Ten Great TRAVELOGUES

13th November 2021

Ten Great Travelogues

‘Generally, a travelogue provides a place to preserve memories, provide a purpose for travel, and offer a connection with local communities. The main purposes of a travelogue though are to inform readers about a place, landscape or culture’. 

Here is a listing of 10 of our absolute favourite books in this category

Find and Seek New York by Sally Roydhouse – NEW YORK

When a child steps outside their ordinary world and travels to a foreign city or country, an adventure awaits. In Find and Seek New York a small boy arrives in the city of New York with his family, willing to explore his new surroundings with an open heart and a spirit of wonder. All senses are activated as we are taken on his adventure and discover what is the New York City experience through the eyes of a child. Universal themes of travel, exposure to new cultures, and a sense of discovery are pertinent to the story. His adventure will leave an impression on the reader’s memory to keep, and hopefully ignite a love of travel in this diverse world in which we live. Find and Seek New York is colourful, educational, and easy to read, and is an enjoyable tale for all members of the family. It is an ideal read before visiting the city or a take-away keepsake.

France Sketchbooks by Laurie Olin – FRANCE

For centuries artists and designers have recorded places, people, and life in travel sketchbooks. Over a period of fifty years, Laurie Olin, one of America’s most distinguished landscape architects, has recorded aspects of France: its cities and countryside, streets and cafés, ancient ruins, vineyards, and parks – from humble to grand, things that interested his designer’s eye – taking the time to see things carefully. Paris in its seasons, agriculture in Provence and Bordeaux, trees, dogs, and fountains, all are noted over the years in watercolour or pen and ink.

Originally intended for the pleasure of merely being there as well as self-education, this personal selection from his many sketchbooks is accompanied by transcriptions of notes and observations, along with introductory remarks for the different regions included: Paris, Haute Loire, Provence, Haute Provence, Normandy, Aquitaine, and Entre des Meures.

Iberia by James A Michener – SPAIN

Spain is an immemorial land like no other, one that James A. Michener, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and celebrated citizen of the world, came to love as his own. Iberia is Michener’s enduring nonfiction tribute to his cherished second home. In the fresh and vivid prose that is his trademark, he not only reveals the celebrated history of bullfighters and warrior kings, painters and processions, cathedrals and olive orchards, he also shares the intimate, often hidden country he came to know, where the congeniality of living souls is thrust against the dark weight of history. Wild, contradictory, passionately beautiful, this is Spain as experienced by a master writer.

The Emperor Far Away by David Eimer – CHINA

Far from the glittering cities of Beijing and Shanghai, China’s borderlands are populated by around one hundred million people who are not Han Chinese. For many of these restive minorities, the old Chinese adage ‘the mountains are high and the Emperor far away’, meaning Beijing’s grip on power is tenuous and its influence unwelcome, continues to resonate. Travelling through China’s most distant and unknown reaches, David Eimer explores the increasingly tense relationship between the Han Chinese and the ethnic minorities. Deconstructing the myths represented by Beijing, Eimer reveals a shocking and fascinating picture of a China that is more of an empire than a country.

The Minaret of Djam by Freya Stark – AFGHANISTAN

The 12th century minaret of Djam is one of Afghanistan’s most celebrated treasures, a magnificent symbol of the powerful Ghorid Empire that once stretched from Iran to India. The second tallest brick minaret in the world, Djam lies in the heart of central Afghanistan’s wild Ghor Province. Surrounded by 2,000 metre-high mountains and by the remains of what many believe to have been the lost city of Turquoise Mountain – one of the greatest cities of the Middle Ages – Djam is, even today, one of the most inaccessible and remote places in Afghanistan. When Freya Stark travelled there, few people in the world had ever laid eyes on it or managed to reach the desolate valley in which it lies. Her journey from Kabul to Kandahar and Herat was difficult and often dangerous but her account shines with humour and is adorned with beautiful descriptions of the land she journeyed through and the people she encountered. A celebrated portrait of Afghanistan and its history, ‘The Minaret of Djam’ is a poignant reminder that this was once far more than just a country ravaged by war and the political games of the world’s superpowers.

The Appian Way by David Hewson – ITALY

They say all roads lead to Rome – but some are more important than others.
Along 350 miles from Rome to Brindisi, the Appian Way rose from its humble beginnings as a military track to become the engine that transformed Ancient Rome into the greatest empire Europe had ever seen.
Two thousand years later, with the continent in the process of another seismic shift, bestselling author David Hewson travels its route in the footsteps of the ordinary and extraordinary people who trod its path. From the gladiator rebel Spartacus to the marauding general Hannibal, via emperors, martyrs and politicians, he uncovers the stories of war, intrigue and ambition buried beneath its cobblestones.
Whether you love history, travel, Italy or all three, The Appian Way is a vivid, personal and fascinating exploration of an ancient journey that has never been more relevant.

Thirty Days in Sydney by Peter Carey – SYDNEY

Subtitled “a wildly distorted account” it is pretty much that: an oblique, poignant, entertaining and rather candid look at the city. Using his prize-winning novelist’s eye for telling detail, and the objectivity of the relative outsider (Carey has spent the last decade in New York, and he hails from Melbourne), the author shows that Sydney is not just about sun, sports, gay sex and Sydney Harbour Bridge. It’s also about endangered wildlife, painful history, militant agnosticism and, above all, a wilful, dogged, brave, funny, cantankerous citizenry. As Carey trots around town we get to meet a few of these hard-bitten “diggers”: their individuality and orneriness are deftly sketched.

Savage Harvest by Carl Hoffman – PAPUA NEW GUINEA

The mysterious disappearance of Michael Rockefeller in New Guinea in 1961 has kept the world and his powerful, influential family guessing for years. Now, Carl Hoffman uncovers startling new evidence that finally tells the full, astonishing story.

Despite exhaustive searches, no trace of Rockefeller was ever found. Soon after his disappearance, rumors surfaced that he’d been killed and ceremonially eaten by the local Asmat—a native tribe of warriors whose complex culture was built around sacred, reciprocal violence, head hunting, and ritual cannibalism. The Dutch government and the Rockefeller family denied the story, and Michael’s death was officially ruled a drowning. Yet doubts lingered. Sensational rumors and stories circulated, fueling speculation and intrigue for decades. The real story has long waited to be told—until now.

Retracing Rockefeller’s steps, award-winning journalist Carl Hoffman traveled to the jungles of New Guinea, immersing himself in a world of headhunters and cannibals, secret spirits and customs, and getting to know generations of Asmat. Through exhaustive archival research, he uncovered never-before-seen original documents and located witnesses willing to speak publically after fifty years.

In Savage Harvest he finally solves this decades-old mystery and illuminates a culture transformed by years of colonial rule, whose people continue to be shaped by ancient customs and lore. Combining history, art, colonialism, adventure, and ethnography, Savage Harvest is a mesmerising whodunit, and a fascinating portrait of the clash between two civilisations that resulted in the death of one of America’s richest and most powerful scions.

The Friendship Highway: Two Journeys in Tibet by Charlie Carroll – TIBET

Tibet was not just on the horizon, it capped it. Four thousand metres above this city was a country of stone and ice, and, even though it was officially closed, there was still a way in. A compelling and unforgettable encounter on the roof of the world… Hoping to reach Tibet after a twenty-year obsession, Charlie Carroll travelled to China. Contending with Chinese bureaucracy, unforgiving terrain and sickness-inducing altitude, Charlie experienced twenty-first-century Tibet in all its heartbreaking beauty. Tibetan-born Lobsang fled the volatile region over the Himalayas, on foot, as a child in 1989. An exile in Nepal, then a student in India, he was called back to Tibet by love. At the end of the road known as the Friendship Highway, he met Charlie and recounted his extraordinary life story, exemplifying the hardship, resilience and hope of modern Tibetan life.

Behind Putin’s Iron Curtain by Stephan Orth – RUSSIA

In this humorous and thought-provoking book, Orth ventures through that vast and mysterious territory to uncover the real, unfiltered Russia not seen in today’s headlines: authentic, bizarre, dangerous, and beautiful. Sidestepping the well-trod tourist path, he travels the country from Moscow to Vladivostok—across seven time zones and almost 9,500 kilometers—making stops in Chechnya, Saint Petersburg, Siberia, and beyond. Staying with an eclectic array of hosts, he bumps into gun nuts, Internet conspiracy theorists, faux shamans, and Putin fans; learns to drive in death-defying Russian style; and discovers how to cure hangovers by sniffing rye bread. But he also sees a darker side of the country, witnessing firsthand the effects of Putin’s influence in the run-up to the 2016 American election and the power of propaganda in this “post-fact” era.
Weaving everything together with thoughtfulness and warmth, Orth follows the acclaimed Couchsurfing in Iran with yet another complex, funny, and personal travelogue—a colorful portrait of a fascinating and misunderstood country.

Weaving everything together with thoughtfulness and warmth, Orth follows the acclaimed Couchsurfing in Iran with yet another complex, funny, and personal travelogue—a colourful portrait of a fascinating and misunderstood country.

We hope you enjoy our selection. If we’ve missed and of your favourites, please let us know in Comments below. There are over 650 on the TripFiction site – so it was quite a job to whittle them down. Click here to see the full listing.

Tony for the TripFiction team

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