Levison Wood embarks on South American adventure with E&T
Elliott &Thompson has announced the publication of South America: A Journey Through the Land of Gold by Levison Wood. Director Jennie Condell and publishing director Sarah Rigby bought world rights from Jo Cantello of Wolfsong Media. It will be out in hardback and ebook on 14 January 2027, and next year there will be a new four-part series, Levison Wood’s South American Adventure, on 5.
‘In November 2025, with his friend Alberto by his side, Levison Wood embarks on his longest journey yet: 10,000 miles and seven countries, travelling the entire length of South America. From the Darién Gap in Colombia, he moves by foot, horse, canoe, boat, train, motorbike, helicopter, bus and truck to reach the wild and windswept tip of the continent: Tierra del Fuego. In this gruelling, at times brutal, expedition the ex-paratrooper traverses the dense jungle of the Brazilian Amazon, scales the perilous mountain passes of the high Andes of Peru and crosses the barren Atacama Desert in Chile. He meets illegal gold miners, special forces, drug lords, shamans and scientists. He witnesses the US military build-up in Venezuela. He rides horses with gauchos in Argentina. And he finds a continent filled with mystery, history and conflict, along with some of the most welcoming people in the world.’
Levison Wood is a world-renowned explorer and author of acclaimed and bestselling books including Walking the Nile and Walking the Americas. He said: “I’m incredibly excited to finally share this journey and the stories we brought back from South America. In Venezuela we found a town where gold is still weighed out to pay for food. In the Peruvian Amazon we travelled into illegal mining country, where mercury is poisoning the rivers. In Bolivia we went underground at Potosí, where men are still mining the mountain that once bankrolled an empire. Along the way there were cocaine routes, political upheaval, jungle ceremonies, the Death Road on motorbikes, six-thousand-metre mountains and, finally, the long road through Patagonia to Tierra del Fuego, the end of the world.
“But gold is only one part of the story. The real heart of the book is the people we met along the way – miners, Indigenous communities, shamans, guides, soldiers, farmers, conservationists and strangers who took us in – and the friendship between two men who are ten years older, and perhaps only marginally wiser than when they started.”
Condell says
“Ten years on from his Sunday Times bestseller Walking the Americas, Levison Wood continues that extraordinary journey to reach the very tip of South America. This is exhilarating adventure travel at its best: Levison takes us to some of the most extreme and fascinating places on earth, in prose so effortlessly transporting I felt like I was there with him every step of the way. This is the inspirational read we all need right now and we couldn’t be more thrilled to be bringing Levison’s major new expedition to his many fans around the world.”