Here are 31 books that The Sat Nav Diaries fans have personally recommended if you like
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I'm Jackie, and I quit work in 2016 to hit the road permanently with my husband and four dogs, so road tripping is close to my heart. Initially, we were Adventure Caravanners, who aimed To Boldly Go Where No Van Has Gone Before.
Now, we’re at large in a self-converted six-wheel army lorry, with Mongolia in our sights.
I have published four books Fur Babies in France, Dog on the Rhine, Dogs ‘n’ Dracula, and Pups on Piste, all within one of my favourite genres; light-hearted travel memoirs. My forthcoming books will chronicle a tour of Poland in a pandemic and our new life as Trucking Idiots.
Brian and his wife Marie (pronounced Marry) embark on a two-year epic road trip around Europe in Gemima the Hymer, an RV who would definitely have preferred to stay at home.
Even without a Camper Van of Doom, resilience and a sense of humour are essential travel companions. With the scrapes these two get in, they needed plenty of both. I laughed out loud at the imaginative turns of phrases used to describe the tribulations, destinations, and people they met. This book stands out as one of the funniest I’ve ever read.
This magnum opus is an account of a two year trip around Europe in a campervan; we explored from the top of Norway up inside the Arctic Circle to Gibraltar; from Portugal in the west to Ukraine in the east. My wife Marie (pronounced Marry) and I thought that as we hadn't set foot in a van before it would be a great idea to head off into the sunset in a cloud of diesel smoke; our trusty steed Gemima (the Hymer) wanted to stay at home and Marie seemed determined to maim me. The following is a tale of…
I'm Jackie, and I quit work in 2016 to hit the road permanently with my husband and four dogs, so road tripping is close to my heart. Initially, we were Adventure Caravanners, who aimed To Boldly Go Where No Van Has Gone Before.
Now, we’re at large in a self-converted six-wheel army lorry, with Mongolia in our sights.
I have published four books Fur Babies in France, Dog on the Rhine, Dogs ‘n’ Dracula, and Pups on Piste, all within one of my favourite genres; light-hearted travel memoirs. My forthcoming books will chronicle a tour of Poland in a pandemic and our new life as Trucking Idiots.
Vroom With A View is a giggle-filled rev around Italy aboard a vintage Vespa motor scooter.
I am a born-again Italian. In the same way I love everything about Italy, I loved everything about this book. Good travel writing makes you want to jump out of your chair and hit the road yourself. From the snippets of history about an Italian classic, the Vespa motor scooter, to the descriptions of wonderful off-the-beaten-path places and the irrepressible kindness and spirit of the Italian people, I defy you not to want to sample la vita Italiana after reading this book!
It was the late night Tai Bo fitness commercial warning him that life comes to an end after 40 that prompted Peter Moore to chase a boyhood dream. To go to Italy and seek out its celebrated dolce vita from the back of a Vespa. But it couldn't be just any old Vespa. Peter wanted a bike as old as he was and in the same sort of condition: a little rough round the edges, a bit slow in the mornings perhaps, but basically still OK. And it had to have saddle seats. And temperamental electrics. And a little too…
I'm Jackie, and I quit work in 2016 to hit the road permanently with my husband and four dogs, so road tripping is close to my heart. Initially, we were Adventure Caravanners, who aimed To Boldly Go Where No Van Has Gone Before.
Now, we’re at large in a self-converted six-wheel army lorry, with Mongolia in our sights.
I have published four books Fur Babies in France, Dog on the Rhine, Dogs ‘n’ Dracula, and Pups on Piste, all within one of my favourite genres; light-hearted travel memoirs. My forthcoming books will chronicle a tour of Poland in a pandemic and our new life as Trucking Idiots.
Entry into the Mongol Rally from Europe to Ulan Ude in Russia requires a car with a maximum engine size of 1.0 litre. The premise is that such a farcically inappropriate vehicle will invite adventure and interaction with locals.
Obviously, a 600-mile odyssey across southern Britain in an elderly electric milk float, with unreliable batteries and a top speed of 15 mph invites all kinds of mishaps.
Comedy writers Dan and Ian tackle alternate chapters. Since Dan authored the bestselling trilogy Crap Towns: a guide to the worst towns in Britain, there is plenty of off-the-wall detail about the places they passed through. Reliant on the kindness of strangers and third man Pras, an electrician with magical powers, this is a gently comic, informative, and quirky alternative to Jerome K. Jerome’s classic.
After planning the entire trip on the back of a beer mat, buying a 1958 decommissioned milk float on eBay and charging its tired batteries, the team set off from Lowestoft to Land's End. On the way, they discovered that their float needed to charge for eight hours for every two hours it spent on the road. Relying on the milk of human kindness, they were at the mercy of strangers every night, sometimes even using other people's cookers just to keep the show on the road. En route, they were treated to tea and rock cakes by the Vice…
I'm Jackie, and I quit work in 2016 to hit the road permanently with my husband and four dogs, so road tripping is close to my heart. Initially, we were Adventure Caravanners, who aimed To Boldly Go Where No Van Has Gone Before.
Now, we’re at large in a self-converted six-wheel army lorry, with Mongolia in our sights.
I have published four books Fur Babies in France, Dog on the Rhine, Dogs ‘n’ Dracula, and Pups on Piste, all within one of my favourite genres; light-hearted travel memoirs. My forthcoming books will chronicle a tour of Poland in a pandemic and our new life as Trucking Idiots.
Impecunious Brits George and his friend Mark decide to search for the ‘real’ America, crossing the continent from east to west in a clapped-out old car.
At every point, amid clouds of smoke, impending mechanical Armageddon, and brushes with the law, it seems unlikely that they’ll make it. One night, in the middle of nowhere, when ominous sounds emanating from the engine, George pleads, “Not tonight, Josephine…!”
The author has a humorous conversational style and paints an unforgettable portrait of the unlikely places he passed through. I thoroughly enjoyed this bump-start, clunk, and judder across the States with the frustrating but lovable Josephine!
“…exceptionally entertaining writing…” “…George is genuinely hilarious…” “…everything you could want in a travel memoir and more…” “…hilarious, cringe-worthy and totally chaotic. A brilliant read…” “…amusing, informative and heart-warming…” “…I laughed out loud throughout…” “…I learned more about our great US of A from this BRITISH author than I did in history class…”
Two Brits, George and Mark, set off from New York City to explore the back roads of America. In this calamity-ridden travel tale, George sets out in true clichéd fashion to discover the real America.
Throw in plenty of run-ins with the police, rapidly dwindling finances and…
As an independent author, I’ve been lucky enough to find a wealth of other independent authors out there. People who are doing things that aren’t quite mainstream. Artists who are experimenting with the written word and doing truly unique things. Where the world is filled with books made for the sole purpose of being turned into movies, these authors are creating works of fiction that are suited for the written word. Masterpieces that will make you think and want to find even more new forms of fiction. Simply put, independent authors are pushing books into new realms that you simply can’t find in the mainstream market.
Like a male version of Eat Pray Love, where the main character doesn't seem to really learn anything from the experience and already started out rather selfish, The Year of Dan Palace shows us Dan's ongoing struggle with love in a world where he believes the end is nigh. His constant internal battle with himself over how he wants to live his life is at the forefront of every single moment in this captivating text, as we find ourselves yelling at the book in an attempt to convince Dan to get over himself and just start living life for once.
This book will grab you and hold you until you finish the final pages, all the time hoping that Dan does find some happiness, or at least validation of his greatest fears, by the time the book ends.
Dan Palace has always played it safe. He chose the safe job. Married a safe woman. Rarely travels far from home. But something is missing – until a man named Tucker Farling delivers a doomsday prediction that changes his life. In the final minutes before the New Year, Dan musters the courage he desperately needs to embark on a quest to find that missing “something”: the sense of adventure and true magic he remembers from his youth, along with the love of his ex-wife, who has hated him since their wedding night nine years before. When things don’t go as…
As a travel writer, author, broadcaster, speaker, and producer, I’ve reported from over 100 countries on 7 continents for major print and digital publications worldwide and networks like National Geographic and Travel Channel. I kicked off my career with a solo, 12-month round-the-world backpacking adventure, largely inspired by the formative books I read below. Embracing the world with insatiable curiosity, an open heart, an open mind, a sense of humour, and enthusiasm to share my stories clearly resonated. Here I am, two decades later, author of a half-dozen bestselling books that focus on my own eclectic travels, which will hopefully inspire others as these books inspired me.
A deserved, all-time classic, this book seems to transcend time to capture the spirit of wanderlust. I was young and impressionable when I read it for the first time, and it inspired a sense of profound restlessness to explore, grow, and hit the road to see for myself.
Neal Cassidy and Jack Kerouac are wild, occasionally unhinged protagonists, and their journey consists of hustling, romance, and drinking their way to a good time. Kerouac’s writing made me long for similar misadventures, where life is simple and finding the road is all that matters. Subversively, the novel promotes a full life and whole human experience, which makes working 9 to 5 that much more difficult.
The legendary novel of freedom and the search for authenticity that defined a generation, now in a striking new Pengiun Classics Deluxe Edition
Inspired by Jack Kerouac's adventures with Neal Cassady, On the Road tells the story of two friends whose cross-country road trips are a quest for meaning and true experience. Written with a mixture of sad-eyed naivete and wild ambition and imbued with Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz, On the Road is the quintessential American vision of freedom and hope, a book that changed American literature and changed…
As a child, I listened to scary Korean folklore and then devoured all of Grimm’s fairy tales with their themes of good versus evil, disguise and betrayal, sacrifice, and magic. It’s not surprising that as I grew older, my reading tastes skewed toward darkness, mystery, madness, and the uncanny. There’s a penitential aspect to gothic stories, with their superstitious moralism, often with elements of the supernatural manifesting not as monsters but restless spirits—the repressed ghosts of a location’s history. I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of a place absorbing and regurgitating the histories and sins of its occupants, whether it be a town, a house, or both.
How much do I love this hilarious, terrifying, completely bonkers carny show of a novel? Written and illustrated by Barry, a cartoonist, it opens with a suicide note by Roberta, a misfit teen with a busted-up face who’s left behind a rageful diaristic manifesto describing child abuse, theft, revenge, murder, and a cast of characters out of a circus nightmare.
I got whiplash, veering from stomach-cramping laughter to anxious dread, heartbreak, and complete wonder at the strange, freakish beauty of her prose, like finding chunks of gold in the trash. When I finished, I thought, WTF did I just read, and HOW TF did she do it? I really don’t know. But every few years, I re-read it to try and find out.
On a September night in 1971, a few days after getting busted for dropping two of the 127 hits of acid found in a friend's shoe, a sixteen-year-old who is grounded for a year curls up in the corner of her ratty bedroom, picks up a pen, and begins to write. Once upon a cruddy time on a cruddy street on the side of a cruddy hill in the cruddiest part of a crudded-out town in a cruddy state, country, world, solar system, universe. The cruddy girl named Roberta was writing the cruddy book of her cruddy life and the…
Somehow, I keep moving. I love going places and I love reading about explorers, itinerants, migrants, wanderers, and lost souls on the move. Looking for Redfeather started out as my National Novel Writing Month novel; the first draft, written in a mad dash during November 2007, when I was on the road, promoting my novel, Star-Crossed, a novel that also involves traveling. Looking for Redfeather was inspired by members of my own family—young people bent but not broken, malcontents on a mission, seeking something, but what? Published in 2013, it's a 21st century-coming-of-age road story, my tongue-in-cheek homage to Jack Kerouac, and the runaway teen still hiding out in my old soul.
What are Americans like today? In the spirit ofTravels with Charley, George Zeigler made his own journey in the early 21st century, retracing Steinbeck’s literary journey to rediscover his country. In the process, the Wyoming-based writer gives us not only a 21st-century road memoir, but a literary biography of America’s 1960 Nobel Laureate author. Gregory Zeigler explores the country to discover who Americans are today, and to pay homage to the great 20th-century novelist, John Steinbeck. “As for me, I got to know Steinbeck well and had one hell of an adventure following his tracks around the country,” Zeigler says. Makes me want to do the same.
Inspired by Travels with Charley, Gregory Zeigler celebrated the 50th anniversary of renowned Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck's storied trip. In 2009, Zeigler and his dog Max drove and camped 15,000 miles over nine weeks, exploring the country and determining what Americans are like today. Travels With Max offers a retrospective on Steinbeck and his work, as well as an insightful, humorous and upbeat perspective on modern America. Steinbeck's Travels with Charley will celebrate it's 60th anniversary in 2020.
I suspect my passion for this topic was born when my doctor came into my C-section recovery room and uttered the words “chromosomal abnormality.” My daughter has Down syndrome, and full disclosure: I had zero interest in being a disability mom. Yet as I fell in love with this beautiful, funny, sassy girl, my whole worldview shifted. I am a far better person than I was when she entered my life. She has taught me the beauty and the blessing wrapped up in the things that first appear to be the most difficult.
I love this book because it showcases the essential goodness of people. In these times of hate-filled words and dishonesty, that’s an affirmation we all need. August is a teacher on an RV trip to national parks to scatter his son’s ashes—a trip he wants to take on his own, in grief and bitterness. Instead, because he’s just a good guy, he ends up with three tag-alongs—a pair of boys, wounded by their father’s neglect and self-absorption, and a dog. The trip—and the kindness they inspire in each other—helps them all heal. It’s a trip that changes them all forever for the better.
August Shroeder, a burned-out teacher, has been sober since his 19-year-old son died. Every year he's spent the summer on the road, but making it to Yellowstone this year means everything. The plan had been to travel there with his son, but now August is making the trip with Philip's ashes instead. An unexpected twist of fate lands August with two extra passengers for his journey, two half-orphans with nowhere else to go.
What none of them could have known was how transformative both the trip-and the bonds that develop between them-would prove, driving each to create a new destiny…
I’m a fiction writer and visual artist. My volunteer work with Amnesty International on a documentary photography project introduced me to 15 people from all over the world. During that time, I volunteered at a camp in Maine for kids who had life-threatening illnesses. I met a boy who had Progeria. Those two experiences fueled the writing of What Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me. I’m interested in characters who don’t fit the traditional mold and have to carve their own paths. People who are born with life-threatening diseases, imperfections, handicaps, brilliance. I see a kind of bravery in these characters, and in all they have to do to overcome the odds.
Trevor Conklin is a teenager in the advanced stages of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and is wheelchair-bound. His new caretaker, Ben Benjamin, has lost his family to an accident (the details of which we don’t learn until the end of the book) and is financially broke. He has taken a 28-hour course on caregiving at a local church and afterward is hired by Trevor’s single mother to dress, bathe, and do everything that Trevor can’t do for himself. At first, there’s a lot of friction between Ben and Trevor, but after a while they become close and begin to trust one another. Together, they go on a road trip from Washington state to Utah to visit Trevor’s dad, the two haven’t seen one another for years. Along the way, they pick up some hitchhikers and Trevor has an encounter with a young woman. Alongside the road trip, are several flashbacks to…
In The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving (releasing June 24, 2016 as a Netflix Original Film titled The Fundamentals of Caring, starring Paul Rudd and Selena Gomez), Jonathan Evison, author of the new novel This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! and the New York Times bestseller West of Here, has crafted a novel of the heart, a story of unlikely heroes in a grand American landscape.
For Ben Benjamin, all has been lost--his wife, his family, his home, his livelihood. Hoping to find a new direction, he enrolls in a night class called The Fundamentals of Caregiving, where he will learn…
