Are you in-between trips? Dreaming of the next adventure? Unsure of where you should travel to next? I don't know about you, but I'm most inspired when leafing through the pages of a decent (or sometimes decidedly trashy) book.
Many of us can't travel all the time, so it's comforting to know that a great adventure is only a turn of a page away. Here are four books that will get you excited for travel.
Table of Contents
Travel Books
The Cargo Ship Diaries: 2.5 years, 25 countries, 0 flights
Niall Doherty is one cool dude. He spent 44 months traversing the globe without flying, which is a pretty impressive feat. His memoir, The Cargo Ship Diaries, is based on his real-time experience traveling from Japan to Peru via freighter.
In this story, he intertwines anecdotes from his prior adventures-tales from India, Iran, Thailand, and many other places around the globe. Niall's book serves as a kick-in-the-bum for anyone with second thoughts about crafting a life of their own design.
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Story of Love, Books and Revolution
Iran seems to have leaped onto the "must-see" lists of many travelers worldwide. I don't know about you, but it is a country shrouded in mystery to me. I don't know much about the people or the history. It's a situation that needs to be rectified.
I had vaguely heard of Reading Lolita in Tehran, being a big fan of Nabokov's most infamous novel. I flicked through the pages of this book on a whim one day, and it sucked me straight in.
Iran in the 1990s is a world that will come across as so foreign, so alien to anyone who hails from the western world. I was equally intrigued and infuriated as I dove deeper and deeper into the pages of this book.
For those unfamiliar with this story, it is a memoir by Iranian professor Azar Nafisi. After being either expelled or voluntarily leaving three universities in Tehran, she picks seven of her best students and invites them to her home every week to discuss books.
In this literary environment, they find an escape from the reality that is imposed on them by Iran's radical government - where women are seen as a threat to morality and treated accordingly.
Nafisi is a rare kind of teacher-one who believes in and supports her students. She encourages them to look to these classics of Western literature to find some sense within the world they inhabit and to look at and find peace deep inside themselves.
Vague Direction
Dave Gill's greatest fear is to wake up one morning and realize that he has wasted his life. At the age of 23, he recognizes that it's good to catch these feelings early on, as it gives you the opportunity to do something about them.
He puts his life on hold - quitting his job and selling almost everything he owns, to head to North America. Here, he embarks upon a year-long journey around the USA and Canada on a bike he scored for £150 off eBay without prior training.
He meets all sorts of personality types along the way, rolls through constant mechanical traumas with his bike and suffers a series of exhilarating highs and all-time lows ("It's this weird way of life where nothing is moderate. It's great or it's shit. Rarely, it's in between.").
That longing for adventure seems to be part of the human condition. Most of us spend ample time wishing to break away from the monotony of everyday life. Yet, who ends up doing it? Or more importantly, how many people are in a position where they can justifiably get away with falling off the edge of a map for a year?
Maybe just enough. Gill's book is a read for anyone who is raring to give up everything they've got for a great adventure but needs a final push.
Girls Who Travel
After finishing Reading Lolita, I was reeling, so I needed something light and easy to dive into. As it turned out, Girls Who Travel was the book I was looking for.
23-year-old Kika Shores is finding out the hard way that she is not suited to corporate life. After returning from a yearlong backpacking trip, she only wants to get back on the road. When offered a job as an au pair in London, she jumps at the opportunity to live overseas and get paid for it.
Many travelers strongly believe you must do just that - travel to find adventure. This book proves that sometimes you don't need to search for adventure - it can find you.
This book is a quick and easy read-I finished it in twenty-four hours. It is perfect for a day at the beach, a long-haul flight, or any other activity that encourages mindless switching off. So, pour yourself a cup of tea, settle into your favorite chair and get lost in the pages of your next adventure.
