Best travel writing

[genee_rave]

He's a chef and a food writer, but Anthony Bourdain's 'A Cooks Tour' is a great account of him going round the world in search of the perfect meal. He's a perceptive and witty writer...

 

[Dirty Martini]

'Badlands' and 'Hunting Mr Heartbreak', both by Jonathan Raban, both about the US.

'Lost White Tribes' by Riccardo Orizio.

 

[blossie33]

I love travel books and have read so many -
off the top of my head, Colin Thubron is a very good travel author, Dervla Murphy books, John Stienbeck's Travels with Charlie. Am currently reading A Ride in the Neon Sun by Josie Dew about her cycling around Japan, very interesting and amusing.

 

[chilango]

Everyone goes on about Ryszard Kapucinsky, but I've tried and failed to get into his stuff. There's a wonderful book about Afghanistan called "An Undiscovered Light" by Jason Eliott that is very, very good. I also like some of Greene, although it's often extremely colonial, being carried through Liberia by a team of locals etc.

Kapucinsky`s "In the Shadow of the Sun" is the best book on Africa that I`ve read.....

 

[untethered]

Just got this out of the library - supposeldy a classic - anyone read it?
In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Patagonia-V...f=pd_ka_1/203-2867042-4066344?ie=UTF8&s=books

I've read Chatwin's "Utz" (a novel) and "What am I doing here?" (travel writing/journalism). Chatwin has a wonderfully economical style and a sharp turn of phrase. He is known to be unreliable in some of his observations, but that is part of his art, it's said.

 

[slaar]

Kapucinsky`s "In the Shadow of the Sun" is the best book on Africa that I`ve read.....

I've tried to read it. It's sitting next to me in fact. I just can't get into it. Blaine Harden's "A Fragile Continent" on the other hand had me totally gripped from first to last.

 

[Errol's son]

I've tried to read it. It's sitting next to me in fact. I just can't get into it. Blaine Harden's "A Fragile Continent" on the other hand had me totally gripped from first to last.

It is a great book that one; the Shadow of the Sun.

I also like Redmond o'Hanlon or whatever he's called; the guy who wrote Congo Journey.

Dervla Murphy is good too.

I don't like or dislike Paul Theorux. Sometimes I find him boring, sometimes not.

But I tend to buy travel literature about a place I'm interested in rather then by author.

 

[llantwit]

I like Theroux when he's at his best. I've read most of his travel stuff, and my favourite is The Great Railway Bazaar by a country mile. Fucking excellent, and stands up as just a great work - most of the rest of his stuff is good enough, but not outstanding. I quite liked the Africa one, and also the one where he paddles in the Pacific around the Islands and off the coast of Australia. The walking around Britain one I found a bit boring - but I think that might be because the coast of Britain's a bit boring. He's always readable, though, despite his prejudices (posh white establishment American academic type), because he's got such a great clarity and turn of phrase and kind of no-bullshit honesty you don't get with many writers.

 

[bubba_jones]

Bruce Chatwin is generally good and I'll add athumbs up for Theroux.

You might, if you can find a copy, try 'A Time For Gifts' by Patrick Leigh-Fermour about his walk from Rotterdam to Istanbul as a sixteen year old in the late 1930s, the rise of Naziism, etc.

 

[purves grundy]

Anything by Redmond O'Hanlon would be my first choice

Seconded - Congo Journey and In Trouble Again are sensational!

 

[brixtonvilla]

Just got this out of the library - supposeldy a classic - anyone read it?

In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Patagonia-V...f=pd_ka_1/203-2867042-4066344?ie=UTF8&s=books

Haven't read that, but The Songlines by Chatwin is excellent - all about him travelling through the Outback, meeting Aborigines and fnding out about the Songlines - the ancestral trails that Aborigines walk, following the paths of the first beings of the Dreamtime. Fascinating stuff.

 

[billy_bob]

Another vote for William Least-Heat Moon's Blue Highways here, one of my favourite books.

Also, pretty much anything published by these guys is worth a look, but especially Sybille Bedford's A Visit to Don Otavio: http://www.travelbooks.co.uk

 

[Brainaddict]

I'm currently reading 'Yoga for people who can't be bothered to do it' by Geoff Dyer. I didn't like the title but people had recommended him to me so I gave it a try, and he does indeed kick arse. His scathing dismissal of the Angkor Wat tourist experience was brilliant. He also spends a fair proportion of his time on drugs, and is very funny.

I'm not a fan of Rory Stewart's The Places In Between - I got a faint whiff of colonial attitudes from him. A great book on recent travel in Afghanistan is Jason Elliot's An Unexpected Light. He's just written one on Iran and I intend to get it.

Dervla Murphy deserves a mention for being possibly one of the most fearless lone woman travellers ever - and is usually a good and entertaining writer too.

Have to give a thumbs down to Theroux myself - he's done some cool journeys but I don't much like the way he writes about the inhabitants of the countries he passes through - not a very sympathetic traveller at all.

 

[billy_bob]

I'm not keen on Theroux either for similar reasons.

Also, can I unrecommend anything by Johnny Bealby. I rarely put down a book halfway through because it's so shit but I did with one he wrote about the Silk Road (can't remember the title, just avoid him altogether and you'll be alright).

 

[slaar]

I'm not a fan of Rory Stewart's The Places In Between - I got a faint whiff of colonial attitudes from him. A great book on recent travel in Afghanistan is Jason Elliot's An Unexpected Light. He's just written one on Iran and I intend to get it.

Thanks for the tip on Jason Eliott's new book.

If you thought Stewart's first book was a bit colonial you should try his one about running an Iraqi province under the CPA!

 

[sheothebudworths]

Seconded - Congo Journey and In Trouble Again are sensational!

Oooh yes, I've read and thoroughly enjoyed Congo Journey.

 

[blossie33]

I can recommend Chatwin's In Patagonia and for a more up to date account of the area Sara Wheeler's 'Travels in a Thin Country'

 

[Brainaddict]

Thanks for the tip on Jason Eliott's new book.

If you thought Stewart's first book was a bit colonial you should try his one about running an Iraqi province under the CPA!

Unfortunately the scene that stuck in my mind from The places in between was him berating a bunch of Afghans for not upholding their own sacred traditions of hospitality

 

[Lysistrata]

I'm reminded of authors on my list of "must read" who I still haven't caught up with - Theroux and Chatwin in particular.

I can recommend "Inca-Kola" by Matthew Parris about travelling around Peru, including scary encounters with bandits and epic journeys on the back of a truck.

I love intrepid tales of women travellers, my particular favourite, published by Virago, is "A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains" by Isabella Bird. She travelled on her own from San Francisco to the Rocky Mountains in 1873. The book is based on letters she wrote to her sister.

L

 

[Calva dosser]

Dervla Murphy manages to cram in loads of facts. And you get the slight impression that she likes a drop of the sauce,too.

Tim Moore can be bloody funny, but he does tell porky pies. He once slated the town of Loudun in central France (As in 'The Devils of'). Clearly, he had not been there. In any one's estimation it's a charming little place with some excellent friendly back street bars, a wonderful mediaeval quarter, and a couple of good restaurants.

If you ever feel tempted to visit Seppoe land, I commend you to Bill Brysons 'Notes from a big country'- I think the old lad is worried we all might want to go. After reading that I'd rather drink Bud.

 

[llantwit]

There are some great recentish ones about India:

Karma Cola by Gita Mheta (SP?) is quite good, and is all about western spiritual tourism and the fraudster 'holy' types that take advantage of the farts.

May You Be the Mother of 100 Sons, by Elizabeth Bumiller is about the author's investigations into the masive social problems faced by women in India, and is just an amzing book.

 

[goldenecitrone]

Anything by Jonathan Raban, but particularly this :-

and this

though the latter isn't strictly speaking a travel book.

 

[slaar]

Unfortunately the scene that stuck in my mind from The places in between was him berating a bunch of Afghans for not upholding their own sacred traditions of hospitality

Well, we can't have the natives embracing modernity now, can we?

 

[Brainaddict]

Well, we can't have the natives embracing modernity now, can we?

I think in this case it's more that 'the natives' have been so traumatised by 25 years of war and foreign interference in their country that they don't necessarily welcome a lone wandering foreigner with no clear motivation for being there in the same way they once might have done. Which seems understandable to me. But yeah, in general the idea of the white outsider keeping the natives on the straight and narrow in regard to their own culture is pretty offensive.

 

[ringo]

Best travel book for me is "Jupiter's Travels" by Ted Simon
http://www.amazon.com/Jupiters-Travels-Years-Around-Triumph/dp/0965478521
He bought one of the last (original) Triumph's to be built and spent four years travelling around the world. Brilliant bloke, adventurer and philosopher.

Best read when on the road was Mungo Park's "Travels in the Interior of Africa" while travelling through Mali up to Timbuktu.

 

[chilango]

Just passed on my copy of "Arctic Dreams" by Barry Lopez.

Best book on the Arctic I`ve read...but it prolly transcends "travel writing" by quite a distance.

Theroux has always bored me when I've tried to read him, I don`t want to read about his marriage difficulties or whatever.

Chatwin? In Patagonia was pretty good, but didn't live up to my expectations....

 

[gnoriac]

Robert Byron's Road to Oxiana, the Afghan ambassador is marvellous, better than any fictional character. Wilfred Thesiger's books are pretty good too.

Both from the days of real travel, none of this backpacker weekend-hippy nonsense.

 

[Errol's son]

William Sutcliffe's "Am I experienced?" is also a funny book about travelling round India.

 

[Brainaddict]

Just thought I'd tell people to avoid Peter Biddlecombe. I'm reading Always Feel a Friend by him at the moment and I suppose some people would say in an approving way that he is 'politically incorrect' but to my mind he's just a bigot. He can't resist making disparaging remarks about women every 20 pages or so and he can't resist talking about people in terms of their national stereotypes. In this book he's also obsessed with emphasising all the bad things about Africa - of which there are plenty but it hardly needs to be said so strongly, since that's the impression people get from the mainstream media anyway. One to avoid.

 

[Pugwall7]

Is William Dalrymple good? I want to buy his book on the middle east before i go