# The Five Greatest Travel Books Of All Time **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 23, 2006, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825 "2006-09-23T07:15:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Foldup\_Rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df788c/32.png) [@Foldup\_Rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foldup_Rabbit)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2006, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/21 "2006-09-25T23:32:48Z")
Bill Bryson’s _In A Sunburned Country_. He travelled more like a human being and less like a character in a book. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/22 "2006-09-26T02:01:20Z")
[QUOTE=twickster] What about Bruce Chatwin’s _In Patagonia_ and Peter Matthiessen’s _Snow Leopard_? [/QUOTE] _In Pategonia_ was good, but I thought \*Songlines \*was better. _The Places In Between_ by Rory Stewart is supposed to be very good (I haven’t read it). ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/23 "2006-09-26T02:46:34Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] How about Paul Theroux’s **The Great Railway Bazaar**? [/QUOTE] That’s the one I would nominate, but travel isn’t exactly my literary niche. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/24 "2006-09-26T02:52:00Z")
[QUOTE=An Arky] I’d add **William Least Heat-Moon’s** \*Blue Highways \* and _River-Horse_, but I’m an ignorant slut, and my opinion means nuts. [/QUOTE] I loved both of those books, although it took me a while to get into the rhythm of his writing. I also enjoyed his PrairyErth (A Deep Map), in which his travels are all within a single county in Kansas. ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/25 "2006-09-26T04:41:17Z")
One of my faves is **Holidays in Hell** by P.J. O’Rourke. Not quite the same as the books in Winchester’s list. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/26 "2006-09-26T07:26:19Z")
I’d nominate _Three Men In A Boat_ by Jerome K Jerome (which I am currently reading) - it is a travel book, even though the travelling only consists of a few days of rowing up the river Thames. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/27 "2006-09-26T07:59:26Z")
Have you all forgotten Gulliver…man he sure got around ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/28 "2006-09-26T08:32:38Z")
My two favourites to date have been _McCarthy’s Bar_ and _The Road to McCarthy_ by the sadly departed Pete of that ilk. On a more pedestrian note, _Round Ireland with a Fridge_ by Tony Hawks is a good comic alternative, and the book to accompany _The Long Way Round_, the diaries of Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman, is superb. _The Wrong Way Home_ by Peter Moore is badly written but hilarious - he also wrote the ultimate backpacker’s anecdote book, _No Shitting in the Toilet_, which I cannot recommend highly enough. I also liked _The Great Railway Bazaar_ and _Riding the Iron Rooster_ by Paul Theroux, whiny bitch though he be… Another case of “good if you can get over the personality of the writer” is _Danziger’s Travels_ by Nick of the same name. _Blue Highways_ also rates a very high mention. _India: A Million Mutinies Now_ by VS Naipaul is heavy going but brutally enlightening. The James Morris thing might be confused by the fact that James is now Jan. Her books on Hong Kong are without peer. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/29 "2006-09-26T10:48:32Z")
Not “top five ever,” but a darned good read – _Blue Latitudes_ by Tony Horowitz – he retraces Captain Cook’s travels, and it’s about both Cook and his own adventures. And I’ve mentioned _Travels in West Africa_ by Mary Kingsley elsewhere on the boards – she was a proper English spinster who set out – alone – to travel in, duh, West Africa in the late 19th century. ( **John Mace** – you may be right about _Songlines_ being better than _In Patagonia_ – I read them both, damn, could it really be 30 years ago? – but it was _In Patagonia_ that made me fall in love with Bruce Chatwin’s writing.) ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/30 "2006-09-26T11:34:39Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] I’d nominate _Three Men In A Boat_ by Jerome K Jerome (which I am currently reading) - it is a travel book, even though the travelling only consists of a few days of rowing up the river Thames. [/QUOTE] To say nothing of the dog. I would like to nominate Bill Bryson’s A Walk into the Woods. Makes me want to walk the Applachian Trail, almost. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/31 "2006-09-26T12:02:06Z")
[QUOTE=Foldup Rabbit] Bill Bryson’s _In A Sunburned Country_. He travelled more like a human being and less like a character in a book. [/QUOTE] I’ve been a Bill Bryson fan for many years, and kept hearing about this book called _In A Sunburned Country_, yet couldn’t find it in any book store here. The reason? It was entitled _Down Under_ for the Australian edition. :smack: (And yes, I have a copy!) Let me agree that all of Bryson’s travel books are excellent, and _Holidays In Hell_ by P.J. O’Rourke is also a great read. Not really “Travel Books” per se, but the excellent piss-takes _Molvania: A Land Untouched By Modern Dentistry_ and _Phaic Tan: Sunstroke On A Shoestring_ by the team at Jetlag Travel Guides are very, very funny and well worth reading… ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Cat\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Jones)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/32 "2006-09-26T14:41:10Z")
OK, since my first slightly snarky reply I’ve been thinking about this. I’d almost argue we need one list for contemporary and one for non-contemporary however … in random order… my favourites, ones I can re-re-read In Patagonia, Bruce Chatwin Speak to the Earth, Vivienne de Watteville Crossing Open Ground, Barry Lopez (altho’ you could argue against this being ‘travel’) Neither Here Nor There, Bill Bryson Fragile Edge, Maria Coffey (it didn’t have the annoying subtitle in the original editions!) ---
**Author:** ![tiltypig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dbc845/32.png) [@tiltypig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiltypig)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/33 "2006-09-26T18:57:28Z")
[QUOTE=Cat Jones] Crossing Open Ground, Barry Lopez (altho’ you could argue against this being ‘travel’) [/QUOTE] I haven’t read Crossing Open Ground, but Arctic Dreams by the same author is an absolutely magnificent travel/nature book. I liked A Walk in the Woods the best of the Bill Bryson books I’ve read, but all of them were good. Theroux is a cranky bastard and, while it makes his books stand out, I don’t know that I always enjoy reading them. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/34 "2006-09-26T20:14:20Z")
I just want to give a shout-out to a great travel author I enjoyed as a kid, **Richard Halliburton** : author of Royal Road to Romance, Seven League Boots, New Worlds to Conquer, The Flying Carpet, The Glorious Adventure. ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/35 "2006-09-27T02:24:58Z")
[QUOTE=jsc1953] I just want to give a shout-out to a great travel author I enjoyed as a kid, **Richard Halliburton** : author of Royal Road to Romance, Seven League Boots, New Worlds to Conquer, The Flying Carpet, The Glorious Adventure. [/QUOTE] I agree. Do you have copies of all of them? I was given a new copy of the “Royal Road to RomanceThe Glorious Adventure” (in one volume) as a young child, by a pair of spinster neighbor teachers and I still have it, as well as at least two copies of each of the above titles, plus “Richard Halliburton-His Story of His Life’s Adventure-As Told in Letters to His Mother and Father”, Bobbs-Merrill Co, 1940 (First Edition). Then I had the fortune to spend two years on a navy ship homeported in the Mediterranean and visited many of the places in the books, including Baalbek, now under Hezbollah control in the Bekaa Valley, and the shrines opf each of 3 major religions in Jerusalem, all in the same day. I now collect travel books, especially about the Med (50+) and have a couple dozen Baedecker’s guides from the early 20th c. Latest read is “The World-Life and Travel 1950-2000” by Jan Morris. That’s the title on the front cover and spine but the title page says, “The World-Travels 1950-2000”. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/36 "2006-09-27T04:20:30Z")
[QUOTE=Ignatz] I agree. Do you have copies of all of them? [/QUOTE] Yes, I do – handed down from my father. First editions, I think. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/37 "2006-09-27T04:42:02Z")
I just thought of another author worth mentioning: **Redmond O’Hanlon**. In Trouble Again and Into The Heart Of Borneo were wonderful. Now that you’ve reminded me, I have to seek out Trawler. Even though we’re talking about books–can we include the texts written to accompany Michael Palin’s shows? They deserve honorable mention, at least. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/38 "2006-09-27T05:28:51Z")
_Tales of the Alhambra_ - Washington Irving. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Cat\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Jones)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825/39 "2006-09-27T06:02:55Z")
[QUOTE=tiltypig] I haven’t read Crossing Open Ground, but Arctic Dreams by the same author is an absolutely magnificent travel/nature book. [/QUOTE] I’d also recommend “About This Life”, like “Crossing Open Ground” it is a collection of essays but each beautifully crafted. I think I’ll slip “Arctic Dreams” onto my Christmas list ! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-greatest-travel-books-of-all-time/373825.md?page=1)