When you walk into your book shop, you will see an array of people who have drafted their own thoughts on their travels. Thousands of books are drafted and aimed at this market because there is always time for a good travel book. When you walk into a book store and see hundreds of travel books, you have to ask yourself what book is the best? In this guide, we will explore ten of the top travel books.
It is important to remember that a great travel book has to be able to take you on a journey more than any other book. The main point of a travel book is that it will allow you to become lost in your own thoughts regardless of the distractions around you. A good travel book will easily find its way on to the shelves of anybody that enjoys a fiction novel. This is because the majority of the writers try and portray their thoughts to you in a way that almost makes the book fiction, even though all the thoughts drafted in the book are real, and this is something that it is important to remember after you have finished the book.
Coasting – Jonathan Raban
In 1982, Jonathan Raban sailed around the coast of Britain with not much more than his 30-foot ketch and a compass. The book details his voyage and the people and interesting things that he encounters as he explores the UK.
Along The Ganges – Ilija Trojanow
This 266 page book shows us how an emigrant from Bulgaria journeyed along the famous Ganges through India. This book has won countless accolades from travel book critics. The book details a rather prosperous and modern India alongside the slums. The two merged together, alongside the view of the writer makes for a great book.
The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer – Eric Hansen
Eric Hansen has drafted a book on his travels around the world exploring the weird and wonderful. His highlights include working at Mother Teresa’s home and taking topless dancers on bird watching trips. This humorous book is simply one of a kind, and if you are a fan of the travel/comedy genre it will have you in stitches.
Cross Country – Robert Sullivan
Robert Sullivan claims to have crossed the USA almost two dozen times on the road. However, when things changed and he married and had kids, he decided to take a five-day road trip from Oregon to New York detailing everything as he travels. The book details both this trip and his previous trips at the forefront of his mind. This book may be a bit ‘scatty’ (does not follow one path), but it is a fascinating read, and very funny at points.
The Impossible Country – Brian Hall
Drafted in 1994, Brian Hall takes his readers on a journey of Yugoslavia in the impossible country. The book is fascinating to read because it details the final ‘stand’ of the country. The book portrays the people, region and even ethnic tribes in ways they have not been detailed before and since.
Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found – Suketu Mehta
This is a book that surrounds the ‘lost’ city of Bombay. The writer, Suketu Mehta who moved to America young, returns to the city of his birth to explore its condition. Critics have raved about this book from its day of release. In fact, it won the Kiriyama Prize and was voted one of the best books of its year by the Economist. The book was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist. The book itself details the ‘horror’ that is Bombay, including the various slums that have appeared all over the city.
The Places in Between – Rory Stewart
Rory Stewart has drafted a stunning book about Afghanistan just weeks after the Taliban were removed. The book is about Rory Stewart’s solo walk from Herat to Kabul. As this journey was made in the winter, Stewart details how the poor in the area lived at the time. The book won plenty of accolades but none more impressive than featuring on the top 10 books of the year in the New York Times Book Review.
A Time of Gifts – Patrick Leigh Fermor
This is an older book that was drafted in 1933, but was not published until 1977. This is the first edition of two, and there is a third book that has not been published, even though one of the writer’s friends said that a third (which was not finished before Fermors passing in June 2011) will be released. The book details the diary of an 18-year-old traveling on foot from Holland to Turkey.
Venice for Pleasure – JG Links
This book has been drafted not just from one visit. Instead, the book recalls a lifetime of walking around Venice. The book discovers all of Venice’s hidden secrets, and it is a wonderful travel book to read even if you have no intention of going there because of the way it has been drafted.
The Flâneur – Edmund White
In many ways, this book is one of the finest on the list because it is not a ‘conventional’ travel book. Instead, this details the writer’s journey through conformist Paris in a less than predictable way. The book does not focus on ‘traditional’ Paris, which means you get to see much more about how Paris is to live in rather than visit.