BootsnAll Travel Community

Growing up it had to be Jules Verne. They were books like Around the world in eighty days, Michell Strogoff and Mysterious Island. Those book let me read non-fictional books about explorers like Marco Polo, Vespucci and Francis Drake. I was sad to discover that most places by then had already been mapped and discovered.

I love reading books that get me motivated to travel... although it's almost a bad idea sometimes when you need to stay put and pay the bills. :-) Here are some of my favorites -- keep in mind that I am a life-long French student and a sucker for reading on that subject (entries 3-5).

1. On The Road by Jack Kerouac
2. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
3. A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
4. Almost French by Sarah Turnbull
5. A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke
6. Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
7. Sand in My Bra and Other Misadventures by Jessica Maxwell
8. How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer

I also hear Bill Bryson can be an inspiring read, and he sure has no shortage of stuff to pick up.

Great thread!

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy makes me want to travel. Which is funny because it has no real relavence as far as inspiring a place, but rather implants a longing in me for the feel of travel. Id list more, but its apparent i need to expand my reading list.

National Geographic, my grandmother had a subscription.
She travelled, by the way.

Later on, all kinds of books including
Josephs conrads novels about the sea
Hemingways novels about spain and Africa
Around the World in 80 days

Top quality books
Kim- Rudyard kipling. Yeah, the guy could write
Iberia James michener
The Road to Damascus- Never been to Damascus yet


These are only the few that come to mind immediately.
Tin tin, of course, but I was exposed to them late.

But hey, I started travelling late, in my 30's, so I had a late start.

Tales of a Female Nomad.. loved her perspective, her spiritual adventures, everything. really inspiring

For me, it was definitely Tin Tin, Mumin, Asterix & Obelix, and Pippi Longstocking. My wanderlust was installed within me from a very young age.

Tin Tin went to so many exotic destinations and had amazing adventures in them. Reading the comic books made me absolutely quiver in excitement.
You just can't beat the Mumins (any one been to Muminland by the way? Fun place.)
Asterix & Obelix lived in an awesome Celtic land, and they travelled to Rome and London and had a jolly good time.
Pippi's very spirit is wandering. She came on a ship from goodness knows where to Sweden. "Pippi in the South Seas" absolutely did it for me.

quote:

Originally posted by AnnaM:
For me, it was definitely Tin Tin, Mumin, Asterix & Obelix, and Pippi Longstocking. My wanderlust was installed within me from a very young age.

Tin Tin went to so many exotic destinations and had amazing adventures in them. Reading the comic books made me absolutely quiver in excitement.
You just can't beat the Mumins (any one been to Muminland by the way? Fun place.)
Asterix & Obelix lived in an awesome Celtic land, and they travelled to Rome and London and had a jolly good time.
Pippi's very spirit is wandering. She came on a ship from goodness knows where to Sweden. "Pippi in the South Seas" absolutely did it for me.

OMG I loved Tintin and Asterix. They always were having fun in new places. Tintin on the moon, Tintin in Africa, Tintin and the Pharoahs...ah you brought back memories.

I read them as a kid way back in the 70's and 80's.

"Take Me With You"

also- National Geographic magazines...not exactly a book, but reading material.

I also agree with LifeWanderer- Tales of a Female Nomad was also excellent and beautifully written.

Miles from Nowhere by Barbara Savage. Married couple did two years around the world on bikes in the early '80s. Awesome adventures and amazingly tragic. She was killed a few blocks from her home riding her bike only a short time after their return, just before the book went to publishing.

The Travel Book: A Journey Through Every Country in the World by Lonely Planet
I want to travel all around the world also, it is exciting and interesting.

People's Guide to Mexico. If possible read the earlier editions.

I know it's not a book and I know it's been said but The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Radio version) always makes me want to grab my towel and just walk out the door and never turn back. To just experience everything the universe has to offer without a plan on where I should go or where I need to be.

A second vote for the People's Guide to Mexico. It doesn't list hotels and resorts. Instead it gives some really great tricks on how to stretch that last dollar into another week of travel. Things that people growing up in a world of supermarkets with packaged food and shopping malls never think of. Plus, even the worst things that happen to them seem in hindsight to be the adventures we all want to have. Today, they have a website with all kinds of great info. The philosophy the book teaches works most anywhere.

A Journey Through Every Country in the World by Lonely Planet make me want to travel and see all things around the world.

quote:

Originally posted by happyhiker:
"Take Me With You"

I cried like you wouldn't believe it when I read it! And I was reading it on a plane and everybody thought there was something seriously wrong with me.
It's my all time favorite. I've read it a billion times and never get bored.

Which "Take me with you" I looked it up and there are like twenty books with that name...The Brad Newsham one?

Yes, the Brad Newsham one.

When I was 12 I was entranced by all the books I read by Rudyard Kipling.

I read Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham written in 1944. The epitaph of the book: “The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard.” —Katha-Upanishad. The book speaks to the romanticism attached to expatriate and bohemian living in European capitals.

I read it in high school…along with “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse...and these two books were to influence me the rest of my life. So I hitch-hiked Europe in 1965 and now I spend a time in Asia where two of my sons live.

And then there is the indepensable “The World’s Most Dangerous Places” by the consummate journalist Robert Young Pelton that keeps me going.


Blog: http://blogs.bootsnall.com/nomads

Who Needs a Road: the Longest and Last Motor Journey Around the World by Harold Stephens and Albert Podell.

It's the true story of two guys who drive a Land Cruiser around the world. It's truly the last true round the world adventure because they went through areas that are now virtually closed to travelers.

What an adventure. Highly recommended.