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For the last decade, I’ve spent the majority of each year traveling. I’ve been to 60 countries across 6 continents and every US state. My love of travel was inspired and encouraged by my parents from a very early age. I’ve also been inspired by a wide variety of other sources, like movies, TV, photography, and, of course, books. Often, I’ll plan an adventure around a cool location I saw or read about and then just go. I’ll just show up and see what happens. All it takes is that little initial nudge, like what I found in these books.
This is the quintessential American road trip travelogue by one of America’s greatest novelists. Written towards the end of his life, after driving literally around the country with his faithful poodle Charley, it’s a remarkable, if sometimes probably fictionalized or at least embellished, snapshot of the country in late 1960.
Some language and aspects throughout are definitely “of its time,” but so many insights and perspectives could have easily been written about the modern US. It’s a testament to the power and wonder of a good road trip that is sometimes funny, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes heart-wrenching, but always captivating.
An intimate journey across America, as told by one of its most beloved writers
To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the trees, to see the colors and the light-these were John Steinbeck's goals as he set out, at the age of fifty-eight, to rediscover the country he had been writing about for so many years.
With Charley, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the interstates and the country roads, dines with truckers, encounters bears at Yellowstone and old friends in San Francisco. Along the way he reflects on the American character, racial hostility, the…
I was born and raised in Northern California, right on the banks of the Sacramento River. While I didn’t realize it growing up, it was an epicenter for outdoor adventures. Along with skiing, snowboarding, hiking, wakeboarding, and camping, I always read a lot. My dad was worried that I would have no sense of direction because I was always in the back of our van or RV reading a book. That led to writing…and I had my first article published in a wakeboarding magazine when I was 15 years old. Traveling always took a backburner to reading, but now it’s front and center of my writing.
This is classic literature in the realm of American travel.
I had no idea that “blue highways” existed, and even though Heat-Moon went cross-country back in the 1970s in his van equipped with his igloo cooler and makeshift bed (not like the $100k fancy campers you find today), the type of people you meet and experiences you have in this amazing country are still relevant today.
In Blue Highways Revisited, I was shocked to read how long it took for this book to get published and the stacks of printed-out drafts he had of it (I think it was like four feet high). If there are any travel writing classes taught as part of a creative writing program, then Blue Highways better be on the list.
Hailed as a masterpiece of American travel writing, Blue Highways is an unforgettable journey along our nation's backroads. William Least Heat-Moon set out with little more than the need to put home behind him and a sense of curiosity about "those little towns that get on the map -- if they get on at all -- only because some cartographer has a blank space to fill: Remote, Oregon; Simplicity, Virginia; New Freedom, Pennsylvania; New Hope, Tennessee; Why, Arizona; Whynot, Mississippi." His adventures, his discoveries, and his recollections of the extraordinary people he encountered along the way amount to a revelation…
Like many road warriors, Kevin Shay experienced his first taste of highway travels through his family, piling into a station wagon at a young age to journey several thousand miles in a week or so. He learned how to entertain himself for long hours without an iPod or cellphone. As a journalist, he wrote travel articles for a variety of publications, as well as a travel guidebook on North Texas. He has traveled through 48 states and more than 30 countries, logging more than 200,000 miles in a variety of vehicles and his own feet. He also produced a 19-minute documentary, Searching for Something in the Middle of Nowhere, based on the Mad, Mad Trip book.
Providing more of a guidebook than a rich travelogue, Jamie Jensen uses his experience in covering some 400,000 miles to give readers thinking of new road adventures more fuel for thought. The guide provides color-coded and cross-referenced routes, places to visit along the way, colorful photos, and seasoned advice. Jensen wrote his first Road Trip USA guide in 1996 and has been updating it ever since.
Criss-cross the country on America's two-lane highways with the 25th anniversary edition of the ultimate guide to the classic road trip. Inside Road Trip USA you'll find:
* 11 routes through the heart of America, colour-coded and extensively cross-referenced to allow for hundreds of possible itineraries * Mile-by-mile highlights celebrating the best of Americana, including roadside curiosities, parks, diners, and the local history and personality that makes each small town and big city unique * Over 125 driving maps covering more than 35,000 miles (56,000 km) of two-lane American blacktop * Full-colour photos and illustrations of America both then and…
Like many road warriors, Kevin Shay experienced his first taste of highway travels through his family, piling into a station wagon at a young age to journey several thousand miles in a week or so. He learned how to entertain himself for long hours without an iPod or cellphone. As a journalist, he wrote travel articles for a variety of publications, as well as a travel guidebook on North Texas. He has traveled through 48 states and more than 30 countries, logging more than 200,000 miles in a variety of vehicles and his own feet. He also produced a 19-minute documentary, Searching for Something in the Middle of Nowhere, based on the Mad, Mad Trip book.
It’s one thing to take a road trip alone or with a partner or friend. It’s quite another to take the family, especially younger kids. Richard Ratay, an advertising copywriter, details the history of the family road trip in an entertaining and vivid manner. His anecdotes from years on the road with his family are at times comical, heart-warming, and awkward. Ratay puts the love-hate relationship many have with such adventures on full display, lending more clues why these journeys are perhaps best recalled from the perspective of time.
"A lighthearted, entertaining trip down Memory Lane" (Kirkus Reviews), Don't Make Me Pull Over! offers a nostalgic look at the golden age of family road trips-before portable DVD players, smartphones, and Google Maps.
The birth of America's first interstate highways in the 1950s hit the gas pedal on the road trip phenomenon and families were soon streaming-sans seatbelts!-to a range of sometimes stirring, sometimes wacky locations. In the days before cheap air travel, families didn't so much take vacations as survive them. Between home and destination lay thousands of miles and dozens of annoyances, and with his family Richard Ratay…
In my 20s, after always doing what I was “supposed” to, I found myself trapped in a relationship I wanted out of, in a job that barely paid the bills, and in a mindset of scarcity. After my birth control almost killed me, I dove into the mind-body connection that’s often stifled by sexism and societal expectations, becoming fascinated with pushing against the status quo and living more adventurously. I realized I needed to sincerely take my life decisions into my own hands. Since then, I’ve run ultramarathons, become an entrepreneur, and taught countless menstruators how to listen to their own bodies so they can build a life they love.
When I got divorced, I kept my ex-partner’s last name. It felt shameful in some ways, but it also felt like the best option financially and career-wise. I was so relieved to read a memoir of a woman who confidently and decisively kept her ex’s last name even as she blazed a brand-new path for herself while the relationships around her blew up.
From the outside, my life can look easy and happy. But, of course, I deal with challenges that feel unsurmountable at the time, with critics who make me second-guess my work and with the expectations of how a woman should look and speak. In this book Brianna breaks down her own journey of rebuilding a life that looked shiny on the outside but had major struggles that she could no longer ignore.
I’ve struggled at work, in marriage, and in my identity. To read a memoir from…
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER * USA TODAY! BESTSELLER
In this beautifully written, vividly detailed memoir, a young woman chronicles her adventures traveling across the deserts of the American West in an orange van named Bertha and reflects on an unconventional approach to life.
A woman defined by motion, Brianna Madia bought a beat-up bright orange van, filled it with her two dogs Bucket and Dagwood, and headed into the canyons of Utah with her husband. Nowhere for Very Long is her deeply felt, immaculately told story of exploration-of the world outside and the spirit within.…
I grew up in western Pennsylvania where my dad loved history and always tried to stop at any battlefield or historic sign that happened to be within his field of vision. My mom was a passionate researcher of our family ancestry and I spent our childhood looking in cemeteries for specific names and gravestones. When I was ten years old, we joined a living history reenactment group that portrayed everyday life in the 1750s, and I was immediately hooked. I began researching about our group known as “Captain William Trent’s Company” and after almost thirty years of living and breathing summer weekends at 18th Century historic sites, the pages of Pittsburgh’s Lost Outpost: Captain Trent’s Fort came to life. I picked these five books because I want future readers to be transported like I was when I first read them.
This book is unique because it shows the reader how you can walk in the footsteps and travel like those trekking across Pennsylvania in the early 18th Century where there were no interstates or turnpikes, but instead, indigenous paths that influenced the roadways we know today. It also gave me a visual where I could experience firsthand what a traveler saw when he or she walked this route.
Since its original publication in 1965, Indian Paths of Pennsylvania has remained the standard volume for charting the foot trails forged and followed in Pennsylvania by Native Americans, documenting an era of interaction between Indians and European settlers in the 17th and 18th centuries. With the advent of European settlement, the Indian trails that laced the wilderness were so well-situated that there was little reason to forsake them until the age of the automobile. The trails that traverse the mountains “kept the level” so well that they remain an engineering curiosity. Equally as remarkable are the complexity of the system…
As a full-time travel writer for 30 years, I’ve travelled all over Australia and am still constantly surprised and thrilled by new places. Ask me what my favourite place is, and it’s impossible to choose! From the grandeur of Western Australia’s Kimberley and the red ochre colours of the Outback to the deep blue of the oceans and lush rainforests...I love it all and I love sharing my discoveries – both in cities and on the long and winding roads – with readers. When I’m not travelling or writing about it, I’m usually planning the next trip!
Australians love a road-trip – the longer, the better. This book, by one of Australia’s top driving holiday experts, is jam-packed with information and advice to make yours as easy as possible. Driving is definitely the best way to see our vast continent, and the route maps and distance lists are hugely useful. It’s a great resource on where to stay – everything from swank hotels to camping spots – and what to do. Want to know the best time of year to visit a certain place? That’s covered too.
In Ultimate Road Trips: Australia,author Lee Atkinson highlights 40 of the best driving holidays around Australia.
Each chapter includes information on things to see and do, detailed route maps and a handy list of distances to help you plan your trip, as well as lots of useful advice on family-friendly attractions, where to eat and the best hotels, guesthouses, caravan parks and camping spots. You'll also find details on the best time of year to visit, driving tips and a guide to surviving a road trip with a back seat full of kids.
I've always been obsessed with justice, but as a five-foot, zero-inch woman, I can't exactly kill a bad guy with my bare hands. So I right wrongs in my books, which always end on a note of triumph, and where people who do dread, nefarious things tend to meet with rightful ends. Before I became a writer, I worked as a psychotherapist, and one day I was assigned the case of this adorable five-year-old who had just killed the family pet. Drilling down into the reasons behind the acts people commit helped me save this child, and has come to consume me. It also happens to be something every author on this list does brilliantly well.
In case you thought a male author wouldn’t be included on this list, I raise you Taylor Adams, whose entire backlist is worth reading. (That scariest book I referred to in my list? Another of his). This one is described as “the most gripping suspense thriller you will ever read,” and as overblown as that sounds, I have to agree. Elle and James Eversman—whose surname is apt—break down on a lonesome stretch of desert rubble, led there by a highway detour. What follows underneath the broiling desert sun is an encounter with one sick and highly skilled antagonist. That this every-couple proves equal to outmaneuvering him, mostly by power of their wits, although with a few badass moves as well, makes for one of the most stunning showdowns ever seen on the page—one in which you’ll be cheering every inch of Elle’s crawl toward victory.
Gripping, thrilling, unputdownable suspense. In the middle of the desert a couple are pinned down by a ruthless sniper
“Heart-stoppingly tense, this is a brilliant page-turning thriller.” Chris Child
“Gripping and beautifully written, with sharp dialogue and a real feel for the desert landscape. I couldn’t stop reading it.” Beth Boyd
“A remarkable debut novel, the couple are realistic, and the killer dark, dangerous, and sometimes very funny.” Ann Abrams
"An intelligent thriller as unstoppable and exacting as its villain, with heroes who are human and engaging. Riveting." T.J. Brearton (best-selling author of Habit)
I grew up reading about so many incredible places that I knew by the age of eight that I wanted to be a flight attendant one day. It was the only job I could think of that would allow me to explore every part of the world. And it has. I’ve been flying for seventeen years, and my wanderlust is still holding strong. If I’m not going on an adventure, I’m writing or reading about one. And, thanks to great authors who have created even greater characters, I never travel alone.
Speaking of road trips… guess what this book is about. A car ride. It’s not as simple as that, though. It’s a car full of people with history, and the story chronicles both the past and the present in a way that makes you care about each and every one of them. It also takes you from the south of France to the north of Scotland, which is a dream vacation that I thoroughly enjoyed taking through the pages. I can’t recommend this book enough!
The instant Sunday Times Bestseller from the author of The Flatshare
'Read this! Absolutely loved it!' Christina Lauren
'This book is perfect' Rosie Walsh
'Beth is quite rightly earning her title as "Queen of Uplit"' Prima
Addie and her sister are on an epic road trip to a friend's wedding in rural Scotland. But, not long after setting off, a car slams into theirs. The driver is none other than Addie's ex, who she hasn't seen since their traumatic break-up two years earlier.
Dylan and his best mate are heading to the wedding too, so Addie has no choice but…
I’m an award-winning children’s author of more than 100 books, including many biographies. I first fell in love with biographies when I was a child and read about young blind and deaf Helen Keller. Blind and deaf? I couldn’t imagine. Yet, page by page, as I stepped into little Helen’s world, I felt as if I experienced her struggles, triumphs, and tragedies right along with her. I discovered that in spite of her great challenges, she succeeded. That’s why I love biographies and why I write them. I hope my biographies open a door into someone else’s world that can remind readers that they can succeed too, in spite of obstacles in front of them. I try to write the sort of picture books I love—funny, whimsical, captivating, and unforgettable.
I’m a big fan of Don Brown and this is one of my favorites. In this biography, we follow the adventure of Alice Ramsey who was the first woman to drive across the United States. It was 1909, so no easy task since there weren’t any interstates, road maps, or gas stations. Yet, Alice, along with her companions, set off. Magically, Brown lets us go along with them as they ramble past farms and fields, muster their way down roads clogged with pigs, dig themselves out of muddy holes, and urge the car across vast moonlit deserts, and over the grueling Sierra Nevada mountains. Alice’s grand adventure not only celebrates a woman’s first, but takes us along for the long, extraordinary, bumpy ride. Bravo Alice! Bravo Don Brown!
Don Brown introduces us to yet another little-known heroine. On June 9, 1909, twenty-two-year-old Alice Ramsey hitched up her skirts and climbed behind the wheel of a Maxwell touring car. Fifty-nine days later she rolled into San Francisco, becoming the first woman to drive across America. What happened in between is quite a tale! Through words and pictures, the author shares this story of a brave and tenacious young woman who followed her vision to conquer the open road - even when the road was nothing more than a wagon trail. Alice Ramsey's adventure offers a unique perspective on turn-of-the-century…
