18 Best Travel Books, Chosen by a Well-Read Travel Writer

Best for: Night owls with the travel bug

Setting: After-dark adventures around the world

100 Nights of a Lifetime: The World’s Ultimate Adventures After Dark was published by National Geographic in 2024 and written by travel writer and photographer—and aurora borealis hunter extraordinaire—Stephanie Vermillion. One of the best travel books of last year, this collection details her favorite after-dark adventures, from hunting nocturnal glowing mushrooms in Australia to snorkeling under the stars in Hawaii. This beautiful coffee table book is a blend of jaw-dropping travel photography, travelogue and travel inspiration.

Best for: When you’re dreaming of moving to another country

Setting: The Americas and Europe

Ellen Barone is a travel writer who doesn’t just parachute into popular destinations to write hotel reviews and three-day itineraries. She is a longtime intrepid adventurer and has made her home in Mexico, Nicaragua, Ecuador and more. I Could Live Here, published in 2023, details her day-to-day travel adventures and her search for home and belonging in foreign lands. It’s a great immersive memoir for anyone who has wondered what it’s really like to move abroad—or for those who’ve gone on vacation and found themselves wondering, “Could I live here?”

Best for: When you need to laugh

Setting: Around the world

We Are Experiencing a Slight Delay is a collection of laugh-out-loud travel vignettes from television writer and producer Gary Janetti, whose love of travel was sparked by his childhood of once-yearly cruises when his dad worked in cruise line sales. Like humor writer David Sedaris, Janetti has a flair for turning life’s frustrating and mundane moments into snarky, witty anecdotes. This would make an excellent gift for travelers who enjoy stand-up comedy and humor writing.

Best for: When you’re pining for an outdoorsy vacation

Setting: The Appalachian Trail (from Georgia to Maine)

It doesn’t require a passport or a plane ticket, but the Appalachian Trail is a big change of scenery. It’s also not for the faint of heart. In his 2019 debut memoir, The Unlikely Thru-Hiker, Derick Lugo describes his long walk in the woods in vivid detail—and with heartwarming humor.

Before his foray into one of America’s great wildernesses, Lugo had never gone camping. He had never really hiked either. And that’s what makes this travel book such a perfect, immersive escape. Discover the iconic trek through a beginner’s eyes, and don’t be surprised if his tale inspires you to hit your own trails this summer.

Best for: When you’re dreaming of a life in France

Setting: Provence, France

Perhaps one of the most beloved travel books since its 2010 debut, A Year in Provence delivers what it promises: a welcome escape to sunny, lavender-filled, Mediterranean-hugging southern France. There, steeped in the daily wonders of Provençal life, author Peter Mayle describes his experience of moving into a 200-year-old French farmhouse in a small village. This witty, easy summer read is a book that even Julia Child would have approved of.

Best for: When you’re dying to visit India

Setting: Bombay, India

Welcome to India! It doesn’t take a memoir or travelogue to make an immersive travel book. Sujata Massey’s imaginative mystery series set in 1920s Bombay will make you feel like you’ve stepped back in time to witness India in the final chapters of the British raj. In the first installment, 2018’s The Widows of Malabar Hill, female lawyer extraordinaire Perveen Mistry fights back against crimes against women. Massey’s perspective gives readers behind-the-scenes glimpses of daily life for women in both Muslim and Hindu households.

Best for: When you’re craving a vacation in Italy

Setting: Rome, Italy

Anthony Doerr’s 2007 memoir Four Seasons in Rome will whisk you away to Italy’s ancient capital in an instant. During his sojourn at a writing studio in Rome, Doerr drank deeply from the city’s culture, food and daily life. He plumbed the depths of the city’s history and spent days traipsing up and down its countless alleys and streets. He visited temples and attended a vigil for Pope John Paul II. He befriended his neighborhood storekeepers and bakers. He immersed himself this way for an entire year, then wrote one of the all-time best travel books about it so you could experience it too.

Best for: When you want to hike the Himalayan mountains

Setting: The Himalayas (Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal and China)

Not everyone is up for remote lands with peaks and plateaus at dizzyingly high altitudes. Thanks to Erika Fatland’s High, your mind can go where your body doesn’t. Her well-researched and recorded travels through the Himalayas unveil a patchwork of subcultures, languages and religions. This travel book is a virtual getaway to cloud-piercing towns shrouded in thin, cold air and intriguing encounters with Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and shamanic faiths—all part and parcel of the lives of the Himalayan highlanders.

Best for: When an Aussie adventure just isn’t in the budget

Setting: Australia

Bill Bryson has written stacks of nonfiction books, but his droll, sharply observant travelogue through Australia is perhaps his most vivid. So-called Oz roars to life in Bryson’s descriptions of traveling through its wild array of landscapes—bustling urban centers, scalding-hot mining country, scorching barren desert and wild, roiling coastlines. In a Sunburned Country, published in 2000, is chock-full of exciting tidbits about the history and culture Down Under, as well as sidesplitting and terrifying encounters with locals and wildlife. Sure, he wrote a legendary Appalachian Trail memoir too—definitely check out A Walk in the Woods—but we’ve already got that destination covered for you.

Best for: If you dream of exploring Egypt

Setting: Cairo, Egypt

The 2011 start to Nobel Prize–winning author Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy, Palace Walk places readers in the middle of 20th-century Egypt. You’ll be swept into the drama of a middle-class family with struggles and tensions that mirror the greater turbulence of Egypt under the thumb of British rule. The father, al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, rules his house with an iron fist. A vivid exploration of complex Cairo and reflections on how each family member deals with the controlling household and government make this a moving historical fiction work that is also one of the greatest travel books about northern Africa.

Best for: Armchair travel to the Italian coast

Setting: Positano, Italy

It’s no secret that Rebecca Serle’s captivating 2022 read, One Italian Summer, is dripping with European charm. Pair this book with an Aperol spritz or Italian soda for full effect. One part mother-daughter book and one part light fantasy (with a bit of romance sprinkled in), the story takes place at the Hotel Poseidon, perched on Italy’s Amalfi coast. A woman grieving her mother arrives at the door with a head full of questions. Is she happy? Does she even love her husband? What’s the meaning of life? As the summer unfolds, the magic of Positano—and knowledge about her mother’s past life—transforms her forever.

Best for: Anyone longing for a peaceful Japanese getaway

Setting: Japan

Despite the name, Autumn Light is appropriate for every season of the year—and of your life. There’s so much going on below the surface, especially if you’re craving the tranquility of a trip to Japan. Pico Iyer’s 2019 memoir describes his return to Japan to attend to and process a loved one’s death. He steps back into ordinary Japanese life and gently, graciously invites his readers along. You’ll find yourself reflecting on age, life, death and the poetry of daily rituals. It’s a quiet book but also a beautiful, transportive mental journey to somewhere far away.

Best for: When you can’t decide where you want to go

Setting: Around the world (including Mexico, Jordan, Borneo, Sri Lanka and more)

Sometimes a travel book, like travel itself, is more about the journey than the destination. That’s the case with Shape of a Boy, the 2022 memoir by British travel journalist Kate Wickers. Reading this book is like jet-setting with a trusted friend—with her three boys and husband along for good measure. Each chapter starts off with a new location on the family’s round-the-world trip, describing their experiences and the lessons they learned there. It’s a delightful smattering of stories sure to spark wanderlust for just about anywhere in the world.

Best for: If you want to summer in French wine country

Setting: Loire Valley, central France

Chelsea Fagan’s 2023 novel, A Perfect Vintage, is a delicious slice of French life. Fagan lived in France, so she has a leg up on delectable descriptions of French food and the sun-soaked land of France’s Loire Valley. The perfect setting aside, the book details a summer in the life of Lea Mortimer, a successful 30-something woman who’s too busy and independent to worry about relationships or starting a family.

She’s been summoned by work to France to help transform an old French estate into a perfect boutique hotel. All’s well until Lea begins to develop feelings for the considerably younger son of her new boss. It’s a deliciously self-aware, beautifully set story of a modern woman struggling to have it all: money, deep friendships … and maybe even love.

Best for: When you’re fantasizing about a whirlwind trip around the globe

Setting: All over the world

Picture this: You’re stuck in the office, plotting your next move up the corporate ladder. On a whim, you call in to the local radio station when it’s running a once-in-a-lifetime travel sweepstakes. And you win. The trouble is that you’re sent packing with someone else, and he happens to be a guy you met one time at a bar. That’s how Dylan and her almost-fling, Jack, travel together through Marrakech, Tokyo, Sydney and more. Elle Everhart’s 2023 debut novel, Wanderlust, is a perfect summer read—plenty of sexy enemies-to-lovers tension and enough immersive travel descriptions to feel like you went on a whirlwind vacation too.

Best for: Those who’d love a rugged adventure across Asia

Setting: Turkey to China, with plenty of stops in between

Modern explorer Kate Harris is a pro at wrangling trips to remote, edge-of-the-world destinations into riveting armchair travel reading. In other words, this travel book might inspire and awe you even if it doesn’t compel you to plan your own harebrained 10-month bike trip across Asia. The lush descriptions of her natural surroundings and sometimes bemusing, sometimes touching encounters with ordinary people along the way make Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road come to life in full force.

Best for: When you’re having dreams about the Caribbean

Setting: Tobago

Island life doesn’t get much more romantic than this. Sarah Dass’s 2021 novel is technically a young adult book, but Where the Rhythm Takes You offers tropical escapism for readers of all ages. Reyna’s family owns Plumeria, a beachside resort in Tobago. It’s a perfect paradise for guests, but ever since her best friend and first love left the island, Reyna dreams of escaping into the real world too. Only now that she’s poised for departure, her flame is back—this time as a Grammy-nominated superstar. What will he think of his sheltered island friend now? Will his presence be enough to make her stay a little longer? Crack this spine on a hot summer day to fully soak up the distinct island vibes.

Best for: When you can’t stop thinking about island-hopping in Greece

Setting: The fictional Greek island of Astori

After getting fired from her corporate job and skipping out on her best friend’s wedding, Amelia Lang needs a major life do-over. But she doesn’t expect it to come in the form of an inherited hotel on a small Greek island. She also doesn’t expect to be physically attracted to one of the guests. The Second Chance Hotel, published in 2023, is a lighthearted, romantic read at heart. It’s also a great travel book, thanks to its incredible descriptions of Greek island living, from the sun-ripened olives to the delicious gulps of sea air.

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