The best adventure travel books with a quirky narrator

For a devotee of mountaineering books, this one holds a special place in the canon. Whereas other narratives might accentuate the numbers or other data of the climb, this one emphasizes the author's internal, subjective experience of sublimity in nature. This pilgrim loves—but I mean deeply and faithfully respects, reveres, and revisits—the mountain range that is just outside her home village. Nan Shepherd was a native of Aberdeen, Scotland (1893-1981) who made a living teaching English but whose true vocation was to be on top of the Cairngorms. Just to be, not to prove anything. I've not found an explorer more respectful of Nature. She notes, "However often I walk on them, these hills hold astonishment for me. There is no getting accustomed to them." 

Mahoney's courage, intelligence, and eloquence make her an intimate companion on my armchair journeys. I knew I could follow this woman anywhere when she wrote of camping in Israel to the sound of bombs in Palestine (A Singular Pilgrimage). The dangers are even greater when she decides to paddle down the Nile in a rowboat. She presents such a persistent challenge to Egyptians—a woman traveling alone, buying a boat, talking to strangers—that she ultimately concedes and dons a masculine disguise. She often leavens the dread that readers may feel with irony and humor. When an Egyptian man complains of the "whorish" British women who hire gigolos, Rosemary levelly replies that it must be the gigolos who are prostitutes since they are the ones selling their bodies.

This travel memoir is profoundly engaging. Before reading it, I had never thought of the archetypal Trail—that magnetic beacon of healthy recreation—as an actual home for those who couldn't afford a house or apartment. It is precisely Raynor and (husband) Moth's precarious economic situation that gives a cliff-hanging appeal to this tale of hiking the South West Coast trail through Somerset, Cornwall, and Devon. At quaint village stores, this couple doesn't just resupply with noodles, tea, and Marmite. They actually pick up their weekly dole check, which isn't always enough to keep them in Cadburys. On the Salt Path, British class snobbery is alive and well: many people snub them instantly upon learning their circumstances. I felt both humbled and uplifted by this inspiring story.

Christmas's tale was one of the two narratives (out of dozens I read) that inspired me to make pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago, the other being Emilio Estevez's film, The Way. What I admire about Christmas is that she is unafraid of criticisms that will inevitably be directed towards a female writer who tells it all, just like it is: Her distaste for the women who accompanied her on a pilgrimage. Her decision to move on alone. Her unstinting descriptions of dismay about the physical challenges of long-distance hiking. Her distrust of men who have intentions on her person! Yet Christmas's experience is not all negative. Like other "true pilgrims," Christmas steps out of her western, worried, ego-centered self and finds a refreshing new perspective.

In choosing my favorite Bryson travelogue for my list, I alternated between A Walk in the Woods and Notes from a Small Island. The latter's setting gives more material—no less than Britain's entire history, geography, and culture—in contrast to the Appalachian Trail's "Long Green Tunnel" of rocks, trees, and shoddy shelters. Bryson's good nature redeems his shortcomings. Even when he's taking the mickey out of individuals and nationalities, it's clear that he's playing the English national sport rather than condescending. Bryson is all voice; he is not particularly interesting when expatiating on science or history or industry (yawn!), but he is always funny when he reflects on human folly. His deft use of hyperbole, understatement, and paradox recalls English masters such as Jonathan Swift, Jane Austen, and Geoffrey Chaucer.