExploreYourWorlds.com. He has traveled to over 50 countries in search of hidden places, unlikely encounters and great gelato. He helps travelers and explorers of all levels to think differently about travel by connecting the world around them with the world within them. He lives near Seattle, Washington with his wife and favorite traveling companion (who fortunately is the same person).
Stephen W. Brock bio (long)
Writer, photographer and branding expert Stephen W. Brock has traveled to over 50 countries in search of hidden places, unlikely encounters and great gelato. Through his website, www.ExploreYourWorlds.com and his book, Hidden Travel: The Secret to Extraordinary Trips, he helps travelers and explorers connect where they go with what they love most. To paraphrase an old branding line, he doesn’t make people’s trips. He makes people’s trips better. He does so by helping them to focus on what truly matters and to think in new, unexpected ways about travel and life.
As one of the nation’s leading branding practitioners, Brock’s job is to see things differently. He works with some of the country’s top corporations and nonprofit organizations to help them articulate the hidden essence of a company and the deep emotional bonds people form with brands. He has combined this professional expertise with almost 40 years traveling the world to reveal a different way to think about travel and to help people connect the world in them with the world around them. He writes and photographs for multiple travel publications such as National Geographic, Matador and others, as well as at www.ExploreYourWorlds.com.
In addition, Brock graduated magna cum laude with Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Redlands (California) with a Bachelor of Arts undergraduate degree in Economics and German. He also holds an MBA in Global Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Phoenix, Arizona where he specialized in marketing, Pacific Rim studies and Mandarin Chinese. He has two grown sons and lives near Seattle, Washington with his wife and favorite traveling companion (who fortunately is the same person).
Author photos
Contact Information
steve at exploreyourworlds dot com
253.735.7990
www.instagram.com/meaningfultrav
www.facebook.com/meaningfultrav
Reviews and comments
"Travel guides have always been about where and what and when. But what we've always needed was a book about how to travel: How do you get the most out of a vacation? How can you discover more? Cherish your time more? Make more connections? Hidden Travel explores how to travel. It's a gem of a book -- both practical and entertaining -- and it will certainly get you excited about your next adventure."
Dan Heath, New York Times bestselling co-author of The Power of Moments and Made to Stick
Brock, a writer and photographer who has published in National Geographic, encourages experienced and potential globetrotters to focus on the journey rather than the destination. This guide delights with its stunning chronicles of Brock’s visits to extraordinary sites, delicious samples of his travel photography, and his invaluable tips and tricks for turning a vacation into a search for “more.” More means more excitement, more adventure, and more meaning. What makes this guide and travelogue a true gem, though, is its usefulness not just for transcontinental vacations but also to daily living.
Between the specific trip guidance and the dazzling photography, Hidden Travel will inspire wanderlust not just for grand excursions but also the everyday. Brock offers an exercise in appreciation, preserving the moment, and articulating what it is that you want, making this an inviting read for explorers, adventurers, or those just seeking a more purposeful way of living.
Takeaway: This travel book offers meaningful advice and stunning photographs for those planning a trip or just looking for more from life.
Great for fans of: Alain de Botton’s The Art of Travel, Rolf Potts’s Vagabonding.
BookLife (Editor's Pick)
"...A lively, inspiring guide to adventurous tourism."
Kirkus Reviews
“Here it is: a beautiful book that captures with exquisite writing the soulful process of finding yourself in a new place that is not home—but still somehow feeling at home. Hidden Travel is an invitation to a deeper kind of living and looking at the world, and that includes yourself.”
Jeff Goins, bestselling author of The Art of Work
"Hidden Travel shows you how to rejuvenate your adventures in a way to make it feel like your 37th trip is just as special as the first time you ever stepped foot on a plane. The perspective Stephen W. Brock shares about how to discover magic in the seemingly mundane has you exponentially more excited about the travels — to literally anywhere — you have on the horizon. I picked up this book up to learn how to travel better, but part of the way through, I realized that I was actually learning how to live each day of my life — moment to moment — with a renewed sense of wonder and excitement."
Erica Virvo Hackman, Director of The Nomadic Network, Nomadic Matt
“Brock’s book functions on a great premise – there are many travel guides, but most of them are based on tourism, rather than meaningful and memorable travel experiences…This book focuses on creating personalized, intimate travel experiences that deeply move and transform travelers rather than simply lead to requisite photo ops…This book is gorgeously laid out, well-written and thoughtfully pieced together. It offers a novel approach to traditional travel advice, with the intention of opening the reader up to the possibilities presented by travel, be it international or local.”
BookLife Prize
"I loved so many things about this book, in part because it’s not just about a way of traveling, but a way of living your life with a combination of good planning and observant expectancy. So everything in it is applicable now and here. I came to the book for the travel tips, I stayed for the life tips!!"
Sara Marlin, President of BLOOM
“Hidden Travel made me think about travel in a way I’d never before considered. It’s a whole new approach to travel and really, to life. Using clear points and personal experiences, Stephen W. Brock guides the reader to a new, philosophical understanding of travel that can also be applied to just plain living—even while at home.”
Rick Rosenkranz, award-winning author of the Luminarium series
“I had to set my iPad down as I read the chapter on magic moments because it forced me to recall the most meaningful experiences on my past trips. It was hard to do at first, but then it all came to me and was incredibly powerful. I love this book.”
Elisa Morgan, speaker and author of The Beauty of Broken
“Hidden Travel shows the reader how to uncover secret hidden places and wonders, defines a lifestyle of travel, and takes the reader on a journey of discovery. From a lifetime of travel experience, Steve Brock, brand guru and marketing genius, encourages all in the pursuit of more.”
Brett Heaston, world traveler and writer
“Stephen W. Brock tapped into a lot of outside research for this book. To me, that’s a twofold issue. It could feel like just more self-help points. But then Brock provided surprising twists and clarifying details that connected it all, along with stories from his adventures around the world that show he knows what he’s talking about. It worked well. I got both, big picture and helpful nuance. Great writing and images.”
Jack Fortin, author of The Centered Life
