Summer Travels – Summer Reading: Top 10 Travel Books

As you take time out over the summer, always remember to take a good book on holiday with you. And as you travel yourself, here are a few travel books to keep you company:

1.       A Time of Gifts – Patrick Leigh Fermor

A young man walks from London to Constantinople between the two world wars, discovering a land and people that were soon to be lost as Nazi Germany began to take control. Beautifully written and fascinating history.

2.       Solomon Time – Will Randall

A teacher takes the opportunity to travel to the Solomon Islands. Totally out of his comfort zone, he falls in love with an entirely different way of life. Lots of humour and some great descriptions of a beautiful, hidden paradise.

3.       News From Tartary – Peter Fleming

The older brother of James Bond writer Ian travels with a companion through some of the hardest and least travelled lands, from Peking to Kashmir, back in 1935. A now-vanished way of life and the strangest of encounters.

4.       Chasing the Monsoon – Alexander Frater

In 1987 a travel writer decides to follow the Indian monsoon and in doing so, discovers the hidden India.

5.       Summer Journey Through The Fens – Edward Storey

Writer and poet – and local boy – travels through the Fens, exploring its history, and writing with wit and sensitivity about people past and present.

6.       Pies and Prejudice – Stuart Maconie

DJ and writer Maconie travels through his beloved North of England, discovering the real North and the real people that make it up. I love his sense of humour.

7.       A Walk Across America – Peter Jenkins

From the Atlantic to the Pacific, a student walks across America, discovering hidden lives and finding a faith he never knew he needed.

8.       As I walked Out One Midsummer Morning – Laurie Lee

From a peaceful Cotswold village to the violence of Spain on the verge of war in 1934, Lee sees things through a poets eyes. His writing is hard to beat. Quite beautifully written.

9.       The Whispering Land – Gerald Durrell

Searching for animals, Durrell travels through South America in the late 1950s. His style is funny and his travels through Patagonia are amazing.

10.   Patagonia – Bruce Chatwin

Another Patagona book – I really need to go there! In December 1974, journalist Bruce Chatwin decides to travel south into the hidden lands of South America’s Patagonia. There he meets hidden Welsh valleys in foreign lands and a wild land of changing seasons. Stylish writing.