for the book project. Travels with National Geographic In order to more fully understand the travails of the sailors, King decided to personally retrace their struggles through the desert. He planned the trip for a year. The trip cost about $20,000, by King's estimate. National Geographic Adventure magazine paid part of the cost, and the rest came from an advance from King's publisher. The trip was scheduled for the week after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and King and his crew landed in Casablanca the day the United States started bombing Afghanistan. From Casablanca they flew to Western Sahara, a disputed territory now controlled by Morocco, where the nervous military police occasionally hindered their attempts to follow Riley's exact route. Also on the team were neighbor Ted Lawrence and Lawrence's wife Claudia D'Andrea. Both had experience doing peacekeeping work in East Timor. J.P. Kang served as their technology specialist and Remi Bengali served as their National Geographic photographer. Their guides were Ali and Mohammed el Arab. Journey by camel They traveled more than 100 miles across the western Sahara Desert on foot and by camel in order to experience a similar journey to Captain Riley. While they tried to avoid dangerous extremes of dehydration, starvation, and sunburn, King claims they experienced eerily similar events to Riley, King even falling off his camel in an identical way. King subjected himself to running barefoot across burning sand and sharp rocks, and scaling dangerous cliffs. He also endured the camel's torturous gait, called "the rack". "It was brutal," King says. "After [riding for] 20 miles, I was bleeding through a hole in my back. It was like sitting on a jackhammer." King was surprised to see that much of the land had stayed relatively unchanged since 1815. Publishing The book was published by Little, Brown, & Co. on February 16, 2004. By April 2004, the paperback edition was on the San Francisco Chronicles non-fiction bestseller list at No.6, and was climbing The New York Times Extended Bestseller List at No. 20. In the non-fiction category the book was #13 on the Book Sense national bestseller list, #5 on Southeast Booksellers AssociatioN list, #15 on the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Association, #11 at the Northern California Booksellers Association, #13 at the Southern California Booksellers Association, and #10 at the New Atlantic Booksellers Association bestsellers list. In November 2004, Amazon.com listed Skeletons of the Zahara