Mark Adams

American journalist and author whose Turn Right at Machu Picchu retraces Hiram Bingham's 1911 journey through the Peruvian Andes.

Mark Adams is an American journalist and author who has written for publications including New York magazine, GQ, and Outside. Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time (2011) was his first book and became a New York Times bestseller.

The book follows Adams — a self-described non-adventurous travel writer who has spent his career behind a desk — as he retraces the footsteps of Hiram Bingham III, the Yale professor who ‘discovered’ Machu Picchu in 1911. Adams’s journey, guided by a veteran Australian explorer named John Leivers, takes him through remote Andean villages, across high-altitude passes, and through the rugged terrain that connects Cusco to the citadel that Bingham made famous.

Adams weaves together his own physical misadventures with the historical account of Bingham’s expeditions and the ongoing controversy about whether Bingham ‘discovered’ Machu Picchu at all — or merely brought it to Western attention after the local Quechua people had known it for centuries.

The Reluctant Adventurer

Much of the charm and effectiveness of Adams’s writing flows from the persona he adopts: the self-deprecating, decidedly unheroic everyman who has spent his career as a desk-bound travel editor commissioning and polishing other people’s adventures rather than undertaking his own. This stance is both genuine and a clever narrative device, allowing readers to experience the rigors of high-altitude Andean trekking through the eyes of someone as soft, out of shape, and ill-prepared as they themselves might be, rather than through the unrelatable competence of a hardened explorer. Adams plays his own incompetence, anxiety, and physical suffering for comedy throughout, and his bemused observations about blisters, altitude sickness, dubious food, and his own poor fitness provide a steady stream of humor that keeps the narrative buoyant even as it covers serious historical and cultural ground. The contrast between Adams and his guide, the laconic, supremely capable Australian explorer John Leivers, is a particular source of comic and human interest, the relationship between the bumbling writer and the unflappable bushman giving the book a memorable double act. This self-aware, comic vulnerability is central to Adams’s appeal, disarming the reader and making the educational and historical content go down easily, and it has become a hallmark of his distinctive approach to travel writing.

History, Mystery, and the Question of Discovery

Beneath its comic surface, Turn Right at Machu Picchu engages seriously with history and with the genuinely fraught question of what it means to “discover” a place. Adams interweaves his own present-day journey with a richly detailed account of Hiram Bingham III, the Yale academic and explorer, sometimes cited as an inspiration for the fictional Indiana Jones, whose 1911 expedition brought Machu Picchu to international attention. In tracing Bingham’s story, Adams confronts the central controversy surrounding the site’s fame: the fact that the local Quechua people had long known of the ruins, so that Bingham’s celebrated “discovery” was in truth a matter of bringing an already-known place to Western and global awareness, raising enduring questions about credit, colonialism, and whose knowledge counts. Adams also grapples with the lingering mysteries of Machu Picchu itself, its purpose, its abandonment, and its place within the vast Inca world, drawing on the work of archaeologists and historians to illuminate what is known and what remains uncertain. This braiding of personal narrative, biographical history, and archaeological mystery gives the book intellectual substance to match its entertainment value, and Adams’s willingness to interrogate the romantic mythology of exploration, rather than simply celebrating it, lends the work a thoughtful, contemporary sensibility.

A Distinctive Voice in Travel Writing

Mark Adams has established himself as a distinctive and engaging voice in contemporary travel writing through a winning formula that combines genuine adventure, accessible history, self-deprecating humor, and intellectual curiosity. Turn Right at Machu Picchu became a New York Times bestseller and demonstrated his gift for the kind of travel narrative that educates and entertains in equal measure, taking readers to a remarkable place while exploring its history and the larger questions it raises. He has continued in this vein with subsequent books that apply the same approach, the reluctant-everyman explorer investigating a place of historical and mythological fascination, to other subjects, including a search for the lost city of Atlantis and an examination of the history and culture of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Across this body of work, Adams writes as an intelligent, curious generalist standing in for the armchair traveler, immersing himself in his subjects, consulting experts, and reporting back with humor and insight. His books occupy the appealing territory of narrative nonfiction that wears its learning lightly, offering the pleasures of adventure and discovery alongside genuine historical and cultural education. Adams has carved out a recognizable niche as a writer who makes history and exploration accessible, entertaining, and humane, and his work has earned him a devoted readership among those who enjoy travel writing with both brains and a sense of humor.

Where to Start with Adams

The essential starting point is Turn Right at Machu Picchu, his bestselling debut and the book that established his distinctive voice, which best showcases his blend of genuine Andean adventure, accessible history, self-deprecating humor, and thoughtful engagement with the mysteries and controversies of one of the world’s most famous archaeological sites. New readers should approach it expecting an entertaining and educational narrative led by a likable, bumbling everyman rather than a tale of heroic derring-do, an approach that makes the book’s substantial historical and cultural content both painless and genuinely illuminating. Those who enjoy it and want more should explore his subsequent works, including Meet Me in Atlantis, his investigation into the enduring myth of the lost city, and Tip of the Iceberg, his journey through the history and landscapes of Alaska, both of which apply the same appealing formula to new subjects. Readers who enjoy narrative nonfiction that combines travel, history, and humor in the accessible tradition of writers like Bill Bryson will find Adams a kindred and rewarding voice. But Turn Right at Machu Picchu is the ideal introduction, the book that launched his career and remains his most beloved, an entertaining and surprisingly substantial journey to a place of genuine wonder.