BootsnAll Travel Community

I just bought Paul Theroux's "Dark Star Safari" in January (in which he traveled from Cairo to Cape Town overland), now I am about head to a trip of my own, overland from Cape Town to Nairobi. And possibly flying to Addis Ababa afterwards.

Of course, Theroux's books usually are very critical of places he visited and rarely piant a rosy picture of those places. After finish that book, I decided to avoid matutu (min-van) as much as possible. Also, his horrifying exprience traveling overland from Ethiopian border to Nairobi (being shot at by Somali bandits in North Kenya) is the main reason why I don't want to travel overland from Nairobo to Addis...

But at least I may take Trans Karoo premier class train from Jo'Burg to Cape Town - also partly inspired by that book.

National Geographic. As a young child I didn't know there was so much I had yet to see beyond my little neighborhood.

i'll third michener's the drifters

I guess I started the thread with some other book, but I think this one did it: Come Over To My House, if only because I read it/had it read to me when I was two or three (which was not in 1966 even though that is when it was published!)

My parents found it somehow and sent it to me as part of a birthday gift and I still remember much of it. Homes around the world. Roofs around the world and even bathtubs around the world. An awesome book to influence your kids to travel before they even read about it.

Wow - and another amazon listing for it alerted me to the fact that its written by dr suess! The LeSieg is the name of the author, apparently dr suess' name backwards...

bloomability-sharon creech.

it's a young adults novel, and i first read it when i was seven or eight. the protagonist is sent to to switzerland to a boarding school where her uncle is the new headmaster and she befriends all these kids from all over the world.

when i finished, i promptly began the next five years of begging my parents to send me to boarding school.

my mom finally agreed,and then showed me a brochure for military school in virginia. i'm still at home. smile.

Odd as it sounds, of all the travel books I read as a kid, Lord of the Rings had the greatest influence. There was something about never knowing where the road would lead...

Also, my first trip felt like a great quest. Those were the days.

BTW, if you do Africa overland on your own, matutu may be the only way to go

ditto - National Geographic - no other printed material comes close.

It started for me ganking travel brochures from the local travel agency as a kid. I'd cut out the pictures of far away places and stick them on my bedroom wall. The first book I read as an adult that really changed me was 'Vagabonding' by Rolf Potts; and led me to this site. 'Into the Wild' By John Krakauer really speaks to my soul.

As far as making me want to travel I would definatly say National Geographic must be given alot of credit for activating my curiosity for the world, but when I read Rough Guides 'First-Time Around The World' I realized how feasible and ultimately simple it was to travel anywhere and everywhere.

I already had a trip planned when I first read 'The Wrong Way Home' from Peter Moore.

http://www.petermoore.net/

From London to Canberra (The old hippie trail) done all by land in 1995.

quote:

Originally posted by Skyehiker:
"The Beach" by Alex Garland. I am going to get myself to Thailand now that I've read it.

While "The Beach" is a great book, I think it's quite ironic that a lot of backpackers love it so much that they are thinking of going to Thailand, when the book is actually a criticism to the whole backpacking thing.

Here is an excerpt from this interview with Alex Garland taken during the filming of "The Beach":

quote:

He feels a lot of critics miss the satire. "I hear that "The Beach" is about Asia, and that it's a bad book. I think it's fairly obvious that this is really a book about backpackers. It's a document about a certain kind of traveler.

"A lot of the criticism of "The Beach" is that it presents Thais as two dimensional, as part of the scenery. That's because these people I'm writing about - backpackers - really only see them as part of the scenery. They don't see them or the Thai culture. To them, it's all part of a huge theme park, the scenery for their trip. That's the point."

Wearily, he adds: "This book is anti-traveler in a lot of ways. That was absolutely my intention. "The Beach" was meant to be a criticism of this backpacker culture, not a celebration of it."

Nevertheless, the very backpackers that Garland parodies in "The Beach" have hailed him as a spokesman for a lifestyle that he rejected long ago. "These people say they aren't tourists, but travellers and think they are special, more sensitive. It's stupid. They're not." Garland admits the book is very much autiobiographical. Leo's character, Richard, he says, "is basically me, when I was 18 or 19."

By the way, Alex Garland got his inspiration for writing the book in the Philippines, not Thailand. The reason why he chose Thailand as the place in the book and not the Philippines was because, and I quote, "is more of a Mecca for a certain kind of travel, the kind of backpackers in the book". In other words, basically the kind of backpackers he criticize as seen above.

And considering you are planning on going to Thailand after reading the book, it would be apt to quote the end of the interview: "God, I hope not. That would worry me. But it's all speculation until the movie comes out. I really don't see Leo fans jumping on planes and coming to Thailand. I hope not."

Some people obviously miss the point of the book.

Paul Theroux.

Atlas of the Human Heart by Ariel Gore

I love this thread! I'm getting book ideas right now.

It would have to be my Geography textbooks and this little World Atlas my father got me at a Russian bookfair in Delhi. I still wish I had that little atlas.

Book that made me think of long term travel The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo.

Madhu- I have been looking through your photos and you are an excellent photographer! Thanks for sharing!

For me, it was that Spanish text book in 7th grade that had the picture and history of Machu Picchu. That started my dreams of traveling.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac. It's what traveling is all about: crazy stories and all the interesting people you meet along the way.

Of course...On the Road by Jack Kerouac, but I was more influence by a lesser known book called Lonesome traveller which is a non-fiction autobiographical account of some of his actual travels around the atlantic. More realistic than his other stuff, and quite solemn, sweet and tender.

Also, the Dice Man, just because of what it says about spontanaety (spelling?) and I'm also really inspired right now by the writings of Fitzroy Maclean, a Scottish diplomat who travelled Central asia when it was almost completely cut off from the western world during the communist era. Amazing stuff.

well, i wasn't really sure what book i wanted to read next...i knew i had to read something about traveling, being that i am in the middle of the grind of a 7-3 shift 5 days a week, no weekends, really. so i came to this forum and checked it out, and thanks to what has been written here, i read The Beach.

I'd already seen the movie and really enjoyed most of it...it did get a little weird at times, but hey, so did the book, huh? so i loved the book, i thought the ending was incredibly revolting yet necessary.

and, yes, i have been working this job in order to save up for a trip to, where? you guessed it, thailand (or other beautiful beached countries).

I have never read On the Road, by Kerouac, so that is the next one up. who better to seek advice from about books that make you yearn to travel than from seasoned travelers such as yourselves, eh?

Thanks for your advice guys!
(even if you didn't know i was looking for it!)

For me it was the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder that got me started thinking about going Elsewhere. Okay, I am not a pioneer, and I sure do like being comfortable. But the idea of packing up everything I own and going to a new place, to make my home there for awhile--sounded good when I was six...sounds good now, actually. Somebody get me a wagon!

Also, my dad used to tell me and my siblings stories by Mark Twain when we were little. Some kids got bible stories at bedtime, some kids got fairytales--we got Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Again, that idea of adventure just seeped in.

For me it was the 1965 Encyclopedia Brittanica my parents bought when my mom was pregant with me. They never got any of the year books to bring it up to date, so I grew up with some funny ideas about the world (and was quite disadvantaged when I had to do research on things like the space program) and am still coming to terms with facts like the US population passing the 200 million mark...