Writing The Vagabond’s Way put me into conversation with hundreds of authors, spanning dozens of centuries. Its embedded quotes reflect decades of reading and notetaking in assorted libraries, streetside cafes, train compartments, hostel lounges, and jungle hammocks around the world.
This list serves as an expanded, categorical list of recommended readings from the books I mentioned in its pages.
Selected Short Works Quoted in The Vagabond’s Way
- Walt Whitman, “Song of the Open Road” (1855)
Whitman’s ode to open-ended travel is a joyful celebration of travel’s possibilities. - Pico Iyer, “Why We Travel” (2000)
In writing about the “why” of travel, Iyer explores the motivations and rewards that underpin going on an engaged journey. - Binyavanga Wainaina, “How to Write About Africa” (2005)
Wainaina’s sharp-edged satire, which originated as an exasperated email after reading Granta‘s “Africa issue,” is a sendup of generations of lazy writing about Africa. - Virginia Woolf, “Street Haunting” (1930)
Woolf’s essay about taking a walk around London (under the false pretense of buying a new pencil) evokes the joys of walking until your day becomes interesting. - Wade Davis, “On Native Ground” (2008)
An essay by the Canadian cultural anthropologist on the importance of seeking to understand and appreciate far-flung indigenous cultures. - John O’Donohue, “For the Traveler” (2008)
The Irish poet-philosopher’s celebration of the transformational potential of going on a journey. - Bob Shacochis, “Be an Expat” (2002)
Originally written for Men’s Journal, this short essay argues for the virtues of spending a portion of one’s life living overseas. - Maya Angelou, “Passports to Understanding” (1993)
This short essay, included in Angelou’s book Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now, encourages travel as a way to embrace our common humanity. - Ryszard Kapuscinski, “Herodotus and the Art of Noticing” (2007)
In tandem with his book Travels With Herodotus, the celebrated Polish correspondent makes a case for seeking to report on and understand other cultures. - Walker Percy, “The Loss of the Creature” (1975)
This classic essay, included in the American novelist’s collection The Message in the Bottle, explores how ingrained expectations can affect our experience of a journey. - Robert D. Kaplan, “Cultivating Loneliness” (2006)
An American journalist’s case for why travel writing – rather than panic-driven current-events reporting – can bring us true news of the world. - Ross Gay, “Loitering Is Delightful” (2019)
A celebration of idleness, from American poet Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights.
Essays and Criticism About Travel
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- Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking (2001)
Solnit’s philosophical history of walking is an erudite meditation on the task of traveling by foot through a rich variety of settings, landscapes, and eras. - Thomas Swick, The Joys of Travel: And Stories that Illuminate Them (2016)
Insightful observations, meditations, and stories of travel, by the underappreciated American travel writer and former newspaper editor. - Nanjala Nyabola, Traveling While Black: Essays Inspired by a Life on the Move (2020)
Kenya-born Nyabola reports from places like Haiti, New York, and Botswana in this engaging and wide-ranging collection of essays about travel, migration, and identity. - Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel (2002)
Essays about the pleasures of anticipation, the allure of the exotic, and the value of noticing everything, from the prolific Swiss-English writer. Read excerpts from The Art of Travel. - Stephanie Rosenbloom, Alone Time: Four Seasons, Four Cities, and the Pleasures of Solitude (2018)
The New York Times travel journalist explores how traveling alone is conducive to becoming acutely aware of the world. Listen to my podcast interview with Rosenbloom. - Lucy R. Lippard, On the Beaten Track: Tourism, Art, and Place (2000)
The American art critic takes an in-depth look at how tourism sites are conceived and represented, and how they affect the places they transform. - Eric J. Leed, The Mind of the Traveler: From Gilgamesh to Global Tourism (1991)
A scholarly look at the human act of travel, from the Epic of Gilgamesh, Exodus, and The Odyssey, up through the modern practice of global tourism. - Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (1988)
An expansive, book-length essay that touches on tourism and the legacies of colonialism in the Caribbean, by the renowned the Antiguan-American novelist. - Robert Moor, On Trails: An Exploration (2016)
Moor uses the topic of human and animal trails to explore how and why they are formed, how they give order to chaos, and why we choose certain paths over others. Read excerpts from On Trails: An Exploration. - Dave Seminara, Mad Travelers: A Tale of Wanderlust, Greed and the Quest to Reach the Ends of the Earth (2021)
A perceptive and entertaining book-length study of wanderlust. Listen to my podcast interview with Seminara. - Lavinia Spalding, Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler (2009)
A practical and philosophical handbook to keeping a journal on the road. Listen to my podcast interview with Spalding.
Scholarly Writing About Travel
- Paul Fussell, Abroad: British Literary Traveling between the Wars (1980)
Literary historian Fussell explores what the travel writing of the 1920s and 1930s reveals about the way we travel. Read excerpts from Abroad: British Literary Traveling between the Wars. - Susan Sontag, On Photography (1977)
Sontag’s observations about how we use the camera lens to navigate our travels remain prescient. Read excerpts from On Photography. - Erve Chambers, Native Tours: The Anthropology of Travel and Tourism (1999)
A highly accessible academic book that views travelers through the lens of anthropology. Read excerpts from Native Tours: The Anthropology of Travel and Tourism. - Dean MacCannell, The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class (1976)
A pioneering sociological study of postindustrial tourism, and the way people react to the experience of travel. - Valene L. Smith, Hosts and Guests: The Anthropology of Tourism (1989)
A collection of anthropological writing about tourist-host behavior, and tourism as a medium for cultural exchange. - Claude Levi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques (1955)
A watershed work that recounts search for “a human society reduced to its most basic expression,” by the pioneering structural anthropologist. - Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extension of Man (1964)
This pioneering study of mass media isn’t specifically about travel, but it uses a wealth of travel analogies to illustrate the way we have come to mediate our lives. - Daniel Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1962)
This book famously defined a celebrity as “a person who is known for his well-knownness,” and is rich with examples of how tourist pursuits have become “pseudo-events.” - Orvar Lofgren, On Holiday: A History of Vacationing (1999)
An engaging and highly readable cultural history of holiday travel, and the trends, technologies, and fashions that have surrounded it over the centuries. - Rolf Potts, Souvenir (2018)
My own cultural history of travel souvenirs, and how they reflect authenticity, cultural obligation, market forces, human suffering, and self-presentation.
Twenty-First-Century Travel Memoirs
- Jan Morris, Trieste and The Meaning of Nowhere (2001)
Morris is remembered as one of the great travel writers of the twentieth century, and this early twenty-first century account of the history-drenched Adriatic city is one of her most celebrated (and personally reflective) books. - Paul Theroux, The Tao of Travel: Enlightenments from Lives on the Road (2011)
America’s most celebrated travel author aggregates and reflects upon a wide range of travel books that influenced his career and his understanding of the world. Read excerpts from The Tao of Travel: Enlightenments from Lives on the Road. - Tim Cahill, Hold the Enlightenment (2002)
This collection of essays and travel tales from places like Turkey, Ecuador, and the Congo is rich with the wit and wisdom of America’s great adventure-travel writer. - William Finnegan, Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life (2015)
Technically a surfing memoir, Finnegan’s book reveals the joys of traveling around the world through the lens of a single obsession. Read excerpts from Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life. - Kate Harris, Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road (2018)
Harris’s travel memoir mixes science, philosophy, and history to evoke the exuberant, meditative experience of a bicycle expedition through Central Asia. Read my interview with Kate Harris from the paperback edition of the book. - Eric Weiner, The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World (2009)
Part travel memoir, part humor, and part self-help guide, this book takes the reader across the globe to investigate not what happiness is, but where it is. - Monisha Rajesh, Around the World in 80 Trains: A 45,000 Mile Adventure (2019)
A London-based travel journalist’s irreverent look at the world of train travel, on a trip that takes her from London to Russia and Mongolia, North Korea, Canada, Kazakhstan, and beyond. Listen to my podcast interview with Rajesh. - Carl Hoffman, The Lunatic Express: Discovering the World via Its Most Dangerous Buses, Boats, Trains, and Planes (2011)
An empathetic and enlightening account of what it’s like to travel around the world using the same conveyances used every day by (most poor) people around the world. - Gideon Lewis-Kraus, A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful (2012)
Lewis-Kraus travels Europe’s Camino de Santiago, the Japanese island of Shikoku, and a migration to the Ukrainian tomb of a Hasidic mystic to explore the discipline and desire of pilgrimage. - Anthony Doerr, Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World (2008)
A celebration of expatriate life in Italy, as recollected by the acclaimed American novelist. - Andrew McCarthy, The Longest Way Home: One Man’s Quest for the Courage to Settle Down (2012)
Writer and actor Andrew McCarthy recounts journeys to places like Mt. Kilimanjaro and an Amazonian riverboat in this deeply personal account of how one can use travel to examine one’s own life. - Rolf Potts, Marco Polo Didn’t Go There: Stories and Revelations from One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer (2008)
My own collection of travel tales explored a moment in history when online connectivity was changing the way we interacted with – and wrote about – other cultures.
Twentieth-Century Travel Memoirs
- Pico Iyer, Video Night in Kathmandu and Other Reports from the Not-So-Far East (1988)
Iyer’s Asia-themed essays illustrate how travel’s truest revelations lie in the intimate (and often comical) cross-cultural discoveries that arise from an ever-shrinking world. - Eddy L. Harris, Native Stranger: A Black American’s Journey into the Heart of Africa (1992)
This underappreciated travel classic stands out for its aphoristic prose, taut storytelling, and nuanced perspective in describing an overland journey across Africa. - Nicolas Bouvier, The Way of the World (1963)
Bouvier’s insightful travelogue evokes the thrills, surprises, and illuminations of a youthful automobile journey from Geneva to the Khyber Pass. - Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople: From the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube (1977)
This critically acclaimed travel memoir recounts a youthful walking journey across Europe in the 1930s. - Dervla Murphy, Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle (1965)
The celebrated Irish travel author’s debut book is based on the daily diary she kept while riding a bicycle through Persia, Afghanistan and over the Himalayas to Pakistan and India. - Robyn Davidson, Tracks: A Woman’s Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback (1980)
A candid and compelling recounting of Davidson’s 1700-mile journey across the Australian desert, in the company of four camels and a dog. - Tété-Michel Kpomassie, An African in Greenland (1981)
An engaging travel memoir about a Togolese man’s long-held dreams of traveling the Arctic, and his eventual adventures among the Inuit in Greenland. - Juanita Harrison, My Great, Wide, Beautiful World (1936)
An engaging travel memoir by a working-class African-American who worked and traveled in 22 countries across Europe, Asia, Africa, and Polynesia in the late 1920s and early 1930s. - Beryl Markham, West with the Night (1942)
A lyrical coming-of-age memoir by aviation pioneer Markham, who recounts her childhood in Africa. - A Stranger in the Village: Two Centuries of African-American Travel Writing (1998)
This anthology collects travel stories by African-American writers like James Baldwin, Angela Davis, Langston Hughes, Sylvia Ardyn Boone, and Nat Love.
Nineteenth-Century Travel Memoirs and Histories
- Paul Fussell, The Norton Book of Travel (1987)
Fussell’s collection of classic travel writing spans the centuries, but has a particularly rich selection of travel accounts by such nineteenth-century writers as Frances Trollope, Charles Dickens, Henry James, William Wordsworth, and Lord Byron. - Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)
Twain’s consistently hilarious recounting of an American group-tourist excursion to Europe and the Holy Land. - Alexander Kinglake, Eothen, or, Traces of Travel Brought Home from the East (1844)
Kinglake account of a horseback journey through the Ottoman Empire is a delightfully personal account of traveling during a time of plague. - David F. Dorr, A Colored Man Round the World (1858)
A remarkable memoir by a former Louisiana slave, recounting his experience of accompanying a white plantation owner across Europe in the 1850s. - Isabella Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879)
An epistolary account of a journey through Wyoming and Colorado, as recounted by an intrepid British woman who also wrote travel memoirs about Japan, Hawaii, and Tibet. - Mary Kingsley, Travels in West Africa (1897)
Kingsley’s candid account of a solo journey in search of botanical specimens helped shape European perceptions of both African cultures and British colonialism in Africa. - First Encounters: Native Voices on the Coming of the Europeans, Howard B. Leavitt (2010)
A fascinating perspective on travel and exploration, as recounted by the colonized indigenous people of Africa, North America, South America, greater Australia, and Asia. - Lynne Withey, Grand Tours and Cook’s Tours: A History of Leisure Travel, 1750-1915 (1997)
A detailed history of leisure travel, as it evolved from its origins in the European aristocracy, through the nineteenth-century rise of mass tourism.
Global and Historical Travel Writing
- Matsuo Basho, The Narrow Road to the Deep North (1702)
Basho’s account of an ambitious walking journey through northern Japan mixes poetry and prose to explore the spiritual resonance of travel on foot. - Ibn Battuta, The Travels (1355)
This medieval Moroccan travel masterpiece is a fascinating (and, at times, delightfully quirky) account of a sprawling thirty-year journey across Africa and Asia. - Lionel Casson, Travel in the Ancient World (1974)
A comprehensive history of ancient travel, from the first Egyptian voyages recorded in Old Kingdom inscriptions, through the Christian pilgrimages of the fourth and sixth centuries. Read excerpts from Travel in the Ancient World. - Tony Perrottet, Pagan Holiday: On the Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists (2002)
Perrottet follows in the footsteps of ancient Roman travelers in a book that blends fascinating historical anecdotes and humorous personal encounters. - Tabish Khair, Other Routes: 1500 Years of African and Asian Travel Writing (2005)
This collection of global travel writing features classic journey accounts from the likes of Sei Shonagon, Lady Nijo, Xu Xiake, Ibn Jubayr, Emily Said-Ruete, and Olaudah Equiano. - Francis Bacon, “Of Travel” (1625)
This brief, Grand Tour-era essay touches on a number of travel issues relevant to modern wanderers. See my own twenty-first-century rendering of Bacon’s advice in my remix essay, “Ten Sizzling-Hot Travel Tips from Sir Francis Bacon.” - One Thousand Roads to Mecca: Ten Centuries of Travelers Writing about the Muslim Pilgrimage, edited by Michael Wolfe (1999)
This anthology collects ten centuries of writing about the Islamic hajj, including selections from Nasir Khusraw, Ibn Jubayr, Ibn Battuta, and Malcolm X. - The Misadventures of Wenamun: A Graphic Adaptation of the Oldest Literary Travel Tale Known to Man, adapted by Rolf Potts and Cedar Van Tassel (2015)
The ancient tale of Wenamun, an Egyptian priest whose overseas voyage in search of Lebanese timber resulted in an ongoing series of fiascos, is rendered here in comic-book form.
Philosophical and Spiritual Books
- Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation (1975)
This book is a good starting-point for learning the spiritual teachings of Nhat Hanh, whose philosophies of mindfulness appear in multiple chapters of The Vagabond’s Way. - Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)
Campbell’s mix of modern psychology and comparative mythology explores the human need to tell stories. The Hero’s Journey, published shortly after Campbell’s death is another terrific collection of mythological insights. - Seneca, Letters from a Stoic (65 AD)
Ancient Roman philosopher Seneca’s letters focus on such themes as virtue, death, the value of friendship, and a well-lived life. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (180 AD)
A collection of spiritual wisdom and practical guidance from ancient Rome’s great Stoic philosopher-king. - Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (2011)
A Franciscan priest, Rohr explores the spiritual resonance of getting older, and the task of lifelong spiritual understanding. - Sophfronia Scott, The Seeker and the Monk: Everyday Conversations with Thomas Merton (2021)
Scott looks into the life and philosophy of mystic, monk, and activist Thomas Merton, author of such spiritual classics as The Seven Story Mountain and New Seeds of Contemplation. Listen to my podcast interview with Scott. - Byung-Chul Han, The Scent of Time: A Philosophical Essay on the Art of Lingering (2017)
Drawing on such thinkers as Heidegger, Nietzsche and Arendt, Han explores the merits of living a more reflective and contemplative life. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1990)
A psychological exploration of the moments when we experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life.
Selected Fiction Quoted in The Vagabond’s Way
- Alex Garland, The Beach (1996)
Much of the fiction quoted in The Vagabond’s Way, from Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina to Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, draws from books not specifically about travel. The handful of travel-themed novels quoted in the book are a subjectively chosen assortment, and none is more subjective than Garland’s Thailand-based backpacker potboiler, the movie version of which helped launch my travel writing career. - E.M. Forster, A Room with a View (1908)
Forster’s tale about English expatriates in Italy, later adapted into a 1986 Merchant Ivory film, evokes the disorientation of living abroad in a social bubble of your own countrymen. - James Michener, The Drifters (1971)
This engaging novel about “Hippie Trail”-era wanderers follows its young characters through Spain, Morocco, and Mozambique. - Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Sightseeing (2005)
This collection of short stories offers glimpses into travel culture as it is seen from the perspective of local host communities in Thailand. - Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957)
Kerouac’s manic American road-trip novel has inspired generations of young travelers. For a fact-based novelistic take on the perspective of Kerouac’s “Mexican Girl,” try Tim Z. Hernandez ‘s novel Mañana Means Heaven.
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- Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking (2001)