Best books to inspire travel: non-fiction

You needn’t leave your home to travel the world – but while VR tours and technology are wonderful, there’s nothing quite like transporting yourself to another country with a great book.

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You could lose yourself in some of the best fiction to whisk you around the world. But you don’t have to rely on an author’s imagination to discover new cultures and explore destinations far away – these enthralling travel memoirs from writers who’ve been there and seen it all are packed with just as many fascinating stories.

I’ve picked some of our favourite travel memoirs with this list of the perfect non-fiction books to inspire travel – or at least to satisfy your wanderlust in the meantime.

Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found – Cheryl Strayed

Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found is Strayed’s account of walking the Pacific Crest Trail at the age of 26, following some traumatic experiences in her personal life. A truly inspirational and tough adventure story.

 

Behind the Wall: A Journey Through China – Colin Thubron

First published in 1987, this 10,000-mile journey across China takes Thubron from Beijing to Tibet discovering not just the famous wall, but the astonishing diversity across China, its long history and the stories of its people, newly emerging from the Cultural Revolution.

Shadow of the Silk Road, written almost 20 years later, is another epic journey, this time in the footsteps of Marco Polo.

 

Down Under – Bill Bryson

While Notes from a Small Country and The Lost Continent would also make the cut, Down Under will transport you straight to Australia – from the arid heart of the country to the cities, the countless deadly creatures to some of the earliest beginnings of life, all discovered with the author’s gentle curiousity and wry amusement.

 

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush – Eric Newby

An impulse decision saw the author swap his fashion career in London for an attempt at the first ascent of Mir Samir in the Nuristan mountains of Afghanistan.

Almost completely unprepared for the reality of the Hindu Kush (bar some brief training in Wales), his account of his short walk is unexpectedly funny, while capturing the beauty and hardships of life in this isolated region.

 

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China – Jung Chang

This fascinating true story of three generations of women in China is both gripping and absorbing. From the barbaric tradition of footbinding to the brutal regime under Mao’s Communist China, this masterpiece gives a thought-provoking insight into what life was like in 20th Century China.

And the heart of all the hardship, is the story of survival and strength of three amazing women.

 

Pole to Pole – Michael Palin

There are no shortage of Palin travel memoirs to choose from, from his first real adventure recreating the challenge of travelling around the world in 80 days to his visits to North Korea and the Sahara.

But it’s Pole to Pole which always caught my imagination, following a single line of longitude without flying, covering 16 countries in both hemispheres, through eastern Europe shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union and from the world’s iciest landscapes to the searing heat of the equator.

 

Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

Nothing to Envy about the people who live in North Korea is a real insight in to a country that must be one of the hardest on earth to live in.

What I most love is that there are stories of survival and love and hope in the midst of such oppression, says Nichola, who blogs at Globalmouse and who visited herself – a complex country with huge issues but the biggest thing to take away is the warmth of the ordinary people.

 

Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road – Kate Harris

A wonderful look at what connects us, breaking literal and personal boundaries as Harris travels across 10 countries on a 10-month bike trip.

Tracing the route of the fabled Silk Road, with rather more modern bureaucracy but the same dramatic and stark landscape, anyone who’s ever wished to be an explorer will love to lose themselves in this adventure.

 

The Great Railway Bazaar – Paul Theroux

With a string of travel memoirs to his name, it’s still Theroux’s first – The Great Railway Bazaar – that makes every list of books to inspire travel, following his epic journey from London to Japan.

At the heart are the people he meets along the way, illustrating the places far more than any dry guide to the destination and reminding readers of one of the biggest joys of seeing the world.

 

A Time of Gifts – Patrick Leigh Fermor

Once described as “a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene”, A Time of Gifts – along with Between the Woods and the Water – follows the author’s decision, aged 18, to walk across Europe.

Inspiring a string of other writers (several on this list), his journey to Istanbul captures some of the continent’s spectacular landscapes but also the way the countries on his route were transforming in the early 30s, with the Second World War a distant threat on the horizon.

 

The Valleys of the Assassins and Other Persian Travels – Freya Stark

In a field dominated by men, Freya Stark is one of the most memorable names in travel writing – not least her search for the legendary mountain home of the Assassins, on a fearless adventure through the Middle East in the 1920s and 30s.

Avoiding officials by vanishing into the desert, as well as meeting remote tribes and recounting tales of ancient kingdoms, the writing is as vivid today as a century ago.

 

City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi – William Dalrymple

Set in a single city, detailed the author’s year living in Delhi (the first of many), it’s as engrossing as any continent-crossing exploits.

Peeling back the layers of history, Dalrymple uncovers the dark corners beyond the feverish bustle on the surface, searching for eunuchs and discovering the final echoes of the Raj, not to mention a cast of eccentric and unforgettable inhabitants.

 

Arabian Sands – Wilfred Thesiger

There’s a magic to the Empty Quarter of Arabia, the endless, ruthless dunes and the fascination they hold for so many.

During his lifetime Thesiger crossed twice, spending five years exploring the desert and meeting its people, including the Bedouin whose centuries-old way of life was finally ending in the years after the Second World War.

 

In Patagonia – Bruce Chatwin

One of the classics of travel literature, Chatwin described his six months in Patagonia as a ‘spoof’ of a voyage to a far country in search of a strange animal, thanks to an odd family heirloom which inspired the trip: the ‘piece of brontosaurus’ (actually giant sloth).

The people he meets along the way, the stories of nomadic life and the descriptions from the road are as captivating as any fiction.

 

Find more books to inspire travel in this post

 

PIN FOR LATER: NON-FICTION BOOKS TO INSPIRE TRAVEL

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links – any purchases you make are unaffected but I may receive a small commission. All opinions on the best books to inspire travel are my own.

 

Image courtesy Depositphotos

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