Travel
History’s Most Inspiring Travel Books
introLockdown, travel restrictions and staying at home are the messages currently drummed into populations across the globe. But travel has always been central to our way of life, as has writing about our journeys, as these fabulous travelogues, adventure chronicles and globetrotting memoires show us. Even if you can’t hop on a train, plane or boat right now, you can at least journey around the world – and through time – with these great travel books from history.
11/10
Travel
History’s Most Inspiring Travel Books.
historiesHerodotus, The Histories
Not primarily a travelogue, Herodotus’ The Histories nevertheless entailed major journeys by its illustrious author more than 2,400 years ago. This means that, as well as a series of enlightening insights into the politics and history of the ancient world, it is at the same time a fascinating early example of travel writing. Setting a model used by many later travel writers, not everything in The Histories can be taken at face value. Nevertheless, it today provides readers with a contemporary view of a host of fascinating locations, from Babylon (Iraq) and Athens (Greece) to Thebes (Egypt) and Troy (now Turkey).10/10
Travel
History’s Most Inspiring Travel Books.
As I crossedLady Sarashina, As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams
Another fine example of ground-breaking travel writing is Lady Sarashina’s memoir, As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams, written in the 11th century Japanese Heian period. Seen as unique for the literature of the period, it is essentially the diary of its author, a lady-in-waiting. Sarashina took journeys to numerous places familiar to us today, including Mount Fuji, with the author evocatively describing how the “clouds rolled beneath our feet” in crossing over the mountain.9/10
Travel
History’s Most Inspiring Travel Books.
Baghdad SketchesFreya Stark, Baghdad Sketches
In compiling a list of great travel literature, one challenging question is: Which of Freya Stark’s many fine works should be included? Born in Paris in 1893, the British-Italian writer’s The Valley of the Assassins, Ionia: A Quest and A Winter in Arabia are absolute must-reads for legions of later travel writers. Baghdad Sketches (1937) is also one of her finest. Untypically living outside the confines of the expat community, she depicts the lives of ordinary Iraqis during the British mandate, with accounts of the historic cities of Baghdad, Mosul, Nineveh and Najaf, plus the Arab Marshes.8/10
Travel
History’s Most Inspiring Travel Books.
InnocentsMark Twain, The Innocents Abroad
Better known for adventure stories about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad (1869) graces the famous American writer’s extensive list of publications. He travelled from the US to Europe aboard a ship named Quaker City in 1867, ostensibly to tour the Holy Land. On the way, Twain took in the likes of Paris, Marseilles, Rome, Genoa, Gibraltar, Odessa, Constantinople and Cairo before reaching the Holy Land. Loved for its wit, he often took aim at his fellow American travellers.7/10
Travel
History’s Most Inspiring Travel Books.
Railway BazaarPaul Theroux, The Great Railway Bazaar
Already on his way to becoming a prolific novelist, the 1975-published The Great Railway Bazaar introduced Paul Theroux as a great American contemporary travel writer. It depicts his four-month train trip in 1973 from his then-home in London, across Continental Europe, through the Middle East, to India and Southeast Asia. He returned on the Trans-Siberian railway. On its publication, The Great Railway Bazaar was quickly seen as a classic in travel literature. It received praise, not least for its capture of conversations with numerous characters. Retold with artistic licence, readers didn’t mind Theroux stretching credulity that he could remember the details of even the longest conversation.6/10
Travel
History’s Most Inspiring Travel Books.
In PatagoniaBruce Chatwin, In Patagonia
A couple of years after Theroux’s successful debut travel book, Bruce Chatwin similarly announced himself as a major talent with In Patagonia (1977). And like Theroux, he also became a successful novelist. Chatwin had spent six months in Argentina, Peru and Chile for In Patagonia, and he quickly won plaudits for his originality and storytelling, even if parts are considered fiction. Chatwin’s much-praised prose shed a novelist-like light on more than 1 million square kilometres of South America that, at the time, few people outside of it were familiar with.5/10
Travel
History’s Most Inspiring Travel Books.
Arabian SandsWilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands
Unlike more fashionable travel writers, Thesiger travelled for travel’s sake alone, not for acclaim. For his absorbing Arabian Sands (1959), he crossed 650,000 square kilometres of the Empty Quarter, the largest sand desert in the world (parts of today’s Oman, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Yemen). Between 1945 and 1950, he lived with the local Arab people, immersed in their life and culture. Nobody argues that Wilfred Thesiger was a match for the mercurial talents of Paul Theroux or Bruce Chatwin, but Thesiger’s steely determination and deep respect for traditional ways of living shine beacon-like from every page.4/10
Travel
History’s Most Inspiring Travel Books.
Black LambRebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
Eight decades after it was first published, Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941) is still considered to be a masterwork on the former Yugoslavia. The Balkans were long considered a challenge to decipher when West spent around six weeks there in 1937. She visited the likes of today’s Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the resulting book is often described as a work of literature rather than an accurate travelogue. In it, West describes the region’s mesmerising ethnic, religious and linguistic heritages, plus art, folklore, landscapes and archaeology. It was published in two volumes and 500,000 words, just as the Second World War was about to send Yugoslavia spinning into murderous turmoil.3/10
Travel
History’s Most Inspiring Travel Books.
A time of giftsPatrick Leigh Fermor, A Time of Gifts
War hero and adventurer, intelligent and a superb writer, Patrick Leigh Fermor is – for many – Britain’s greatest-ever travel writer. His 1977 A Time of Gifts is a magisterial book that charts how, in 1933, he walked from the Hook of Holland across pre-war Europe to the Danube, aged just 18. He followed it up in 1986 with the also superb Between the Woods and the Water, which charts the second part of his trek into Eastern Europe. Fermor never finished the third part, The Broken Road (his journey to Istanbul up to 1935), though it was published posthumously in 2013 from drafts and his diary.2/10
Travel
History’s Most Inspiring Travel Books.
The worst journeyApsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World
Zoologist Apsley Cherry-Garrard was part of the Robert Falcon Scott expedition to the South Pole between 1910 and 1913. Published in 1922, The Worst Journey in the World traces the team’s journey to Antarctica, and chronicles life there while waiting for Scott and four companions to return after reaching the South Pole. As part of a search party, Cherry-Garrard eventually found Scott and two colleagues frozen in their tents. Beautiful descriptions of the landscape, emperor penguins, the searing cold and blizzards alone make this book highly readable. The terrible discovery of Scott and his team almost guaranteed The Worst Journey in the World would sell in huge numbers.#staysafe #stayathome #selfisolation #selfisolationactivities #quarantine #lockdown #homesanctuary
1/10
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.