Travel opens up time for reading for most people. Maybe there is just more time during a long flight, bus ride or train ride. Or maybe you just have some time spent on the beach that you rather spend reading. For me, I like to read all year round, just as much as I like to travel all year round. And, I have read quite a few books that ignite wanderlust. That’s why we feel like we are the perfect resource when looking for the very best books to read when travelling.
Are you looking for inspiration and amazing books you haven’t read yet? Look no further! Here are a few tips. These are the best books to read while travelling, whether you’re camping, backpacking, travelling by train, or going on a beach vacation. These books will keep your wanderlust alive and kicking!
The best books to read while travelling
We’ve curated a diverse selection of great books that are perfect companions for your travels. From thrilling adventures to heartwarming stories, our list covers a wide range of genres to suit every reader’s preference. These books are carefully chosen to transport you to different worlds, evoke your imagination, and keep you entertained during your journey. Whether you’re on a plane, train, or relaxing by the beach, these literary gems will provide the perfect escape and make your travel experience even more enriching. So, pack your bags, grab a book from our list, and get ready to immerse yourself in a world of endless possibilities and literary delights.
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$19.00$9.56Have a look!In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction—at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful—and completely unforgettable.
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10/07/2024 09:26 pm GMT -
$18.99$11.32Have a look!One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendiá family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad and alive with unforgettable men and women—brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul—this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.
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10/07/2024 09:25 pm GMT -
$17.00$11.61Have a look!Douglas Adams’s mega-selling pop-culture classic sends logic into orbit, plays havoc with both time and physics, offers up pithy commentary on such things as ballpoint pens, potted plants, and digital watches . . . and, most important, reveals the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything.
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10/07/2024 09:25 pm GMT -
$23.00$12.99Have a look!An escaped convict with a false passport, Lin flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of Bombay, where he can disappear. Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter the city’s hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere.
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10/07/2024 09:25 pm GMT -
$20.00$9.79Have a look!Turn Right at Machu Picchu is Adams’ fascinating and funny account of his journey through some of the world’s most majestic, historic, and remote landscapes guided only by a hard-as-nails Australian survivalist and one nagging question: Just what was Machu Picchu?
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10/07/2024 09:26 pm GMT -
$18.00$10.59Have a look!After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, acclaimed writer David Grann set out to determine what happened to the British explorer Percy Fawcett and his quest for the Lost City of Z. For centuries Europeans believed the Amazon, the world’s largest rain forest, concealed the glittering kingdom of El Dorado. Thousands had died looking for it, leaving many scientists convinced that the Amazon was truly inimical to humankind. In 1925 Fawcett ventured into the Amazon to find an ancient civilization, hoping to make one of the most important discoveries in history. Then he vanished. Over the years countless perished trying to find evidence of his party and the place he called “The Lost City of Z.”
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10/07/2024 09:26 pm GMT -
$14.95$10.22Have a look!At the age of twenty-three, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado set out from their native Argentina to explore their continent, with only a single 1939 Norton motorcycle to carry them, nicknamed La Poderosa ('the powerful one').
They travelled not to visit the usual tourist attractions, but to meet ordinary people and understand Latin American life. In amidst the tales of youthful adventures - of women, wine, thrilling escapes and the power of friendship - the young Che also learns first-hand about poverty, philosophy and philosophy and forms himself into the man who would become the world's most famous and admired revolutionary and freedom fighter.
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10/07/2024 09:26 pm GMT -
$17.99$10.99Have a look!Steven Callahan shares his dramatic tale of survival at sea in this undeniable seafaring classic. His engrossing firsthand account reveals how he survived more than a month alone at sea, fighting for his life in an inflatable raft after his small sloop capsized only six days out. “Utterly absorbing” (Newsweek), Adrift is a must-have for any adventure library.
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10/07/2024 09:27 pm GMT -
$17.00$13.74Have a look!The astonishing adventure classic about life in Tibet just before the Chinese Communist takeover is now repackaged for a new generation of readers.
In this vivid memoir that has sold millions of copies worldwide, Heinrich Harrer recounts his adventures as one of the first Europeans ever to enter Tibet and encounter the Dalai Lama.
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10/07/2024 09:26 pm GMT -
$24.00$11.49Have a look!Inexperienced and woefully ill-prepared, the amateur explorers embarked on a month of adventure and hardship in one of the most beautiful and challenging wildernesses on earth. With self-deprecating humour, sharp wit and keen observation, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush made Newby's reputation as one of the greatest travel writers of all time.
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10/07/2024 10:23 pm GMT -
$12.99Have a look!
On his forty-forth birthday, Eric Newby sets out on an incredible journey: to travel the 1,200-mile length of India's holy river. In a misguided attempt to keep him out of trouble, Wanda, his life-long travel companion and wife, is to be his fellow boatwoman. Their plan is to begin in the great plain of Hardwar and finish in the Bay of Bengal, but the journey almost immediately becomes markedly slower and more treacherous than either had imagined - running aground sixty-three times in the first six days.
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10/07/2024 10:23 pm GMT -
$18.99$10.91Have a look!In the early seventies, Bill Bryson backpacked across Europe—in search of enlightenment, beer, and women. He was accompanied by an unforgettable sidekick named Stephen Katz (who will be gloriously familiar to readers of Bryson's A Walk in the Woods). Twenty years later, he decided to retrace his journey. The result is the affectionate and riotously funny Neither Here Nor There.
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10/07/2024 10:24 pm GMT -
$15.99$9.97Have a look!Step inside this captivating account of Coelho’s pilgrimage along the road to Santiago. This fascinating parable explores the need to find one’s own path. In the end, we discover that the extraordinary is always found in the ordinary and simple ways of everyday people. Part adventure story, part guide to self-discovery, this compelling tale delivers the perfect combination of enchantment and insight.
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10/07/2024 09:27 pm GMT -
$18.99$8.02Have a look!Three friends, each on the brink of a quarter-life crisis, make a pact to quit their high pressure New York City media jobs and leave behind their friends, boyfriends, and everything familiar to embark on a year-long backpacking adventure around the world in The Lost Girls.
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10/07/2024 10:24 pm GMT -
$19.00$16.18Have a look!The bestselling, award-winning author of Bad Land takes us along the Inside Passage, 1,000 miles of often treacherous water, which he navigates solo in a 35-foot sailboat, offering captivating discourses on art, philosophy, and navigation and an unsparing narrative of personal loss.
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10/07/2024 10:24 pm GMT -
$9.99Have a look!
This novel, initially published in 1908, follows the story of Lucy Honeychurch, a young English woman on a trip to Italy with her cousin and chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett. It is here that she is exposed to new people and new experiences which broaden her horizons far beyond the narrow social views of her upper-class English background. It is here she meets the Emersons, a father and son, who have a profound impact on her life. Back home in England, Lucy becomes engaged to an appropriate young man, Cecil Vyse, but her world is thrown into disarray by the re-emergence of the Emersons. Now, she must choose between the safety of the world she has grown up in and the one of her heart’s true desire.
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10/07/2024 10:24 pm GMT -
$19.99$11.74Have a look!Of all Michael Palin's epic voyages, this may be his greatest ever challenge: crossing the vast and unforgiving Sahara Desert. From the westernmost point of Senegal to Libya's Mediterranean beaches, Sahara is a journey full of beauty, excitement, danger - and plenty of camel stew.
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10/07/2024 10:25 pm GMT -
$18.90Have a look!
Just after midnight, the famous Orient Express is stopped in its tracks by a snowdrift. By morning, the millionaire Samuel Edward Ratchett lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. Without a shred of doubt, one of his fellow passengers is the murderer.
Isolated by the storm, detective Hercule Poirot must find the killer among a dozen of the dead man’s enemies, before the murderer decides to strike again.
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10/07/2024 10:24 pm GMT -
$18.00$12.58Have a look!Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love touched the world and changed countless lives, inspiring and empowering millions of readers to search for their own best selves. Now, this beloved and iconic book returns in a beautiful 10th anniversary edition, complete with an updated introduction from the author, to launch a whole new generation of fans.
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10/07/2024 10:24 pm GMT -
$14.95$11.59Have a look!An account of the author's two month journey in 1987 chasing the summer monsoon through India, from its "burst" near the southernmost tip of the country to its grand finale in a remote hill town on the Bangladeshi border
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10/07/2024 10:25 pm GMT -
$17.00$15.49Have a look!In this witty and warm-hearted account, Peter Mayle tells what it is like to realize a long-cherished dream and actually move into a 200-year-old stone farmhouse in the remote country of the Lubéron with his wife and two large dogs.
He endures January's frosty mistral as it comes howling down the Rhône Valley, discovers the secrets of goat racing through the middle of town, and delights in the glorious regional cuisine. A Year in Provence transports us into all the earthy pleasures of Provençal life and lets us live vicariously at a tempo governed by seasons, not by days.
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10/07/2024 10:25 pm GMT -
$39.96$21.69Have a look!Scottish Highlands, 1945. Claire Randall, a former British combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding clans in the year of Our Lord . . . 1743. Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of a world that threatens her life, and may shatter her heart. Marooned amid danger, passion, and violence, her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives.
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10/07/2024 11:23 pm GMT -
$17.00$12.23Have a look!Rachel Friedman has always been the consummate good girl who does well in school and plays it safe, so the college grad surprises no one more than herself when, on a whim (and in an effort to escape impending life decisions), she buys a ticket to Ireland, a place she has never visited. There she forms an unlikely bond with a free-spirited Australian girl, a born adventurer who spurs Rachel on to a yearlong odyssey that takes her to three continents, fills her life with newfound friends, and gives birth to a previously unrealized passion for adventure.
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10/07/2024 11:23 pm GMT -
$16.00$8.25Have a look!The story of Christopher McCandless has been told worldwide. There have been documentaries and a movie about the young guy who breaks with society and escapes into the wild. The book is based on the real journal written by McCandless and you can read about the joy of his escape. He burns his money, credit cards, and passport in order to be completely free. Unfortunately, a few months later, the young man dies in the wild after eating poisonous berries. Read more about the possible how and why in this novel by Jon Krakauer.
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10/07/2024 11:24 pm GMT -
$18.00$9.99Have a look!Feel and absorb Italy through this delightfully written novel about life in a beautiful house in Tuscany. Under The Tuscan Sun describes the enchanted life one gets when moving into the house of their dreams and eating the food they love, all while living in Italy.
You can expect tons of mouthwatering food descriptions, finished off with a smudge of poetry.
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10/07/2024 10:25 pm GMT -
$23.77Have a look!
Nothing to Declare is the memoir of the journey of a young woman into the unknown. In her early thirties, the writer Mary Morris moves to a cute town in Mexico: San Miguel de Allende. She hasn’t been there and she’s all by herself. This novel follows her journey into a new life at a new place.
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10/07/2024 10:25 pm GMT -
$18.99$9.99Have a look!In this travel memoir, Eric Weiner is searching not only happiness, but especially the geographic location where people are happier. The Geography of Bliss is a humorous, but very real book about why people are happy in certain places. It’s interesting and entertaining for readers, because it has a mixture of science, humor, psychology, and of course: travel.
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10/07/2024 11:24 pm GMT -
$8.97Have a look!
This classic novel by Jules Verne is a travel book everyone should read at least once during their travels. In Around the World in 80 Days, a British adventurer takes on a bet from his friends. Can he travel around the world in 80 days with his French Valet Passepartout on 20.000 British Pounds?
If you like adventurous tales and you don’t mind being transported into the 19th century, then don’t skip this exciting novel!
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10/07/2024 11:23 pm GMT -
$20.00$8.07Have a look!Down under – In a Sunburned Country is a travel memoir by the renowned travel writer Bill Bryson. His other novels are super popular worldwide and this book is just as funny and well-written!
If you plan on traveling to Australia someday, make sure to read this book before you leave. It will offer you tons of valuable insights and interesting facts. Plus, chances are good that you’ll laugh out loud while reading it!
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10/07/2024 11:24 pm GMT -
$9.99$9.29Have a look!More Bill Bryson with this fantastic travel memoir: A Walk in the Woods. In this novel, Bryson goes on a journey in his own back yard. Together with an old travel companion, he decides to walk the Appalachian Trail in the United States, which is located literally in his own back yard! Walk along the paths with stunning scenery: beautiful mountain ranges, lakes and, forests.
A Walk in the Woods is an international best-selling book and it was the first Bill Bryson novel I ever read. I enjoyed reading it so much, I was certain that I would also love the other books by the same author. This travel novel is engaging, inspiring, and relaxing to read.
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10/07/2024 11:24 pm GMT -
$19.00$11.99Have a look!IN THREE WEEKS in April of 1951, Jack Kerouac wrote his first full draft of On the Road—typed as a single-spaced paragraph on eight long sheets of tracing paper, which he later taped together to form a 120-foot scroll. A major literary event when it was published in Viking hardcover in 2007, this is the uncut version of an American classic—rougher, wilder, and more provocative than the official work that appeared, heavily edited, in 1957. This version, capturing a moment in creative history, represents the first full expression of Kerouac’s revolutionary aesthetic.
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10/07/2024 11:24 pm GMT -
$6.99Have a look!
This epic novel tells the tale of an adventurous woman who sets off into the American Wild West. She leaves home on her own, with just her horse and some personal stuff in order to find ‘health’. The book is told through a series of letters, which sketch the beauty of the unspoiled landscape and the nature of true adventure.
In A lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, the main character Isabella encounters wild animals, like bears and snakes, but she also meets settlers and miners along the way.
Interested in reading more stories about this brave female adventurer traveling through unspoiled territory? Pick up the book!
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10/07/2024 11:25 pm GMT -
$25.00Have a look!
Compass Point is the autobiography of the author himself. Edward Hoagland has lived a rich and exciting life full of thrills and adventure. His other novels have also received 5-star reviews and this novel is an actual recapitulation of all of his experiences through life.
I haven’t read the book just yet, but I did add it to my reading list. So I can’t give you my own experience, but I believe I’m going to like it a lot.
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10/07/2024 11:25 pm GMT -
$17.99$14.39Have a look!If you ever traveled by train in Asia, The Great Railway Bazaar will probably bring back some memories about that journey. Even though this book was published over 3 decades ago, it’s still an interesting and entertaining story in which you can recognize the Asian cultures and way of life.
This novel will make you feel as if you’re the one traveling through Asia by rail. Follow Paul Theroux on the Orient Express, the Mandalay Express, the Trans-Siberian Express and a few other iconic railways!
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10/07/2024 11:25 pm GMT -
$18.99$12.89Have a look!Another readers’ favorite by Paul Theroux also takes the reader onto an Asian railway trip. Riding the Iron Rooster is a tale about an epic train journey through China and it’s one of three railway novels by the same author.
Just like we do, Paul Theroux also enjoys the charm of traveling by train in order to truly explore a culture from within. Follow this popular travel writer on a one-year journey through the vast country of China!
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10/07/2024 11:26 pm GMT -
$17.99Have a look!
Little Princes by Conor Grennan is a travel book that really grasped me by the throat. Starting out as a short-term volunteer in an orphanage in Nepal, Conor quickly gets emotionally attached to the young kids who have been purposefully orphaned. In fact, these kids didn’t lose their parents, but they were taken away by a child trafficker from their homes in the Nepalese mountains.
Conor can’t stand the thought and returns to the orphanage and starts a quest to find the parents of these lost children. He ventures out deep into the wild and pure landscape of Nepal and manages to find some of the parents whose children have been taken away.
This novel is a definite must-read, not just for travel enthusiasts!
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10/07/2024 11:25 pm GMT -
$16.79Have a look!
In My Life on the Road, Gloria Steinem sketched the funny and inspirational story of her life as she experiences it. After growing up in a family that used to travel as much as possible, she realizes that she wants to continue this lifestyle. She doesn’t want to settle down at all.
While traveling solo as a journalist, she visits India and this trip changes her to the core. She becomes an activist for women rights.
This travel book is an interesting read for men, but especially for women who love reading about powerful women who want to make a change!
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10/07/2024 11:25 pm GMT -
$44.67Have a look!
Red Dust: a Path Through China is a novel about self-discovery and about the discovery of the beauty and beast, both found in the large country of China.
Artist Ma Jian, the main character leaves Beijing behind after divorcing his wife and being charged for ‘Spiritual pollution’. He ventures out without any luxury or possessions and travels through the large, polluted cities of China, but he also explores the beautiful rural areas and mountain villages.
Follow a Chinese traveler in China on his 3-year journey through his home country, which is as strange to him as it is to us!
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10/07/2024 11:26 pm GMT -
$18.00$10.49Have a look!In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin has been called a ‘masterpiece of travel writing’ by more than one media outlet in the past few decades. This travel book takes you to the Southernmost tip of South America, which used to be an unspoiled and undiscovered piece of land where bandits ruled the land.
The book doesn’t only describe the journey of a traveler, but it also offers insight in history and the legends that had been forgotten.
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10/08/2024 12:23 am GMT -
$19.00$9.99Have a look!Wild: from lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trail is the story of a young American women who lost most things of value. After the death of her mother and a divorce, she leaves her home solo and starts hiking the over 1500-kilometer-long Pacific Crest Trail. She has no previous hiking experience when she starts her journey. This novel tells the story of a broken person, healing herself through self-discovery and the experience of being alone for a long time in nature. Prepare for a wild ride! This book has also been turned into a film.
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10/08/2024 12:24 am GMT -
$19.99$11.69Have a look!River Town – 2 years on the Yangtze is a travel memoir by Peter Hessler, who went to a small Chinese town on the banks of the Yangtze River in China. After arriving as a Peace Corps volunteer, he completely immerses himself in the local culture and traditions. He’s the first American who visits the place in over half a century and he can learn as much from his Chinese students as they can learn from him.
A funny and compelling story about culture and a radically different society.
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10/08/2024 12:23 am GMT -
$108.00$50.00Have a look!The Game of Thrones saga may not be a travel book pur sang, but it is definitely a wonderful series of books to read while traveling. Even before the series first aired on tv, I picked up this book in a book exchange somewhere in Peru and I could not put it down. After finishing the first book, I just had to find the second, because I was so intrigued by the plot and powerful storytelling.
For fans of the popular HBO series, you have to read the books!
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10/08/2024 12:23 am GMT -
$16.99$13.19Have a look!Smile when you’re lying: confessions of a rogue travel writer is a novel by Chuck Thompson, which addressed the fakeness of travel brochures and the travel industry as a whole. In this hilarious book, he states that travel writers lie (he’s definitely not talking about us!)
Follow the writer through a series of anecdotes which prove that the travel industry is a lying bunch of salespeople who want to lure travelers in with their images of pristine beaches and gorgeous people drinking cocktails.
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10/08/2024 12:25 am GMT -
$34.35Have a look!
Almost Somewhere is a travel memoir in which Suzanne Roberts leaves home to hike the John Muir trail in the Sierra Nevada for 28 days with two girlfriends, utterly unprepared. She had just finished college and her view of the future was confused and uncertain. The adventure changes her life and opens her eyes to aspects of life she never experienced before.
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10/08/2024 12:23 am GMT -
$18.00$11.49Have a look!A Field Guide to Getting Lost is an intriguing journey of self-discovery. This memoir of a female traveler is meant to inspire and educate about how women often see the world as it is told by men. Follow the author on a journey through different emotions: fear, loss, uncertainty, desire, …
A field guide to getting lost is a very personal story with tons of philosophical thoughts. This one is a book you either completely fall in love with or don’t like at all.
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10/08/2024 12:26 am GMT -
$18.00$11.99Have a look!The Snow Leopard is a spiritual story about a field biologist who travels into the Himalaya’s to study the Himalayan blue sheep, but accidentally stumbles upon the beautiful and rare snow leopard. This novel is soaked in spiritualism and Buddhism and it describes the spiritual path, as well as the actual journey.
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10/08/2024 01:25 am GMT -
$19.99$12.59Have a look!The story of the French inmate Papillon has also been filmed, but I must say that the book goes way deeper than the film ever did.
Papillon is a French prisoner who was imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. Still, he gets transferred to raw Devil’s Island in front of the South American coast: a penal colony of the French. Escape from the island is impossible, but Papillon is obsessed with escape and eventually he manages to pull it off.
I enjoyed reading this novel from the first letter to the last. This story really happened and it’s heart breaking to read what this man went through. Get inspired by the immense will power of one man.
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10/08/2024 12:26 am GMT -
$18.99$3.64Have a look!Life of Pi has also been turned into a film. I haven’t seen the movie, but I did enjoy every page of this memorable book. The story of the Indian boy Pi Patel is quite unbelievable and interesting.
After leaving India on a large cargo ship with his parents and dozens of animals from their zoo, the ship ends up in a storm and sinks. The boy survives on a lifeboat, together with some less friendly animals. He ends up floating around on the ocean for more than 200 days and he shares his tiny boat with Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger.
I especially enjoyed the interesting story twist in the end. This is a must-read book for travelers!
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10/08/2024 12:27 am GMT -
$24.99$23.51Have a look!Child of the Jungle is a best-selling novel in Europe and for a good reason. The story is remarkable, and it really happened to the writer Sabine Kuegler.
As a 7-year-old girl, Sabine and her family lived with a hunter-and-gatherer tribe in the jungle in Papua New Guinea. For years, the family lived as if they were living in the stone age and that’s how Sabine experienced her youth. You can imagine the shock when she returned to the Western world and civilization. Child of the Jungle tells a story of contradiction and the difficulties a young person encounters when going through immense changes in their lives.
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10/08/2024 01:27 am GMT -
$43.00Have a look!
This 6-book-series by Jean Auel will draw you in and it won’t let you go until you finish all 6 books. At least, it did that with me.
Earth’s Children follows the story of Ayla, a young girl in the Stone Age, whose parents die in an earthquake. But the girl survives and gets picked up by Neanderthals, with whom she lives for a long time until she discovers that they are not her people. And that’s just half of the first book! I promise, you won’t regret picking up this series of amazing novels.
Jean Auel did an immense amount of research to get the facts straight for these books and I really enjoyed the fact that I learned a lot about how life could have been in this era.
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10/08/2024 01:28 am GMT -
$8.99Have a look!
Actually written by an woman, The First Americans book series is similar, yet completely different from the Earth’s Children series. William Sarabande is the pen name for Joan Lesley Hamilton Cline.
The First Americans is a book series about the early inhabitants of the American continent. Torka, the main character loses his family to a killer mammoth and decides to guide the surviving members of his tribe towards the rising sun. This way, they travel from the Asian continent, over a frozen landscape, to the American continent.
This is exactly the type of books I love and I read the entire series in a short amount of time. However, I heard other people complain about the amount of violence in these books. So, you either love it or you don’t. I think the violence mirrors the way people are and it’s definitely not too extreme.
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10/08/2024 01:29 am GMT -
$18.00$9.99Have a look!A Long Way Home is another captivating story about how a young boy is driven to find his home. At the age of five, the Indian boy Saroo gets lost on a train in India. He wakes up, thousand miles from home, not knowing the name of his hometown or even his last name. The boy gets adopted and is taken to Australia. With the use of Google Earth, Saroo is able to use satellite images and street view impressions to find his origins.
This book was also turned into a movie and the true story became a massive media sensation worldwide!
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10/08/2024 01:30 am GMT -
$17.00Have a look!
The Beach is a cult classic which was also turned into a popular movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. The story takes a young Westerner in Thailand through a series of adventures. It all starts with meeting a weird man who gives him a map of a paradise beach before he commits suicide. Together with a French girl, he ventures out in search of the hidden beach. But before they leave, he gives the map to a bunch of other travelers.
They eventually find the hidden beach and the community of Westerners living there as a commune. At first, the lifestyle is beautiful and idyllic, but then they start noticing the holes in the façade and the paradise life quickly turns into a nightmare. The end of this book truly is a nightmare!
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10/08/2024 01:29 am GMT -
$18.00$10.61Have a look!Another best-seller in this list! The Kite Runner tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a rich boy and the son of their servant. I haven’t read this book yet, but I’m definitely adding it to my reading list.
The Kite Runner offers insight in Afghani culture and the struggles of everyday people. This book is different than most other books you probably read before. Prepare to be taken into the dark and emotional life of people in Afghanistan.
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10/08/2024 01:29 am GMT -
$9.99Have a look!
Where the West Ends is a travel book about the exploration of a part of the world where few travelers venture. The story is written by award winning travel writer Michael J. Totten and it’s a captivating book that you’ll want to read in one sitting.
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10/08/2024 02:25 am GMT -
$22.00$18.91Have a look!This Haruki Murakami classic is a must read for anyone, not just travellers. In the story, a young Japanese woman named Aomame travels unknowingly into another world where nothing is what it seems.
A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell’s—1Q84 is Haruki Murakami’s most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.
It's, like 100 Years of Solitude, in the realm of magical surrealism. Definitely recommended!
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10/08/2024 02:26 am GMT -
$11.90Have a look!
In Venice, the past and the present are intertwined in a curious way, the Venetians have not fully recovered from the loss of glory, perhaps they have not even accepted it, so that in the back of their thoughts, their city remains the Most Serene, the Bride of the Adriatic. This mixture of resignation and persistence gives people a touch of melancholy, a sadness similar to the lagoon, smooth and dry.
Often ranked as the best travel book ever written, Venice is neither a guide nor a history book but a passionate immersion into Venetian life and character. Jan Morris manages to capture the temperament and aquatic soul of the city by guiding us through its streets through its sounds, smells, lights and colors. There is no corner of Venice that he has not investigated and brought back to life.
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10/07/2024 05:25 pm GMT -
$14.00$7.49Have a look!In 1960, John Steinbeck set out in his pickup truck with his dog Charley to rediscover and chronicle his native America, from Maine to California.
He felt that he might have lost touch with its sights, its sounds and the essence of the American people. Traversing forests and deserts, dirt roads and highways to big cities and glorious wildernesses, Steinbeck observed, with remarkable honesty, insight, and a humorous eye, the range of America and the people who inhabited it.
His 10,000-mile journey took him through nearly forty states, where he saw things that made him proud, angry, sympathetic and elated. A tough, passionate adventure in self-identity, Steinbeck's vision of the changing world still speaks prophetically to us through the decades.
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10/07/2024 05:26 pm GMT -
$19.99$9.85Have a look!Paul Theroux celebrates fifty years of traveling the world by collecting the best travel writing from the books that shaped him as a reader and traveler. Part philosophical guide, part miscellany, part reminiscence, The Tao of Travel lists "The Contents of Some Travelers' Bags" and sets out "Writers Who Wrote About Places They Never Visited"; tracks extreme trips on 'Travel As An Ordeal' and highlights some of 'Travellers' Favorite Places'. Excerpts from the best of Theroux's own work are interspersed with selections from travelers both familiar and unexpected, including Vladimir Nabokov, Henry David Thoreau, Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, and more.
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10/07/2024 05:25 pm GMT -
$16.95$13.59Have a look!In this book Cees Nooteboom takes us to know his condition as a nomad, in a series of trips through time through Gambia, Mali, the Sahara, Bolivia and Mexico. «I continue building my hotel, that non-existent building that only exists in my head, the hotel of the near and far world, of the city and silence, of cold and heat.» We are all nomads because the origin of existence is movement: that is why travel is an experience that has no end. We just have to learn not to fear it.
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10/07/2024 05:26 pm GMT -
$20.00$12.99Have a look!In this exquisitely written book, which folds together natural history, cartography, geology, and literature, Robert Macfarlane sets off to follow the ancient routes that crisscross both the landscape of the British Isles and its waters and territories beyond. The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the voices that haunt old paths and the stories our tracks tell. Macfarlane’s journeys take him from the chalk downs of England to the bird islands of the Scottish northwest, from Palestine to the sacred landscapes of Spain and the Himalayas. He matches strides with the footprints made by a man five thousand years ago near Liverpool, sails an open boat far out into the Atlantic at night, and commingles with walkers of many kinds, discovering that paths offer a means not just of traversing space but also of feeling, knowing, and thinking.
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10/07/2024 05:26 pm GMT -
$32.55Have a look!
A lonely man, with a job that allows him great mobility, walks the streets of Tokyo and other Japanese towns to visit his clients. Every day is an occasion to rediscover a neighborhood you know or discover a new one. But for this man, always solitary, mealtime is a true adventure, almost a ritual. Throughout 19 chapters 'The Lonely Gourmet' presents us with as many dishes of traditional Japanese cuisine. Through the curious gaze of this gastronomic traveler, the authors, Jiro Taniguchi and Masayuki Kusumi, draw an authentic sociological portrait of Japan and its gastronomic wealth. Both manage to immerse us in Japanese customs, in a walk full of smells, flavors and diversity. 'The lonely gourmet' is part of those simple things that help us see the good side of life.
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10/07/2024 05:26 pm GMT -
$0.99Have a look!
This book tells the story of Captain Scott's three-year expedition to the South Pole. It's told by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, who survived the extreme and harsh conditions.
This South Pole expedition turns out to be the cruelest and most lonely thing imaginable. It took place in 1910 and most of the men didn't return back home.
The expedition was marked by misfortune from the beginning, when, in a previous stage, Cherry-Garrard and two other men, on the verge of frostbite and madness, then considered the possibility of dying. The itinerary to the Pole, even more terrible, was also overshadowed by the news that the Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten them by only a few weeks. From the notes that Scott left and, above all, from his own experience, Cherry-Garrard reconstructs in this book those three years of hardships and heroism.
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10/07/2024 06:24 pm GMT -
$22.00$19.45Have a look!The possibility of Europe is what Magris recreates in this journey through the cultural landscape that the river crosses in its almost 3,000 kilometers of route. A pretext to bring a dream closer, recovering the memory of the continent. Narration, history, biography, essay: the text and the path zigzag in rhythm. Like the Danube, European culture crosses national, human and psychological borders, and outlines differences, but also similarities. The journey would be the way to save those borders just as the river saves them, which reveals different strata, but remains above so much disaster and destruction; to give notice of a channel through which the culture that is yet to come flows, that is being formed, with its floodable, rocky, built, contaminated or landscaped banks, and watered by the same current of water, always in sinuous movement. Here we do not advance in a straight line: writing, like the Danube, explores every nook and cranny that it finds in its path, as a cautious exploration of its own condition, of its limitations. It is as if on this river trip Magris wanted to find the ideal place for cities, literature and humanism.
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10/07/2024 06:24 pm GMT -
$17.95$13.42Have a look!This cherished tale of a daring young Englishman embarking on a journey from London to Constantinople stands out as a masterpiece in the realm of travel literature.
Embarking on this epic endeavor at the age of eighteen, Patrick Leigh Fermor's trek to Constantinople unfolds through A Time of Gifts, chronicling his ventures up to Hungary, while Between the Woods and the Water continues the saga to the Iron Gates dividing the Carpathian and Balkan mountains. Celebrated for its scope and insight, Leigh Fermor's narrative captures a pivotal moment in history. Amidst the rise of Hitler and the looming war, he traverses a transforming Europe: from the Low Countries to Central Europe, exploring the Teutonic and Slavic regions, journeying through the remnants of the Holy Roman Empire, along the Rhine, and down the Danube. Beyond a mere memoir of personal growth and a travel chronicle, A Time of Gifts shines as a linguistic marvel and a poignant portrayal of a continent teetering on the brink of the tragedies of the Holocaust.
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10/07/2024 06:28 pm GMT -
$14.45Have a look!
During the mid-1800s, explorers were fixated on uncovering the mystery of the White Nile's source. It stood as the ultimate enigma, a coveted treasure beyond compare. Between 1856 and 1876, seven remarkable individuals, including one exceptional woman, bravely embarked on this daunting mission. Richard Burton, John Hanning Speke, James Augustus Grant, Samuel Baker, Florence von Sass, David Livingstone, and Henry Morton Stanley displayed unparalleled courage and resilience in the intense race to solve this puzzle.
Renowned author Tim Jeal unveils captivating new insights, painting a vibrant picture of the uncharted "Dark Continent," with its harsh jungles and the blend of bravery and deceit among the explorers. Throughout their perilous journeys across East and Central Africa, they braved treacherous terrains, battled diseases like malaria, faced attacks resulting in severe injuries, and even death. Their expeditions led them to discover Lakes Tanganyika and Victoria, and introduced them as the first white individuals to encounter the kingdoms of Buganda and Bunyoro.
Jeal intricately threads this tale with fresh, authentic details, delving into the unintended tragic consequences of the Nile quest that continue to impact the people of Uganda and Sudan to this day.
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10/07/2024 06:29 pm GMT -
$18.00$10.69Have a look!The gripping tale of the tumultuous storm atop Mt. Everest, claiming lives and stirring guilt-ridden chaos, including Krakauer's own turmoil. A bank of clouds loomed on the horizon, yet Jon Krakauer, on Everest's summit, failed to foresee the impending disaster. Through "Into Thin Air," Krakauer aimed to confront his inner demons and unravel lingering mysteries. While shedding light on the people and events, he salutes the resilient Sherpas and refrains from easy criticism. Despite recounting heroic acts, Krakauer remains tormented, attributing a climber's death to his perceived errors. Amidst a fair evaluation of others, Krakauer harbors self-condemnation.
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10/07/2024 06:34 pm GMT -
$30.00$18.29Have a look!Embark on a gripping journey through the untamed American West with The Last Ride of the Pony Express. This riveting tale showcases the unparalleled courage of horseman Will Grant as he retraces the historic Pony Express trail, delving into the heart of a landscape where legends were born. Riding alongside him, you'll witness the evolution of the West from its rugged 19th-century roots to the modern era, encountering a colorful cast of characters that breathe life into the vibrant tapestry of American history. Immerse yourself in the treacherous yet captivating terrain of the Wild West, where each hoofbeat echoes a story of adventure and resilience. The Last Ride of the Pony Express is not just a book—it's an unforgettable exploration of the spirit that defines America's frontier legacy.
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10/07/2024 07:23 pm GMT -
$20.00Have a look!
In this book, Kate Rawles takes you on a 4500 cycling adventure from Texas to Alaska. She follows a harsh route over the spine of the Rocky mountains. If you can already imagine this journey to be difficult, then read all about how it actually went!
Even though the road is difficult to cycle, the landscapes are stunning and the journey memorable. Follow Kate on this remarkable trip.
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10/07/2024 07:24 pm GMT -
$9.99Have a look!
Venturing from the opulent theme resorts in Dubai to the untamed jungles of Papua New Guinea, Lawrence Osborne embarks on a thought-provoking and humorous exploration of the enigmatic East—and the very concept of tourism itself. Tired of regurgitating the clichés of typical travel writers, Osborne delves into the underlying psychology of global travel.
Embarking on a six-month odyssey along the renowned Asian Highway, a region that has captivated tourists for centuries with its exotic allure, Osborne finds himself amidst the dense forests of Papua, seeking out a community untouched by tourism. What drives affluent travelers to seek solace in resorts, spas, and spiritual retreats along this well-trodden path?
In The Naked Tourist, Osborne delves deep into the shadows of the Western psyche, questioning the allure of luxury escapes, cosmetic surgeries, and nature retreats. This incisive work from the acclaimed author of The Accidental Connoisseur offers a darkly humorous and insightful perspective on the world's largest industry—tourism.
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10/07/2024 07:24 pm GMT
Paperback or ereader
Do you enjoy reading a paper book or do you choose the convenience of an ereader. We both started by reading paperbacks. We used to carry one paper book, which we would exchange in the book exchange in our hostel.
You never knew what you would get next, but I got quite a few gems this way. I picked up Game of Thrones and Papillon in a hostel book exchange. So, that’s definitely good news.
But these days, we enjoy the convenience of having thousands of books right at our fingertips. An ereader it is. Want to know which ones we prefer?
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Versatile
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Conclusion: 70+ best books to read while traveling
That’s it! Those were the coolest and best books to read while traveling, which doesn’t mean you can’t read them at home! We might be expanding this list later on, when we stumble upon more enthralling travel books and adventures.
We really hope you enjoyed this list and found a few gems you didn’t know yet.
If you did like the list, we’d love to encourage you to use our links when you decide to purchase one of the books. By using our links, you won’t ever pay more for your purchase, but you will be helping us keeping this website alive, as we receive a small commission for each sale!
Happy reading and above all: happy travels!
