The Ultimate Summer Travel Reading List: 10 Travel Books You Should Have on Your Shelves

Nothing beats the feel of a good book in your hands, and sometimes the best way to inspire wanderlust is with a great travel read. And there are many out there! Authors who write of foreign and far off lands, who take us with them on their adventures and misadventures through every country on Earth.

Earlier in the year I joined the Travel With Books Project to “encourage people to read more books, to discover lesser known titles and to enrich their knowledge of places before they travel”. With that same goal in mind, here is the ultimate summer travel reading list: 10 books you should have on your shelves, and some of the best travel books around!

Once you read through this list check out the “Top 200 Travel Books” by Nomadic Notes for more titles.

The Ultimate Summer Travel Reading List: Travel Books You Should Have on Your Shelves.

The Ultimate Summer Travel Reading List: Travel Books You Should Have on Your Shelves.

Sihpromatum: I Grew My Boobs in China

By Savannah Grace

“SIHPROMATUM” (Sip-row-may-tum) is a memoir series of one family’s four-year backpacking adventure around the world. The first installment, “I Grew my Boobs in China“, is the beginning of an intensely fascinating, sobering, and emotional memoir of Savannah’s introspective and innovative family adventure.

In 2005, 14-year-old Savannah Grace’s world is shattered when her mother unexpectedly announces that she and her family (mother, 45; brother, 25; sister, 17) would soon embark on an incredible, open-ended journey. When everything from her pets to the house she lived in is either sold, given away or put in storage, this naïve teenage girl runs headlong into the reality and hardships of a life on the road.

These pages do not describe a vacation to semi-exotic locales protected from the local culture by a veneer of private transportation, scheduled meals, and ritzy hotels. The family lives and travels as the local people do, a distinction that generates fascinating and unusual experiences rich in multicultural insights, as told from the perspective of a budding young author with a traveler’s eye for detail.

Built around a startling backdrop of over eighty countries (“I Grew my Boobs in China” relates the family’s adventures in China and Mongolia), this is a tale of feminine maturation – of Savannah’s metamorphosis from ingénue to woman-of-the-world. Nibbling roasted duck tongues in China and being stranded in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert are just two experiences that contribute to Savannah’s exploration of new cultures and to the process of adapting to the world around her.

I Grew my Boobs in China. Sihpromatum by Savannah Grace.

I Grew my Boobs in China. Sihpromatum by Savannah Grace.

Backpacks and Bra Straps

By Savannah Grace

Savannah Grace’s best selling, award winning saga of her family’s four-year-long backpacking adventure continues. “Backpacks and Bra Straps” picks up where “I Grew My Boobs in China” leaves off, offering insights into how family dynamics are affected by such intensive togetherness as well as a candid, intriguing look at world-wide travel and the camaraderie of the backpacking community, told from a perceptive young woman’s viewpoint.

This second instalment of her Sihpromatum series takes us to Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, through Western China and Tibet, and finally, to watch the sun rise over Mount Everest in Nepal.

Savannah’s initial reluctance to travel and the personal growth she documents distinguishes this raw tale from most travel memoirs.

Savannah Grace’s best selling, award winning saga of her family’s four-year-long backpacking adventure continues. “Backpacks and Bra Straps” picks up where “I Grew My Boobs in China” leaves off

A memoir series of one family’s four-year backpacking adventure around the world.

Around the World in 50 Years: My Adventure to Every Country on Earth

By Albert Poddel

The New York Times Bestseller

This is the inspiring story of an ordinary guy who achieved two great goals that others had told him were impossible. First, he set a record for the longest automobile journey ever made around the world, during the course of which he blasted his way out of minefields, survived a serious accident atop the Peak of Death, came within seconds of being lynched in Pakistan, and lost three of the five men who started with him, two to disease, one to the Vietcong.

After that-although it took him forty-seven more years-Albert Podell set another record by going to every country on Earth. He achieved this by surviving riots, revolutions, civil wars, trigger-happy child soldiers, voodoo priests, robbers, pickpockets, corrupt cops, and Cape buffalo. He went around, under, or through every kind of earthquake, cyclone, tsunami, volcanic eruption, snowstorm, and sandstorm that nature threw at him. He ate everything from old camel meat and rats to dung beetles and the brain of a live monkey. And he overcame attacks by crocodiles, hippos, anacondas, giant leeches, flying crabs-and several beautiful girlfriends who insisted that he stop this nonsense and marry them.

Albert Podell’s Around the World in 50 Years is a remarkable and meaningful tale of quiet courage, dogged persistence, undying determination, and an uncanny ability to escape from one perilous situation after another-and return with some of the most memorable, frightening, and hilarious adventure stories you have ever read.

This is the inspiring story of an ordinary guy who achieved two great goals that others had told him were impossible.

Albert Podell’s Around the World in 50 Years is a remarkable and meaningful tale of quiet courage, dogged persistence, undying determination, and an uncanny ability to escape from one perilous situation after another-and return with some of the most memorable, frightening, and hilarious adventure stories you have ever read.

Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft

by Thor Heyerdahl

Kon-Tiki is the record of an astonishing adventure—a journey of 4,300 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean by raft. Intrigued by Polynesian folklore, biologist Thor Heyerdahl suspected that the South Sea Islands had been settled by an ancient race from thousands of miles to the east, led by a mythical hero, Kon-Tiki. He decided to prove his theory by duplicating the legendary voyage.

On April 28, 1947, Heyerdahl and five other adventurers sailed from Peru on a balsa log raft. After three months on the open sea, encountering raging storms, whales, and sharks, they sighted land—the Polynesian island of Puka Puka.

Translated into sixty-five languages, Kon-Tiki is a classic, inspiring tale of daring and courage—a magnificent saga of men against the sea.

This edition includes a foreword by the author and a unique visual essay of the voyage. The book is now a major motion picture.

Kon-Tiki is the record of an astonishing adventure—a journey of 4,300 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean by raft.

Kon-Tiki is the record of an astonishing adventure—a journey of 4,300 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean by raft.

The Way of the World

By Nicolas Bouvier

In 1953, twenty-four-year old Nicolas Bouvier and his artist friend Thierry Vernet set out to make their way overland from their native Geneva to the Khyber Pass. They had a rattletrap Fiat and a little money, but above all they were equipped with the certainty that by hook or by crook they would reach their destination, and that there would be unanticipated adventures, curious companionship, and sudden illumination along the way.

The Way of the World, which Bouvier fashioned over the course of many years from his journals, is an entrancing story of adventure, an extraordinary work of art, and a voyage of self-discovery on the order of Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. 

As Bouvier writes, “You think you are making a trip, but soon it is making—or unmaking—you.”

In 1953, twenty-four-year old Nicolas Bouvier and his artist friend Thierry Vernet set out to make their way overland from their native Geneva to the Khyber Pass.

In 1953, twenty-four-year old Nicolas Bouvier and his artist friend Thierry Vernet set out to make their way overland from their native Geneva to the Khyber Pass.

By Eric Newby

The view was colossal. Below us on every side mountain surged away it seemed forever; we looked down on glaciers and snow-covered peaks that perhaps no one has ever seen before, except from the air.’

Feeling restless in the world of London’s high-fashion industry, Eric Newby asked a friend to accompany him on a mountain-climbing expedition in the wild and remote Hindu Kush, in north-eastern Afghanistan. And so they went – although they did stop first for four days of climbing lessons in Wales – becoming the first Englishmen to visit this spectacular region for more than half a century.

Newby’s frank and funny account of their expedition to what is still amongst the world’s most isolated areas is one of the classics of travel writing.

The view was colossal. Below us on every side mountain surged away it seemed forever; we looked down on glaciers and snow-covered peaks that perhaps no one has ever seen before, except from the air.’

Feeling restless in the world of London’s high-fashion industry, Eric Newby asked a friend to accompany him on a mountain-climbing expedition in the wild and remote Hindu Kush, in north-eastern Afghanistan.

The Shadow of the Sun

by Ryszard Kapuscinski

In 1957, Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa to witness the beginning of the end of colonial rule as the first African correspondent of Poland’s state newspaper.

From the early days of independence in Ghana to the ongoing ethnic genocide in Rwanda, Kapuscinski has crisscrossed vast distances pursuing the swift, and often violent, events that followed liberation. Kapuscinski hitchhikes with caravans, wanders the Sahara with nomads, and lives in the poverty-stricken slums of Nigeria. He wrestles a king cobra to the death and suffers through a bout of malaria.

What emerges is an extraordinary depiction of Africa–not as a group of nations or geographic locations–but as a vibrant and frequently joyous montage of peoples, cultures, and encounters. Kapuscinski’s trenchant observations, wry analysis and overwhelming humanity paint a remarkable portrait of the continent and its people.

His unorthodox approach and profound respect for the people he meets challenge conventional understandings of the modern problems faced by Africa at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

In 1957, Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa to witness the beginning of the end of colonial rule as the first African correspondent of Poland’s state newspaper.

In 1957, Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa to witness the beginning of the end of colonial rule as the first African correspondent of Poland’s state newspaper.

The Travels of Marco Polo

By Marco Polo

Probably one of the greatest travel books ever written. Marco Polo was the most famous traveller of his time. His voyages began in 1271 with a visit to China, after which he served the Kublai Khan on numerous diplomatic missions. On his return to the West he was made a prisoner of war and met Rustichello of Pisa, with whom he collaborated on this book.

His account of his travels offers a fascinating glimpse of what he encountered abroad: unfamiliar religions, customs and societies; the spices and silks of the East; the precious gems, exotic vegetation and wild beasts of faraway lands. Evoking a remote and long-vanished world with colour and immediacy, Marco’s book revolutionized western ideas about the then unknown East and is still one of the greatest travel accounts of all time.

Probably one of the greatest travel books ever written. Marco Polo was the most famous traveller of his time.

Probably one of the greatest travel books ever written. Marco Polo was the most famous traveller of his time.

Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe

By Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson’s first travel book, The Lost Continent, was unanimously acclaimed as one of the funniest books in years. In Neither Here nor There he brings his unique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia. Fluent in, oh, at least one language, he retraces his travels as a student twenty years before.

Whether braving the homicidal motorist of Paris, being robbed by gypsies in Florence, attempting not to order tripe and eyeballs in a German restaurant, window-shopping in the sex shops of the Reeperbahn or disputing his hotel bill in Copenhagen, Bryson takes in the sights, dissects the culture and illuminates each place and person with his hilariously caustic observations. He even goes to Liechtenstein.

In Neither Here nor There Bill Bryson brings his unique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia.

In Neither Here nor There Bill Bryson brings his unique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia.

The Last Bush Pilots

By Eric Auxier

Two young pilots, Daniel “DC” Alva and Allen David Foley, take on the world’s most dangerous flying:  the Alaska bush.  But Mother Nature–and a sexy Native Alaskan–stand in their way.

Southeast Alaska Seaplanes, Juneau.  Retired airline captain, Chief Pilot Dusty Tucker pilots a renegade band of flying misfits.  Meet legendary bush pilot Jake “Crash” Whitakker, equally adept at landing planes and ladies–and “crashin’ ’em” as well; prankster pilot Ralph Olaphsen, who once set an extinct volcano ablaze on April Fool’s Day; and no-nonsense Check Airman Holly Innes, trying to cut a respectable niche in the notoriously macho bush pilot world–while escaping a dangerous past.

Amid Alaska’s soggy skies, DC and Allen face escalating challenges in and out of the cockpit.  The twocheechackos, or greenhorns, are roped into Crash and Ralph’s hare-brained scheme, Operation Dirty Harry.  Under the suspicious nose of Draconian FAA Inspector Frederick Bruner, the pilots hatch a plot to hijack and rescue a planeload of orphaned bear cubs.  Moreover, mischievous Tlingit Indian Tonya Hunter, as wild and unpredictable as the land in which she lives, plays the two lovestruck cheechackosagainst each other.

But the true villain of the story is Mother Nature herself.  Alaska’s notoriously fickle weather and rugged terrain take on a life of its own.  Can the two cheechackos survive her relentless onslaught and launch their fledgeling airline careers?

Exhilarating flying, tall tales and larger-than-life characters abound in a wild land that truly is America’s Last Frontier.

Author, airline captain and popular blogger (capnaux.com) Eric Auxier brings his former Alaska bush flying to life in his second novel, The Last Bush Pilots.

Related Blog Post: A Day in the Life of an Airline Pilot. Interviewing Cap’n Aux.

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The Ultimate Summer Travel Reading List: Travel Books You Should Have on Your Shelves.

The Ultimate Summer Travel Reading List: Travel Books You Should Have on Your Shelves.

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Megan is an Australian Journalist who has been travelling and blogging since 2007, with the main aim of inspiring others to embark on their own worldwide adventure. Her husband Mike is an American travel photographer, and together they have made the world their home.

Committed to bringing you the best in adventure travel from all around the globe, there is no mountain too high, and no fete too extreme! They haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on their list.

Follow their journey on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram.

Photo credits: Pinterest Photos by Simon Cocks & Jonathan Rolande.