travel the globe, page by page
"Not until we are lost," Henry David Thoreau once stated, "do we begin to understand ourselves." Perhaps that's why we humans have a seemingly innate desire to travel. And a desire to lose ourselves in a book. Or, better yet, both at the same time. Travelogues, travel memoirs, travel essays, travel narratives... whatever the name, the result is (according to another Henry, a guy named Miller) that your destination is "a new way of looking at things." And there's always a new way.
Exploration can take many forms. Tim Moore hitchhiked across the U.S. in A Hell of a Place to Low a Cow (2000). In The Longest Road (2013), Philip Caputo steered a rented 1962 Airstream from Key West to Alaska. Peter Moore rode a Vespa from Milan to Rome in Vroom with a View (2003). Journey Without Maps (1936) tells of Graham Greene's four-week walk through Liberia, while Peter Jenkins took A Walk Across America (1979). Dervla Murphy rode a bicycle from Ireland to India in Full Tilt (2003). Ernesto Che Guevara explored South America in The Motorcycle Diaries (1993). In Old Glory (1981), Jonathan Raban's travels down the Mississippi River by small boat. Seafaring Tony Horwitz traced Captain Cook's journeys in Blue Latitudes (2002). In the classic Blue Highways (1982), William Least Heat-Moon drove cross-country in a customized van. And in Travels with Charley (1962), John Steinbeck famously brought along his poodle.
States of Mind (1999) is Brad Herzog's literal and figurative search for virtue in tiny American hamlets with names like Pride, Honor, Wisdom, and Friendship. The Geography of Bliss (2008) is Eric Weiner's global journey to find the world's happiest places. In Adventure Divas (2005), Holly Morris sought women who are changing the world. In Born to Run (2009), Christopher McDougall found the world's greatest distance runners, the Tarahumara Indians in Mexico. In Assassination Vacation (2005), Sarah Vowell took an American road trip to sites of political violence, while Killing Yourself to Live (2005) is Chuck Klosterman's trek to sites where rock stars have died. Dominic Dromgoole explored the world through Shakespeare in Hamlet Globe to Globe (2017). Station to Station (2015) is James Attlee's examination of life between railroad stops in London and Bristol. 360 Degrees Longitude (2009) chronicles John Higham's family trek through 24 time zones. Around the World in 50 Years (2015) is Albert Podell's account of trying to visit every country on Earth.
And, of course, literary exploration can take you countless places -- from Australia's East Coast (Coasting, Dick Flinthart, 1999) to the Middle East (Arabian Sands, Wilfred Thesiger, 1959) to Eastern Europe (Exit into History, Eva Hoffman, 1993); from the American Southwest (Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey, 1968) to the Deep South (South and West, Joan Didion, 2017) to the Far North (Arctic Dreams, Barry Lopes, 1986); from Nicaragua (The Jaguar Smile, Salman Rushdie, 1987) to India (Butter Chicken in Ludhiana, Pankaj Mishra, 1995); from the Pacific Coast Trail (Wild, Cheryl Strayed, 2012) to the equatorial Pacific (The Sex Lives of Cannibals, J. Maarten Troost, 2004); and from In Patagonia (Bruce Chatwin, 1977) to Viva South America! (Oliver Balch, 2009). In Shadow of the Silk Road (2006), Colin Thubron traveled the ancient, 7,000-mile route from China to Rome. An African in Greenland (1981) is TeTe-Michel Kpomassie's tale of working his way north over nearly a decade. Read about John McPhee's experiences in Alaska (Coming into the Country, 1976), Norman Lewis's journeys through Southeast Asia (A Dragon Apparent, 1951), or Guy Delisle's account of a year in Myanmar... in the form of a 2007 graphic novel called Burma Chronicles.
It also turns out that, for observers of the human condition, travel can be funny. Really funny. You can almost imagine a book reviewer doing a spit-take. Holidays in Hell, P.J. O'Rourke's 1988 account of visiting political hot spots, is "a bracing antidote to the pomposity of news coverage." Bill Bryson could have had half of this list to himself, but A Walk in the Woods (1997), his attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail after two decades in Britain, offers "one show-stopping observation after another." In The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), Paul Theroux (who could take up the list's other half) journeys by train from London to Tokyo and back and "captures the hardship and absurdity of long, overland journeys." Humor travels well, whether the travelogue was published in 1947 (S.J. Perelman traveled to 27 countries in Westward Ha!) or 1997 (Out of Sheer Rage, a planet-roamer by Geoff Dyer was called -- by no less than Steve Martin -- "the funniest book I have ever read.") Then again, the father of all of these travel memoirs, was written by the paragon of literary humor. Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad, is a collection of quips about a cruise to Europe and the Holy Land. Garrison Keillor described it as "written in 1867, but still, miraculously, funny today."
So travel to your local library or independent book store (or simply click on any one of the 44 covers below). Pick up a travel tome. And away you go.
Exploration can take many forms. Tim Moore hitchhiked across the U.S. in A Hell of a Place to Low a Cow (2000). In The Longest Road (2013), Philip Caputo steered a rented 1962 Airstream from Key West to Alaska. Peter Moore rode a Vespa from Milan to Rome in Vroom with a View (2003). Journey Without Maps (1936) tells of Graham Greene's four-week walk through Liberia, while Peter Jenkins took A Walk Across America (1979). Dervla Murphy rode a bicycle from Ireland to India in Full Tilt (2003). Ernesto Che Guevara explored South America in The Motorcycle Diaries (1993). In Old Glory (1981), Jonathan Raban's travels down the Mississippi River by small boat. Seafaring Tony Horwitz traced Captain Cook's journeys in Blue Latitudes (2002). In the classic Blue Highways (1982), William Least Heat-Moon drove cross-country in a customized van. And in Travels with Charley (1962), John Steinbeck famously brought along his poodle.
States of Mind (1999) is Brad Herzog's literal and figurative search for virtue in tiny American hamlets with names like Pride, Honor, Wisdom, and Friendship. The Geography of Bliss (2008) is Eric Weiner's global journey to find the world's happiest places. In Adventure Divas (2005), Holly Morris sought women who are changing the world. In Born to Run (2009), Christopher McDougall found the world's greatest distance runners, the Tarahumara Indians in Mexico. In Assassination Vacation (2005), Sarah Vowell took an American road trip to sites of political violence, while Killing Yourself to Live (2005) is Chuck Klosterman's trek to sites where rock stars have died. Dominic Dromgoole explored the world through Shakespeare in Hamlet Globe to Globe (2017). Station to Station (2015) is James Attlee's examination of life between railroad stops in London and Bristol. 360 Degrees Longitude (2009) chronicles John Higham's family trek through 24 time zones. Around the World in 50 Years (2015) is Albert Podell's account of trying to visit every country on Earth.
And, of course, literary exploration can take you countless places -- from Australia's East Coast (Coasting, Dick Flinthart, 1999) to the Middle East (Arabian Sands, Wilfred Thesiger, 1959) to Eastern Europe (Exit into History, Eva Hoffman, 1993); from the American Southwest (Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey, 1968) to the Deep South (South and West, Joan Didion, 2017) to the Far North (Arctic Dreams, Barry Lopes, 1986); from Nicaragua (The Jaguar Smile, Salman Rushdie, 1987) to India (Butter Chicken in Ludhiana, Pankaj Mishra, 1995); from the Pacific Coast Trail (Wild, Cheryl Strayed, 2012) to the equatorial Pacific (The Sex Lives of Cannibals, J. Maarten Troost, 2004); and from In Patagonia (Bruce Chatwin, 1977) to Viva South America! (Oliver Balch, 2009). In Shadow of the Silk Road (2006), Colin Thubron traveled the ancient, 7,000-mile route from China to Rome. An African in Greenland (1981) is TeTe-Michel Kpomassie's tale of working his way north over nearly a decade. Read about John McPhee's experiences in Alaska (Coming into the Country, 1976), Norman Lewis's journeys through Southeast Asia (A Dragon Apparent, 1951), or Guy Delisle's account of a year in Myanmar... in the form of a 2007 graphic novel called Burma Chronicles.
It also turns out that, for observers of the human condition, travel can be funny. Really funny. You can almost imagine a book reviewer doing a spit-take. Holidays in Hell, P.J. O'Rourke's 1988 account of visiting political hot spots, is "a bracing antidote to the pomposity of news coverage." Bill Bryson could have had half of this list to himself, but A Walk in the Woods (1997), his attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail after two decades in Britain, offers "one show-stopping observation after another." In The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), Paul Theroux (who could take up the list's other half) journeys by train from London to Tokyo and back and "captures the hardship and absurdity of long, overland journeys." Humor travels well, whether the travelogue was published in 1947 (S.J. Perelman traveled to 27 countries in Westward Ha!) or 1997 (Out of Sheer Rage, a planet-roamer by Geoff Dyer was called -- by no less than Steve Martin -- "the funniest book I have ever read.") Then again, the father of all of these travel memoirs, was written by the paragon of literary humor. Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad, is a collection of quips about a cruise to Europe and the Holy Land. Garrison Keillor described it as "written in 1867, but still, miraculously, funny today."
So travel to your local library or independent book store (or simply click on any one of the 44 covers below). Pick up a travel tome. And away you go.