BootsnAll Travel Community

I'm 39 yrs old,planning a solo woman adventure around the world for 2-3 years. I leave in one month.
I would be interested in knowing what travel books people have read that inspired them to get off the couch and GO!
Or, books that inspire the armchair traveler...
This could be travelogue type literature, or a collection of stories, a novel, whatever. Just something that really moved/motivated you, kept the travel bug alive-or woke it up.
I just finished "Tales of A Female Nomad" which was really enoyable...and inspired me to extend my trip from 1 year to 2? or 3?
Thanks!

Anything by Dervla Murphy, and - a long time ago - The Drifters, by James A. Michener. His descriptions of a voyage to Mozambique stayed with me two decades until I was finally able to do it myself...

This is too funny, Scribetrotter - I saw this topic and came here with the intent of posting about Dervla Murphy and Michener's book, The Drifters, as being my inspiration to travel. I read the Drifters in high school in the 70's and first started to dream of exotic far away places. Reading Dervla's first book, "Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle," added fuel to that dream. We were both single mothers, and her book really sparked my love for independent solo travel.

Great minds think alike!

I was particularly inspired by Dervla's In Ethiopia with a Mule. I later traveled in the Simien Mountains myself and couldn't for the life of me figure out how she'd done it - some of the most forbidding mountains in the world! And her The Ukimwi Road, I think it was called, was one of the first books that warned of the spread of AIDS in East Africa - truly visionary.

She was in Laos when I was there, but I never met her, and we just missed each other at Entebbe airport. Armed with these coincidences I wrote to her - and received a typed postcard in return which I cherish to this day!

As for the Drifters, I was in high school too... and their lives seemed so romantic, so adventurous - I couldn't wait to do the same...

National Geographic....any issue! =-)

One Year Off: Leaving It All Behind for a Round-the-World Journey with Our Children (Paperback)
by David Elliot Cohen

http://www.amazon.com/One-Year-Off-Round-World/dp/1885211651

I was thinking about taking a year off, read this book and it seemed like the book I wanted to write.

Is the above book in print? Can't find it...???

vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel
by rolf potts.

it's definitely my favorite

I am really impressed with your aim of solo woman adventure around the world. I also studied the "Tales of A Female Nomad", its very intresting and inspiring tale. By travelling you will learn alot and then also share your knowledge with other ones.

Best of Luck........

The locations may not be on the itinerary of most people, but Shutterbabe, the biography of photojournalist Deborah Copaken Kogan (?), is her story of moving to Paris after finishing school, going to Afganistan to cover the conflict (with Russia) soon after, and later to Israel, Africa, Russia, and other places I don't even remember.

I don't think that doing that kind of trip exactly needs to appeal, but just reading that one person really can just go on their own, without some large sponsor or escort or whatever, is pretty neat.

Leo Buscaglia's Way of the Bull- A beautiful tale of one man's spiritual search through a number of countries in Asia. Each chapter devotes itself to a particular country.

Tim Ferris' "The Four Hour Work Week".

Not necessarily about taking a year-long RTW, but def. good for starting to think outside the box.

Anything by Bruce Chatwin...
In Patagonia
The Songlines
What Am I Doing Here?

Colin Thurbon's new book: Shadow of the Silk Road

Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski

CAJ
www.thewidewideworld.com

quote:

Originally posted by CAJ:
What Am I Doing Here? CAJ

Who wrote that? I've heard good things about it, but can't recall its author.

quote:

What Am I Doing Here

quote:

Who wrote that?

Bruce Chatwin

Theroux, Newby, maybe Bryson.

I have only one candidate travel author, two of whose earlier books really helped get me bitten by the bug.

Eric Newby:

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush.

and:


The Last Grain Race.

Both were written in the 1950s, yet they both stand the test of time very well indeed.

Miles From Nowhere by Barbara Savage. It's about a young couple who spent two years bicycling around the world. I wanted to be Barbara!