Having driven a motorbike around Africa, walked through parts of India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, and ridden a horse along the Silk Road, which culminated in three travel books, a Discovery Channel film, and Wild Frontiers the award-winning travel company I set up, I think it’s fair to say I know a thing or two about travel. With over 100 countries under my belt, discovering new places and meeting new people has always been my passion. The books I have chosen here are ones that I think best communicate both a physical and a mental journey, that draw you into a story with a beginning a middle, and an end, and leave you knowing more about both a region of the world and human nature.
I wrote
Running with the Moon: A Boy's Own Adventure: Riding a Motorbike Through Africa
This quintessentially British tale of two novice mountaineers, heading off into the far reaches of the Hindu Kush, to scale Mir Samir, a daunting 7,000m peak, is a true travel classic. Always understated and self-deprecating, it carries you back to a different era, both in terms of the landscapes and cultures of those Newby, and his travelling companion Hugh Carless, encounter and in terms of their attitude to travel. So inspired was I by this book that it was one of the reasons I travelled to the same region of Afghanistan for my second travel book, For A Pagan Song, in the Footsteps of the Man Who Would Be King.
A classic of travel writing, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush is Eric Newby's iconic account of his journey through one of the most remote and beautiful wildernesses on earth.
It was 1956, and Eric Newby was earning an improbable living in the chaotic family business of London haute couture. Pining for adventure, Newby sent his friend Hugh Carless the now-famous cable - CAN YOU TRAVEL NURISTAN JUNE? - setting in motion a legendary journey from Mayfair to Afghanistan, and the mountains of the Hindu Kush, north-east of Kabul.
Inexperienced and ill prepared (their preparations involved nothing more than…
As much a love story as a traveller’s tale, the wonderful book is more about the relationship between Mark Shand and his trusty elephant, Tara, as it is about India. A truly heart-warming adventure sees the author buy Tara and ride her 600 miles across dusty back roads, through jungle paths, and along state highways, to the world’s biggest elephant fair in Sonepur. Tara, who found a home at Kipling Camp in Madhya Pradesh is still alive today, which is more than can be said for the poor author, Mark, who died in a freak accident stepping off a sidewalk in New York a few years ago. How strange life can be.
With the help of a Maratha nobleman, Mark Shand buys an elephant named Tara and rides her over six hundred miles across India to the Sonepur Mela, the world's oldest elephant market. From Bhim, a drink-racked mahout, Shand learned to ride and care for her. From his friend Aditya Patankar he learned Indian ways. And with Tara, his new companion, he fell in love. "Travels on my Elephant" is the story of their epic journey across India, from packed highways to dusty back roads where communities were unchanged for millennia. It is also a memorable, touching account of Tara's transformation…
Another book that inspired my own travels – and that of many others through my travel company, Wild Frontiers – this book tells the story of the author’s 12 years in Romania after the fall of the communist regime. Taking one back to a bucolic world of horse-drawn carts, farmers scything hay, fairy tale castles, wooden churches, and medieval villages, it is romantic travel writing at its best; the fact that William actually marries a young gypsy woman adds to the soul of this quixotic tale. I loved it so much (with Williams's help) I set up a trip to travel through the region, which you can do by following this link.
Chosen for the Duchess of Cornwall's online book club The Reading Room by HRH The Prince of Wales
When William Blacker first crossed the snow-bound passes of northern Romania, he stumbled upon an almost medieval world.
There, for many years he lived side by side with the country people, a life ruled by the slow cycle of the seasons, far away from the frantic rush of the modern world. In spring as the pear trees blossomed he ploughed with horses, in summer he scythed the hay meadows and in the freezing winters gathered wood by sleigh from the forest. From…
Recently divorced and looking for meaning in middle age, this endearing traveller retraces the journey he made as a wide-eyed 19-year-old that saw him drive a car from California into the heart of Mexico in the hope of making a quick buck. The naivety and optimism of adolescence, beautifully juxtaposed against the reality of age, this is a poignant tale of lost youth and unfulfilled dreams that ultimately leads the author to a peaceful conclusion.
'Try this tequila oil, Hugito. Just as the alcohol hits your stomach, the chilli will as well and blow it back into your brain. It will take your head off.' Explorer Hugh Thomson takes on Mexico.
It's 1979, Hugh Thomson is eighteen, far from home, with time to kill - and on his way to Mexico. When a stranger tells him there's money to be made by driving a car over the US border to sell on the black market in Central America, Hugh decides to give it a go.
Throwing himself on the mercy of Mexicans he meets or…
We all get the true wonder and freedom of travel once in our lives, when we head out on the open road for the first time; in this author’s case, the transition in life could hardly have been more profound. Traveling from suburban Toronto to the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan to take up a post teaching English in a remote eastern village, it is a memoir of profound mental and well as physical exploration. Much more than a travel book this is a heart-warming story of a young woman coming of age and an important record of a country and way of life in a state of change.
Jamie Zeppa was 24 when she left a stagnant life at home and signed a contract to teach for two years in the Buddhist hermit kingdom of Bhutan. Much more than just a travel memoir, Beyond the Sky and the Earth is the story of her time in a Himalayan village, immersed in Bhutanese culture and the wonders of new and lasting love. Whether you're travelling to Bhutan, looking for the best travel writing around, or wishing to be transported to a culture, mindset, and spiritual ethos wonderfully different from your own, Beyond the Sky and the Earth is a…
This book tells the tale of my journey from grief-stricken man to free-riding adventurer as, following the sudden death of my fiancé Melanie, I escape a world of broken dreams by driving a motorbike from London to Cape Town and back again. As much an inner journey looking for meaning in life as a travelogue describing by 10-month, 20,000 mile, 19 country odyssey, it was a true voyage of a lifetime that ultimately delivered redemption as well as a career. Those of us that hit the open road for the first time know there is a wonderful naive freedom in not knowing what the next day, hour, even minute will bring. Looking back this was the most compelling and influential year of my life.
I grew up a fan of an evening news segment called “On the Road with Charles Kuralt.” Kuralt spotlighted upbeat, affirmative, sometimes nostalgic stories of people and places he discovered as he traveled across the American landscape. The charming stories he told were only part of the appeal; the freedom and adventure of being on the open road ignited a spark that continues to smolder. Some of my fondest memories from childhood are our annual family road trips, and I still jump at the chance to drive across the country.
Head West in 1865 with two life-long friends looking for adventure and who want to see the wilderness before it disappears. One is a wanderer; the other seeks a home he lost. The people they meet on their journey reflect the diverse events of this time period–settlers, adventure seekers, scientific expeditions, and Indigenous peoples–all of whom shape their lives in significant ways.
This is a story of friendship that casts a different look on a time period which often focuses only on wagon trains or gunslingers.
After four years of adventure in the frontier, Win Avery returns to his hometown on the edge of the prairie and tracks down his childhood friend, Jeb Dawson. Jeb has just lost his parents, and, in his efforts to console him, Win convinces his friend to travel west with him―to see the frontier before it is settled, while it is still unspoiled wilderness.
They embark on a free-spirited adventure, but their journey sidetracks when they befriend Meg Jameson, an accomplished horsewoman, lost on the Nebraska prairie. Traveling together through the Rocky Mountain foothills, they run into Gray Wolf, an Arapaho…
