Great Travel Books
For travelers, and everyone else...
My favorite editor, yes truly, favorite one, asked me to contribute (along with him and his team of wonderful writers) to a list of the 100 Greatest Travel Books. I loved thinking about my entries, remembering where I was when I read them…what they inspired me to do and where they sent me off into the world. For fun, here are some of the Greatest Travel Books and my thoughts about them…
Please let me know some of your favorites in the comments…
CORFU TRILOGY / GERALD DURRELL
Corfu Trilogy (My Family and Other Animals, Bird’s Beasts and Relatives and The Garden of the Gods), written by lifelong explorer and naturalist Durrell, in that oddly familiar smiley-humorous way. It’s in essence the perfect translation of just about anyone’s childhood — the constant amazement, the forever wonder, the endless promise of possibility, the eccentric friends your parents had (add their pets too) plus the sure sense of the value of the present moment. These three books, best read in tandem, are wickedly funny (even if you’re a stalwart) and Corfu presents itself as the perfect travel representation island for a fantasia that adulthood erases.
A WINTER IN ARABIA / FREYA STARK
If only we had many many more female travel writers from the last century, their far flung excursions sparse because of the mores of the times, but their perspectives so unique and unfussy. In 1937-38, Stark traveled with two companions across what is now Yemen, a land that was then so exotic and removed from most people’s experience as to be mythical. She articulates the breathtaking landscape, archaeology and history of a place she described as “nakedness is clothed in shreds of departed splendor,”, where rival tribes fight mortally and women engage in elaborate beauty rituals, as they had for millenia.
POINT TO POINT NAVIGATION / GORE VIDAL
The title refers to the way one would steer a ship, without navigation. Ah the beauty of Vidal, to dub his memoir something so mystical and humble. Adroitly a travel book, this is perhaps the greatest travel book of all — a life lived across the world (Italy, Hollywood, strangest America and more) with reflections no single mind would be able to conjure up — bar Gore Vidal. What makes this both worthy of a travel book — one with wit no less — is the observations from the road, reminding even the freest. most frequent traveler to pay better attention. That’s the very point of travel is it not, to put away your arrogant knowledge and to stand hands unclenched, arms open to the wind as it teaches you to let go, and live?
BURMESE DAYS / GEORGE ORWELL
The decline of the British empire through the eyes of a great dystopian writer, all set and as seen in Burma, which is today Myanmar. Part of travel is the understanding that colonialism created so much of what we love and loathe on the road, and here Orwell scratches hard at, and writhes with, this very human conflict.
EAT PRAY LOVE / ELIZABETH GILBERT
Hate it or love it. This travel memoir through eating in Italy, praying in India and finding love in Indonesia sent millions of women on their own journeys. Mostly predictable, that really isn’t the point of this book. The fundamental desire to be happy, in such blatant form, is just what the world needs. And therefore, possibly one of the most important books yet.
STATES OF DESIRE / EDMUND WHITE
How did the gays live in the late seventies? Edmund White will tell you. It’s an all male entourage of promiscuous deliciousness and finally a real picture of Gay America before Gay marriage and Gay liberation.
CLOUD ATLAS / DAVID MITCHELL
Spanning five centuries, Mitchell’s most ambitious work is complex and fantastical. Don’t try too hard to follow the narrative, which arcs from 19th century South pacific to a post apocalyptic future (is there ever any other kind, by the way? Doesn’t someone think the future will be nice?) Instead, live inside the madness and the beauty of what is in front of you. The impact of your life, on the next life, and so forth, becomes the greatest story ever told without ever telling you so.
THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES / JOHN BOYNE
From Ireland, to Holland, all the way to New York, this account of love and finding and losing true love transcends borders — but remains so rooted in the ages and hearts of these three iconic places on the globe. You will laugh, you will sob and at some point you will throw the book against the wall and probably scream.
A SUPPOSEDLY FUN THING, I’LL NEVER DO AGAIN / DAVID FOSTER WALLACE
Travel is hell. Fatally troubled genius Foster Wallace’s “essays and arguments” on the Illinois State Fair and a Caribbean cruise, among other sojourns, are the essence of belly-laughter travel writing. Oh the joys of satire… And maybe hope for hell.
THE VOYAGE OUT / VIRGINIA WOOLF
Woolf’s first novel, this journey of self discovery by boat to South America is every trip you’ve ever been on that’s stayed with you. A melange of characters all mixed up to make things interesting, an ode of joy to youth and adventure, with a tang of awful sadness.
LOCAL COLOR / TRUMAN CAPOTE
Of course Capote’s third published book is a collection of honest, vivid, and romantic travel essays – from Hollywood to Spain, Italy, Morocco, Haiti and all the way back to New Orleans. But the caveat here is, that most avid readers believed that the book was simply a myth, and never actually existed. In truth, simply 200 copies were ever printed. If you can get your hands on this rare find it’s Capote pomp, it’s Capote ceremony, with, of course, the perfect hint of Capote bitchiness before he found his real wit-filled voice.
A FIELD GUIDE TO GETTING LOST / REBECCA SOLNIT
Once in a while you need a break from maps, right? Life doesn’t have one anyway. Solnit’s autobiographical essays remind us that in order to find yourself, you may have to lose yourself first.
LONELY PLANET’S FIRST EDITION: ACROSS ASIA ON THE CHEAP / TONY WHEELER
Today the franchise is everything we despise about travel — preconceived judgments, and too many guidebooks for everything. It’s also ubiquitous — every hotel library in the world, every backpacker on the plane and every weird touristy cafe has it. But when this first edition came out in 1973, a guide book for hippies by hippies, it opened up a whole new world of guide-chaperoned travel. Who would have a whole chapter devoted to “Dope” in 2018?
It offers just the right amount of nostalgia — telling you where to mail your postcards — and was at the same time the best and most enjoyable kind of first hand, experiential reporting, like waiting on the Afghan Border for the authorities to return and let them in, and meeting a group of Americans also killing time. (When Wheeler asks them what they’ve been doing, one replies “blowing a little dope with customs”.) And it’s also a reminder that the Internet can easily be the travel buzzkill if you’re not careful. A worthy throwback — let it just lay in the back of your mind and stew quietly.
THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY / PATRICIA HIGHSMITH
Italy in the sexiest way you could imagine. Everything you love about Italy — and then some — including sex, more sex, food, the sea, handsome men, gorgeous wooden yachts, glamorous cars and equally fabulous fashion. It’s sickening and delicious, as it forces you to unwrap and unclothe your own lies about yourself.
TRAVEL AS A POLITICAL ACT / RICK STEVES
The Steves Empire may be large and you may get lost in all that patronizing jazz. However, this book (now in its 3rd edition) is a reminder that most people in the world aren’t natural travelers — most people don’t actually travel at all. And so Steves is that reminder for the Mcdonald’s eating tourist in France, and the Starbucks guzzler in Asia, that the reason we travel is to expand our minds and range of experiences.
ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE / ROBERT M. PIRSIG
From Minnesota to Northern California by motorcycle. What could possibly go wrong? Or right, for that matter? The ultimate travel by thinking and philosophizing book, set in an America that now feels a little distant. It’s not about zen or motorcycles, but that’s the whole point really. And you knew that.
Yes, many of these are fine but the ones I remember were the Frommer books: Europe on $5 a day, I guess that the last one was $100 a day. These were our bibles in 1966 when I lived in Belgium. Of course we would arrive at a restaurant to see other Americans filling the place, also clutching the guidebook!
Great list