100 books like The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer

When faced with heartbreak, Ryan Crain questions his will to continue living. Feeling a tremendous amount of grief, Ryan quits his job and decides to circumvent the world in order to find his inner person. This book is more than just a travel story. Gravel Roads is about taking risks, challenging those who don’t understand our purpose, and choosing to live a life without any regrets. Despite the risks and costs, Ryan proves that pursuing the journey to find inner peace is worth everything! 

Not that Anyone Asked is a story about Travis King who literally personifies the idea of a person who is just trying to make it in the world or, better yet, around the world. While some of his adventures are as wild as the title implies, they are not a turnoff. Travis is honest and his stories are real so almost anyone can relate to them. From being down to his last dollars, experiencing heartbreak, and ending up in prison, all while abroad, Not that Anyone Asked is entertaining, funny as well as purposeful. By the time readers get to the end of the book, they’ll be asking themselves, why didn’t they discover the book sooner?

I must admit that I didn’t know who Nicholas Sparks was prior to reading this book. Had he stuck to romance novels, I would’ve never discovered his amazing life story. Three Weeks with My Brother is so unique that it’s almost unfitting to call it a travel memoir. Instead, it’s a heartfelt international journey down memory lane as Nicholas and his brother Micah take the reader through the ups and downs of their lives. Readers not only get to experience an adventure around the world, but they also encounter a story filled with love, tragedy, success, and everything that makes a person who they are. In this case, that person is Nicholas Spark, a best-selling author, and screenwriter. 

From Excuses to Excursions is the story of social media influencer, Gloria Atanmo. Trust me, it’s not just a highlight reel turned into a couple of hundred pages. What I enjoy most about this book is the way that it’s written. It makes you feel like you’re listening to a best friend telling you about her interesting life which includes some fascinating travel experiences. I fell in love with Gloria’s wit and sense of humor, and I was inspired by her courage to travel. While this is not the kind of book that may earn a Pulitzer Prize, it’ll definitely win your attention and keep you engaged from beginning to end!  

Julian Evans takes us on a personal tour through the islands of the South Pacific, a region for which I have my own fondness. As well as places I know and love such as Tonga and Vanuatu, Evans visits harder to reach places: The Marshall islands and the Gilbert and Ellis group. Encountering natives, visitors, political and geographical challenges, his story is told with good humour and adventure.

This book is the perfect travel companion for a flight, inspiring wanderlust and igniting the excitement of exploration.

I met the author many years ago at the Travel and Adventure Show in Los Angeles. She has been an incredible mentor to me, including suggesting that I speak at the same show as her! Her comprehensive guide invites readers to diverse destinations across the globe with vivid descriptions, cultural insights, and practical travel tips. Schultz's passion for travel infuses every page, making it an engaging and informative read.

Whether you're planning future adventures or simply seeking inspiration, the book's well-curated list of extraordinary places provides an enchanting escape, turning your flight into a thrilling prelude to the adventures that lie ahead. Embark on a literary voyage with Schultz and let the anticipation of discovery accompany you at 30,000 feet. 

A formerly comfort-seeking Brit takes a very difficult walk around Baja and learns a lot about himself, and of course, about this “desert place.”

What’s not for me to like in a story like that? There is adventure and struggle, but also plenty of humor, and the thread that binds it all together is the author’s dawning love for a land that became his special place.

Mackintosh is still living much of the time in Mexico and has written five more books about Baja, burros, beer, and even dogs, but this adventurous paean to the peninsula will always have a special place in my heart, because I read it when I was newly in love with Baja myself.

Colin Thubron showed me real travel writing: a journey in words that leads the reader through detailed landscapes, personal encounters with local people, and a depth of understanding that can only come through the human history of these landscapes.

I took this trip with Thubron when Russia was still the Soviet Union. Thubron met dissidents living in Moscow, drank vodka with them late into the night, traveled north to the remnants of Soviet concentration camps, took the rails through that vast continent across the steppes, over the mountains, around huge lakes, all the way to the Pacific coast. The book is beautifully written and introduced me to a travel writer I have read many times since.

I had this book beside me while recovering from an urgent hip replacement. A guy who walked solo from Herat to Kabul in the winter of Afghanistan can be a great aid when you struggle in the stairwell.

Stewart–a former MP and nowadays the host of The Rest is Politics podcast–did the job for me in his excellent book and brave walk. A few months after my operation, I hiked the Mont Blanc trail. It's nothing like Afghanistan, but I did come across some icy peaks.

My favorite memoirs blend personal observations with some history and natural history and this book delivers on all those fronts.

I enjoyed how Berger’s essays ranged from the microcosm to the macrocosm, focusing on subjects as diverse as the dogs who lived on the rooftops of La Paz neighborhood, to the joy and the business of chasing eclipses.

An amateur natural historian who previously wrote about the environmental effects of the Glen Canyon Dam in “There Was a River” Berger obviously loves Baja, but more importantly, he is fascinated by the unique desert peninsula. His book drew me in from its first page and fascinated me in repeated readings.