In a world ever more congested and polluted with both toxins and noise, award-winning photographer Pete McBride takes readers on a once-in-a-lifetime escape to find places of peace and quiet-a pole-to-pole, continent-by-continent quest for the soul.

We tend to think of silence as the absence of sound, but it is actually the void where we can hear the sublime notes of nature. Here, photographer Pete McBride reveals the wonders of these hushed places in spectacular imagery-from the thin-air flanks of Mount Everest to the depths of the Grand Canyon, from the high-altitude vistas of the Atacama to the African savannah, and from the Antarctic Peninsula to the flowing waters of the Ganges and Nile.

These places remind us of the magic of being "truly away" and how such places are vanishing. Often showing beauty from vantages where no other photographer has ever stood, this is a seven-continent visual tour of global quietude--and the power in nature's own sounds-that will both inspire and calm.