Best travel books: 15 Masterpieces of world literature

Writing a post about the best travel books is a daunting task. Every travel writer out there has a list of beloved books. Such listings will always produce controversy and bring comments like, “But how could you possibly forget this book?” The truth is, though, that you can’t satisfy everyone. Therefore, a list containing the best travel literature will always be highly subjective. What you love is probably different from what I love, and vice versa.

So, why write this post anyway? Well, I believe that there are two reasons. First of all, every list of the best travel literature is different. This means that the reader always has an opportunity to discover some new travel books. Second, by reading such lists, one can always come closer to the person behind a blog. We are all influenced by writers, and it’s always fair for the reader to know what made us writers.

Therefore, in this article, you’ll find my favorite travel books. Despite the differences in style and plot, all these books have one thing in common: traveling. Moreover, each one of these books kicked an adventure -and the same happened with some of my favorite graphic novels.

*Some of the links are affiliate links. It means that if you buy something, I might earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.

The best travel books to fuel your wanderlust

So, here you can see my favorite books of travel literature. There are short excerpts beneath each title in order to get a better idea about the topic and the writing style. All images are clickable.

“Travels with Charley: In search of America,” by John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck’s book has always been one of my favorite travel books. This 1960 journey around America gives us a fine impression of Steinbeck’s thoughts as he wanders around the country together with his dog. A constant motive of the book is “What are Americans like today?” and this seems to be his real fuel to travel across America.

Excerpt: “I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I’ve lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy, and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.”

Buy the Travels with Charley.

“The Greek Islands,” by Lawrence Durrell

Lawrence Durrell, a true master of the written word, has been perpetually inspired by the Mediterranean Sea. In his book The Greek Islands, Durrell offers us a unique description of life in the islands of Greece. History and myth coexist in this book, probably the most personal book that Lawrence Durrell ever wrote.

Excerpt: “The Aegean is pure, vertical, and dramatic. Crete is like a Leviathan, pushed up by successive geological explosions. It is also like the buckle in a slender belt of islands that shelter the inner Cyclades from the force of the deep sea, and which once formed an unbroken range of mountains joining the Peloponessus to the south-west Turkish ranges.”

Buy The Greek islands here.

“20,000 leagues under the sea”, by Jules Verne

I guess you can never find a list of the best travel literature of all time without at least one book by Jules Verne. Of course, this might be the most well-known book, but still, it’s a personal favorite of mine. As a kid, I remember how fascinated I was by this novel. I returned several times as an adult to the 20,000 leagues under the sea. Sometimes I was searching for inspiration, while other times, I just wanted to admire once again Verne’s writing. Partly a travelogue, partly science-fiction, this book seems like a long fight against a sea monster.

Excerpt: “The sea is everything. It covers seven-tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the Living Infinite. ”

Buy the 20,000 leagues under the sea here.

“The music of chance,” by Paul Auster

The great contemporary novelist, Paul Auster, has produced an impressive body of work. His novels often deal with coincidences and how they affect our lives. In his novel, The Music of Chance, Auster follows Jim Nashe on a journey across America. Nashe will meet Jack Pozzi down the road, an angry gambler. They will travel together on a journey full of coincidences and existential research.

Excerpt: “It’s just another word for the same thing. You want to believe in some hidden purpose. You’re trying to persuade yourself there’s a reason for what happens in the world. I don’t care what you call it–God or luck or harmony– it all comes down to the same bullshit. It’s a way of avoiding the facts, of refusing to look at how things really work.”

Buy The Music of Chance here.

“First Voyage around the world,” by Antonio Pigafetta

Born in 1492, Antonio Pigafetta was a geographer that took part in Magellan’s first globe circumnavigation between 1519 and 1522. He was the man writing the expedition’s diary, and he offered us a travel book about this fascinating journey. Everything seems exotic in the book: from the descriptions of giants to the incidents that took place. I think this is one of the finest travelogues of all time but also a tribute to the idea of traveling itself.

Excerpt: “Our men brought eighteen of these giants, both men, and women, whom they placed in two divisions, half on one side of the port, and the other half at the other, to hunt the said animals. Six days after, our people on going to cut wood, saw another giant, with his face painted and clothed like the abovementioned, he had in his hand a bow and arrows, and approaching our people he made some touches on his head and then on his body, and afterward did the same to our people. ”

Get your copy of The First Voyage around the world here.

“Fear and loathing in Las Vegas,” by Hunter S. Thompson

In this 1971 novel, Hunter S. Thompson follows Raoul Duke and his attorney as they embark on a journey to chase the American Dream. A good part of the book is autobiographical, while the pages of this novel are full of drugs. The encounters of the two main characters portray the counter-culture of the ’60s. There is a fine line (not easily recognizable) dividing fact and fiction, and Thompson’s novel is an example of the so-called gonzo journalism.

Excerpt: “But our trip was different. It was a classic affirmation of everything right and true and decent in the national character. It was a gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country -but only for those with true grit.”

Buy Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

“Homage to Catalonia,” by George Orwell

George Orwell’s book is actually a war report. Orwell was fighting for the Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War. However, the Homage to Catalonia can be read as an extensive travelogue because Orwell adds his impressively deep observations about society and humanity. Not your typical travel book for sure, but an absolute gem definitely.

Excerpt: “The industrial towns were far away, a smudge of smoke and misery hidden by the curve of the earth’s surface. Down here it was still the England I had known in my childhood: the railway-cuttings smothered in wildflowers, the deep meadows where the great shining horses browse and meditate, the slow-moving streams bordered by willows, the green bosoms of the elms, the larkspurs in the cottage gardens.”

Get your copy of Homage to Catalonia.

“The Travels of Marco Polo,” by Rustichello da Pisa & Marco Polo

“The Travels of Marco Polo” is a 13th-century travelogue by Rustichello da Pisa. It contains stories narrated by Italian explorer Marco Polo. It is a beautiful description of Polo’s travels through Asia between 1271 and 1295, including his experiences at the court of Kublai Khan. This is probably one of the very first travel books ever written and a must for your travel books library.

Excerpt: “We go naked because we want nothing of this world, for we came into the world naked and unclothed. As for not being ashamed to show our members, the fact is that we do no sin with them and therefore have no more shame in them than you have when you show your hand or face or the other parts of your body that do not lead you into carnal sin; whereas you use your members to commit sin and lechery, and so you cover them up and are ashamed of them.”

Buy the Travels of Marco Polo

“A Tramp Abroad,” by Mark Twain

If you love Mark Twain as much as I do, you will probably appreciate his travelogue from Europe. This is a witty book about Twain’s encounters as a 19th-century traveler. I have already mentioned Mark Twain’s European journey while writing about his observations in Lucerne. Twain’s books always have a special place on my bookshelves, and I often return to “A Tramp Abroad.”

Excerpt: “Everybody has heard of the great Heidelberg Tun, and most people have seen it, no doubt. It is a wine-cask as big as a cottage, and some traditions say it holds eighteen hundred thousand bottles, and other traditions say it holds eighteen hundred million barrels. I think it likely that one of these statements is a mistake, and the other is a lie.”

Get the Tramp Abroad.

“A time of gifts: on foot to Constantinople,” by Patrick Leigh Fermor

It’s hard to imagine nowadays somebody walking from London to Istanbul (Constantinople). But once upon a time, Patrick Leigh Fermor did that back in 1933! The “Time of Gifts” is Fermor’s first volume of a trilogy that describes his fantastic journey. Although Fermor’s language might seem a bit dated to some, this is a brilliant book, full of deep thoughts and observations. Patrick Leigh Fermor is one of the most important travel writers of the 20th century. If you haven’t read any of his books so far, start with this one.

Excerpt: “The notion that I had walked twelve hundred miles since Rotterdam filled me with a legitimate feeling of something achieved. But why should the thought that nobody knew where I was, as though I were in flight from bloodhounds or from worshipping Corybants bent on dismemberment, generate such a feeling of triumph? It always did.”

Buy the Time of Gifts.

“The great railway bazaar,” by Paul Theroux

If traveling is for you a long adventure by train, then Paul Theroux’s book is a must-read. This is a travelogue about a 1973 journey from London to South-East Asia. And the best part? After four months of train travel, Theroux decides to return by catching the Trans-Siberian Railway. Can it really get any better?

Excerpt: “So far, I had been traveling alone with my handbook and my Western Railway timetable: I was happiest finding my own way and did not require a liaison man. It had been my intention to stay on the train, without bothering about arriving anywhere: sight-seeing was a way of passing the time, but, as I had concluded in Istanbul, it was an activity very largely based on imaginative invention, like rehearsing your own play in stage sets from which all the actors had fled.”

Buy the Great Railway Bazaar.

“The long road of sand,” by Pier Paolo Pasolini

Pasolini’s lonesome (and at the same time legendary) journey through Italy is a tribute to solo traveling. He drives with his tiny car from village to village and talks with bizarre characters. Italy is a canvas, and Pasolini “paints” perpetually on it. His cinematic journey offers us a mind-blowing travelogue, where the countryside of Italy reflects the writer’s memories. To be honest, this is one of the most emotional books I’ve ever read.

Excerpt: “I walk along the small, desert beach at the town’s foot. And in the silence that is both inside of me and outside, I feel some long, voiceless collapse. The entire Apulian coastline dissolves in this quiet, after flaring up in my eyes and ears for mornings and afternoons of pre-human, sub-human chaos. Salento is lost, stern like a northern land, with its Greek-like towns on a centuries-old strike; Brindisi is an explosion: the most chaotic, furious, regurgitating of Italian beaches; the wonderful Otranto and Ostuni are the South’s cities of silence; Bari is every city’s marine model; finally, Gargano: with its cathedral of supreme beauty, over the sea, right above the black and blond naked rascals among the rocks”.

Buy the Long Road of Sand.

“On the road,” by Jack Kerouac

A true masterpiece and a cornerstone book of post-War America. Kerouac’s legendary journey from one coast to the other is actually an epic inner trip, too. Written in less than one month, On the Road narrates the writer’s journeys across America with his friend Neal Cassady. Kerouac’s odyssey captured a generation’s soul and conquered the next ones’ dreams.

Excerpt: “What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? – it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”

Buy your copy of On the road.

“The summer,” by Albert Camus

This is definitely one of the most poetic travel books of all time. The Nobelist author and philosopher delivers here several texts about his favorite places. The thing that connects these places is, of course, the eternal summer. If you haven’t read this book, I envy you: it’s a pure masterpiece, and I would love to read it for the first time. The truth is, though, that I read it dozens of times.

Excerpt: “Paris is often a desert for the heart, but at certain moments from the heights of Père-Lachaise, there blows a revolutionary wind that suddenly fills that desert with flags and fallen glories. So it is with certain Spanish towns, with Florence or with Prague. Salzburg would be peaceful without Mozart. But from time to time, there rings out over the Salzach the great proud cry of Don Juan as he plunges toward hell. Vienna seems more silent; she is a youngster among cities. Her stones are no older than three centuries, and their youth is ignorant of melancholy.”

Buy The Summer.

“The Songlines,” by Bruce Chatwin

It was challenging to decide between Camus and Chatwin. I nominated Chatwin for No.1 in the list of the best travel books because he was a dedicated travel writer (Camus was a novelist and philosopher). The Songlines, this storytelling and travel writing masterpiece, is probably my favorite travel book. On the other hand, Chatwin was really an adventurer, and his thirst for knowledge brought him to every corner of this planet. Although his most famous book is In Patagonia, I chose The Songlines because I feel he’s talking extensively about protecting cultural identities.

This is an outstanding journey to Australia, where he researched Aboriginal songs in connection with nomadic travel. A true masterpiece.

Excerpt: “Richard Lee calculated that a Bushman child will be carried a distance of 4,900 miles before he begins to walk on his own. Since, during this rhythmic phase, he will be forever naming the contents of his territory, it is impossible he will not become a poet.”

Buy the Songlines.

*The excerpts are from Wikipedia, Goodreads & Italian ways

The best books of travel literature: An epilogue

Travel literature always fuels our wanderlust. It doesn’t matter if we finally plan a journey following the steps of a travel writer or not. The most important element is that they expand our horizons and convert us from tourists to curious travelers. As I stated in the beginning, creating a list of the best travel books is challenging and highly subjective. Therefore, if you are a book lover or think I forgot a book or two (or ten), feel free to add your favorite ones in the comments below.

Bonus: Searching for a travel gift? Find out here 20 unique gift ideas for travelers.

More guides: How to start a travel blog, The Ultimate Berlinale Guide, & Greek islands on a budget

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Last Updated on July 17, 2022 by George Pavlopoulos