Literary Trips: Five Classic Travel Books to Read Now
A frozen-in-time hacienda in Mexico, a hold-your-breath trek across the Sahara, a solo bike odyssey to India, the Balkans in all their colorful oddness, and more.
When my son was small, he asked me one day why reading was so important. “Because if you don’t read, you live only one life,” I answered. I had read that quote somewhere, and it stuck hard.
The best classic travel books give you not only an escape portal but a roadmap for personal transformation. The writers who thrill me most all believe that the chief pleasure of travel is the point of view a person brings to it. They are curious and open-minded, whether confronting the unknown or the desperately uncomfortable.
These five favorite eccentric travel classics offer edge-of-your-seat adventures from the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan, stylish observations from a wildly offbeat 1950s Mexico, and soulful meditations from the top of a camel in the Sahara. Each one will, in its own way, whisk you away from the here and now and deposit you in the there and when — all from the comfort of your easy chair.
Happy travels.
“It is simply a book of marvels, to be read again and again and again. — Bruce Chatwin
A Visit to Don Otavio, Sybille Bedford (1953)
Hedonism makes for great escape reading. Dense and exotic, this eclectic travelogue of Sybille’s expedition to Mexico with her girlfriend Esther Murphy reads like a mashup of MFK Fisher meets Martha Gellhorn. An aesthete’s aesthete, her descriptions of food and wine are as crucial to the book as her forays into bug-infested jungles. Her stay at the stylish crumbling hacienda of a dotty Mexican count is at the heart of the book and is a poignant dreamscape of courtliness that will linger in your brain like a fever-dream.
"Newby not only writes beautifully, he can also make serious things very funny. And he just keeps going, which is all we can ask for." — John Mortimer
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, Eric Newby (1958)
Simultaneously gripping and laugh-out loud funny, London fashion buyer Newby heads to Afghanistan with his friend Hugh (a Hugh Grant character if there ever was one) to conquer the notoriously dangerous and unsummited peak of Mir Samir. One problem—he hasn’t mountain climbed anywhere “there weren’t ladies twice my age armed with umbrellas.” This slight bump is remedied one weekend in Wales when two barmaids agree to show him the ropes, and after that, it’s a hair-raising drive across rugged Asia and an arduous trek to Samir with three Afghan helpers. Newby faces real peril and unrelenting hardships on his journey, but his self-deprecating English charm keeps us rooting for him the whole way.
“I thank God for my sanguine temperament, which refuses to allow me to believe in disaster until it is finally manifest.” — Dervla Murphy
Full Tilt, Ireland to India with a Bicycle, Dervla Murphy (1965)
After the death of her home-bound mother whom she spent decades tirelessly caring for, 31 year-old Dervla hopped on a bicycle one wintry Irish afternoon in 1963 and kept going until she reached India six months later. Starving wolves, lecherous men, extremes of cold and heat, and the danger of being a solo woman in such remote lands may have slowed her down, but they never stopped her — she often said she was born without a fear chip. An eccentric combination of tough and tender, (her backpack contained a change of clothes, a .25 revolver and a copy of Blake’s poems), she is able to find the bright side in everything (on mutton soup: “delicious if you like your soup twenty-five percent grease with lumps of fat floating in it, as I do"). As a reader, it’s hard not to come away wishing for a little of her inspirational Irish mettle. You’ll want to read all her other books after this one (I did and have).
“One reason I did this book is that all the books I’ve read about rough journeys do tend to exclude the soft, weak, feeble sides we all have. They all seem to be bloody superman. You think, did they ever cry?” —Geoffrey Moorhouse
The Fearful Void, Geoffrey Moorhouse (1974)
Not a month goes by where this book doesn’t pop into my head. Moorhouse’s quest to be the first person to cross the African Sahara from west to east, by himself and by camel, is an unputdownable read. He was totally afraid to go, which is why he went: “He realized he had been a man who had lived with fear all of his life and he believed it was the most corrosive element attacking the goodness of the human spirit.” Moorhouse bares his soul to the reader, warts and all, and his countless mishaps and emotional struggles are what make his story so relatable and endearing, and why it was hailed an instant classic upon publication. If you’ve ever struggled with fear (up goes my hand), keep this book nearby for a shot of courage anytime you need it.
“Ms. Blanch spent decades traveling throughout the Soviet Union, Central Asia and the Middle East. To the end of her life, she was apt to greet visitors while attired in a caftan and turban (or perhaps leopardskin trousers), draped in ethnic jewelry.” — New York Times
Under a Lilac-Bleeding Star, Lesley Blanch (1964)
Romantics are born, not made, and the stylish lens through which ex-Vogue editor and writer Lesley Blanch viewed the world reads as vividly today as it did in 1964. A compendium of essays on travel and travelers, the title comes from an old Bulgarian proverb about a person restless for faraway lands being born under a “lilac-bleeding star.” From Uzbekhistan to the Balkans to Mexico and beyond, her artist’s eye alights on the most wondrous of images and seamlessly weaves them with her own inimitable mix of personal anecdotes and history.
—Lisa Borgnes Giramonti
An endorsement from Bruce Chatwin? Sold! (I'm buying a couple of the other ones as well)
Fabulous reads in my future!