10 Must-Read Travel Books You Need On Your Bookshelf [Updated 2024]
Updated: July 2024
In times when we cannot travel, what better way to travel from home in a way that imprints lessons, inspiration, and joy unlike anything else?
Books of course! And, in this case, travel books.
Books, like travel, are the ultimate gateway to knowledge, coupled with the inspiration of stories to apply the knowledge in a personalized way that fits each individual turning the page.
Reading literally takes us places; from the world as a whole to the single person’s mind that resembles a world of its own – books allow us to travel without moving our feet, as the famous quote says.
So I decided to round up my favorite and promising travel books for you to check out – and the best part here?
They’re all under $10! What!? Scroll to read the post, and get ready to feel inspired ✨
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1. Travel as Transformation
Amongst some of my favorite travel books, this one is on the list and the first one I think of.
Personally, this book encouraged and taught me a few years back how to view travel as a transformation.
How much do our current surroundings influence us, and how much are we willing to let go and let in when we travel to other corners of the world?
It really makes you think how open-minded you are/can/want to be and how each place has not only led to an important lesson to teach but also how to view each destination as an opportunity to allow it to shape our perception of life and ourselves.
It’s truly one of my favorite travel books. It encourages reflection on our own relationship with travel, how each destination has influenced our perceptions, and the sheer freedom we feel when we step into the unknown.
A couple of my favorite quotes from the book (I have waaay too many, but here’s two) –
“Stability means that nothing ever changes, which is only a good thing if you are already living the life of your dreams”
Greg V. Diehl
Travel as Transformation
The spirit of adventure will guide you into these unfamiliar territories. When you are already out of your comfort zone, you have more freedom to try things your normally wouldn’t. It will be only your own learner limits which keep you trapped in specific kinds of behaviors – whether favorable or unfavorable
Greg V. Diehl
Travel as Transformation
📚 Click here to buy Travel as Transformation
>> Read More: What is Transformative Travel? And How To Experience It On Your Next Trip!
2. Happy
Each traveler and non-traveler is sure to enjoy this quick read that illustrates the different outlooks that cultures around the world have on happiness, and what happiness means to them.
This travel book is a quick but fascinating experience to enjoy from the comfort of home. It will inspire a different way to approach uncertainty, gratitude, and being present through the lens of the world.
Happy is a read that will inspire you to look out there and then go within.
In the realm of travel books, this is a happy, fun, and thoughtful read that will leave you with a different perspective of your surroundings when you return from traveling. It’s a good one!
One of my favorite passages from Happy –
When you travel to another country where everything is unfamiliar, your awareness is heightened, you notice every little detail because you are trying to understand and make sense of everything that is going on around you…The opportunity to look at another culture, to see the world from another viewpoint, to see yourself as someone foreign, is the adventure of travel. The freedom, the sense of possibilities, the absence of the routine mundanity of normal life, is the excitement of travel.
Happy – Lonely Planet
📚 Click here to buy Happy
3. Alone Time
Ever wanted to take the plunge and go on a trip by yourself?
Maybe you have already, but there were things that were still uncomfortable, and you’re ready to understand how you can make your next solo venture less stressful or worrisome.
In her book Alone Time, Stephanie Rosenbloom not only explores the topic of solo travel but also carefully and beautifully captures the joy of spending time with yourself while exploring the world.
She also adds interesting psychological and sociological insight found in solitude and happiness.
The book explores various themes, including eating by yourself, discovering interests and passions, and being more than okay with your own company, all throughout a year spent in four cities: Florence, Istanbul, Paris, and New York.
Talk about an exciting jump into solo travel books – this one is definitely a good one to check out!
It’s a book filled with so much insight that it makes seasoned travelers feel understood and inspires those who desire to explore the world on their own one day.
Two of my favorite passages from Alone Time –
For one thing, time spent away from the influence of others allows us to explore and define who we are. In private, we can think deeply and independently…There’s room for problem solving, experimentation, and imagination. The mind can crackle with intense focus or go beachcombing, plucking up an idea like a shell, examining and pocketing it, or letting it go to pick up another.
Stephanie Rosenbloom
Alone Time
Although I was traveling without friends or family, each day brought passing companions: bakers, maître d’s, museum greeters, shopkeepers, fellow travelers. The hours were unhurried and entirely mine, like the “limitless solitude” the poet Rilke described in a letter to a friend; “this taking each day like a life-time this being-with-everything”
Stephanie Rosenbloom
Alone Time
📚 Click here to buy Alone Time
4. Born to Travel
Travel is undoubtedly an education in itself. It helps us understand ourselves as humans a bit more. It can also shed clarity and help reinvigorate our professional careers.
In Born to Travel, you will learn practical, inspiring, and inquisitive ideas on how to approach your next travel adventure (and how to reflect on previous trips) to help you with your professional side, whether you work for a company or for yourself.
Inside, you’ll learn how to create a personal brand, sharpen your interpersonal skills, and build a resilient mindset, among other helpful tips.
Think of it as the “real world” experience our resume and professional career needs, but sometimes we may struggle with how to include it.
Born to Travel is a book about leadership development in 15 countries based on the author, Amy McCune, and how her travel experiences have improved her leadership skills.
Born to Travel is a travel book unlike many others out there, but one with immense value. It shows how to apply travel experiences to help leverage not only our lives but also our professional careers—win!
I love that books like these, especially travel books like these, not only tell a good story and leave you with a good lesson (or a couple) but also give you tangible ways to incorporate your travels into your professional life.
Many people don’t realize they can do this, and it will probably give them an advantage over those who have not experienced what they have on the road.
One of my favorite passages from Born to Run –
These experiences were truly amazing, but they are only half of the learning experience for me. I’m an introspective person. I like to think about what I’ve learned and apply that learning to other aspects of my life. For me, it is a way to hold on to that experience. If I am able to take an experience and use it to transform my life in some way, to make some small improvement in how I live, that is the true reward of my travels.
Amy McCune
Born to Travel
📚 Click here to buy Born to Travel
>> Read More: 5 Professional Skills You Learn When You’re a Language Assistant
5. Tales of a Digital Nomad
Dive into the world of digital nomads with one of the coolest travel books out there.
In the realm of memoirs, Tales of a Digital Nomad tells the personal journey of the author, Nadia King, and her self-revelations and discoveries as she became a Digital Nomad.
A Digital Nomad is essentially a person who can complete their work from anywhere in the world, using a computer and a steady Wi-Fi connection.
An employer does not require them to remain on-site or in a specific location.
Digital Nomads can also be individuals who work for themselves and, therefore, can move about the world as they work.
Nadia is a badass traveler who decided that the mundane routine life of home wasn’t cutting it anymore. Rather than accept that as her reality, she decided to do something about it.
In her search for a break from the predictable, she decided to take a leap and start a business of her own while traveling Asia and fully embracing the unknown.
Her story is one of inspiration and curiosity, which leaves her readers questioning and asking themselves if they’re truly happy doing what they’re doing or if a change is needed.
This travel book, in particular, experiences real-life situations that relate to many of our dilemmas when making tough decisions.
Add the adventures and uncertainties of the road, and you will really get an adventure out of this read.
Tales of a Digital Nomad is a book that will take you places, remind you to follow your dreams no matter how busy life gets, and inspire you to take a leap of faith.
One of my favorite passages from Tales of a Digital Nomad –
I got used to keeping myself company, knowing I was the only constant I could rely on not to change. My home became the road between each destination. The warmth I felt in my heart when I escaped one place, just before I became trapped in another was the closest I got to comfort.
Nadia King
Tales of a Digital Nomad
📚 Click here to buy Tales of a Digital Nomad
6. The Idle Traveller
In his book, The Idle Traveller, Dan Kieran starts by asking the reader a simple question: Do we really travel anymore, or do we just arrive?
It’s true that the act of travel has changed A LOT in the past couple of years, along with the rise of social media and the sharing of experiences before enjoying them ourselves.
On top of that, viewing travel as “an escape” rather than a journey and how that impacts the travel experience before it’s even begun.
Kieran challenges his readers to toss out the organized itinerary and learn the magic of true journey-ing by embracing spontaneity, slowing down, and appreciating every step of the way as a stand-alone moment of discovery.
This travel book is one to definitely check out before your next trip to learn the art of true travel and to allow the lessons, inspiration, and wonder to flow in.
One of my favorite passages from the Idle Traveller –
Above all, idle travel, we might even say “real” travel, awakens the poet and the philosopher within. We are all philosophers, but the myriad cares of modern life tend to make us forget this fact as we seek distractions from our pain rather than facing up to it.
Dan Kieran
The Idle Traveller
📚 Click here to buy The Idle Traveller
7. Arriving Well
Arriving Well talks about the 5 compelling stories of travelers — sharing the re-entry process, the misalignment experienced by travelers on their return back, the process of readjustment, and the mixed feeling of arriving back “home.”
If there’s something I have learned on my personal journey of re-entry, it is that understanding, compassion, and community are key ingredients that are needed most during this time.
This travel book, in particular, delivers that and much more.
If you’ve traveled and experienced even a little reverse culture shock, or if you’re someone who is still coming to terms with mixed emotions post-travel, even months later, this book is waiting to connect you with other travelers feeling the same way.
What’s more, their stories will inspire you to rethink home and what really makes up home and inspire the courage to view the whole world as your home.
A passage from Arriving Well that I really liked –
Often people are very surprised by how significantly they’ve changed while they were gone. You have enjoyed transformation while overseas. And then you might find yourself in a new city in your old country, which looks massively different. Or you may be back in your old backyard, and it seems like nothing has changed at all. Friends and family may feel like strangers. The culture that was once so familiar has become alien. And home has morphed- you probably created a new sense of home where you were. Now it seems indefinable and vague- or possibly not found to be found at all.
Cate Brubaker, Doreen Cumberford
Arriving Well
📚 Click here to buy Arriving Well
8. Travel for Stoics
Stoicism is an ancient philosophy originating in Greece that created the personal ethic of showing indifference to events (good and bad) not by suppressing emotion but rather by understanding where the emotion is coming from and the connection between emotion, opinion, and actions.
The author, Eva Rome, uses stoic as an acronym, meaning the Solo Traveler: Obsessive, Introverted, Compulsive- seeking out travel while using the stoic philosophy.
In this travel book, the author shares her best solo travel tips while infusing stoicism from great philosophers Seneca and Epictetus to deliver helpful tips that guide travelers all around to venture with calm and confidence anywhere.
One of my favorite passages from the book –
There are things we can control and things we can’t, but we can always regulate our reactions to what happens to us. And to conquer our anxieties, the Stoics believed we must get out into the world and do fieldwork…Exposure to the strange and unfamiliar via travel is the perfect means for attaining mastery over our personal challenges. Amending your will to suit the world, not amending the world to suit you…
Eva Rome
Travel for STOICs
📚 Click here to buy Travel For Stoics
9. The Art of Fully Living
In The Art of Fully Living, author Tal Gur’s goal is one thing: to help the reader understand how to actualize their potential by connecting all parts of their life (love, adventure, wealth, fitness, spirituality, etc.) through the processes already established inside their life goals, in order to really live life to the absolute fullest.
Gur’s goal is to help the reader not only introduce the art of living life to the fullest but also how to master this skill with actionable key takeaways.
This immersive travel book will ask readers to join the author on his quest around the world to complete 100 life goals in only 10 years. It will also spark that inspiration and prompt the reader to do the same.
Again, when we travel, we learn, grow, and gain substance – in this book, Gur wants to ask you “what do you actually REALLY want?”
How can you leverage your strengths to achieve your dreams?
Looking at how travel can help you feel free, and how can you uncover the path and never go back?
One of my favorite passages from the book –
I used to be clueless about how to achieve big dreams. My year of socializing taught me the benefits of learning through immersion and focusing on one thing at a time. I’ve learned that most visions don’t get realized, not for lack of trying or even because of the wrong approach, but because of a common tendency to try changing every aspect of life all at once. Our systems simply don’t respond favorably to excessive radical shifts. This overload usually causes us undue stress, and we end up abandoning our dreams.
Tal Gur
The Art of Fully Living
📚 Click here to buy The Art of Fully Living
10. The Little Book of Lyke
Pronounced LOO-ka, this little book of happiness, as told by and lived by the Danes, otherwise known as the happiest people on earth, shares not only the 6 factors that create happiness but also practical actions and tips for creating more happiness in our lives, whether we live in Denmark or not.
In the book, Meik shares just how much money buys happiness, how to learn to build trust, how to be healthier without ever having to set foot inside a gym, and more.
Obviously, the Danes have famously paved a way that has worked for them for years and years, so this could be an opportunity to not only learn how to be happy, but understand how a culture and population views and prioritizes all of life’s things, and how that plays a part in your life (even if you’re not Danish).
Towards the end of the book, you’ll start to realize and find a roadmap that you can use beyond the book, and into your life going forward that can really light up happiness in your life, and those around you.
One of my favorite passages from the book –
Living in Denmark has taught me that while we can all learn a lot from the Scandinavian countries when it comes to quality of life, we can find lessons in happiness from people all over the world. The keys to happiness are buried around the world, and it is our job to gather them up.
Meik Wiking
The Little Book of Lykke
📚 Click here to buy The Little Book of Lykke
The Wrap-Up: 10 Must-Read Travel Books You Need On Your Bookshelf
Here they are!
A mix of travel memoirs, solo travel, ancient philosophy-infused travel knowledge, and re-entry travel books.
As I said, books are the gateway portal to the world, people, and ideas, and these travel books are here to really take you to some pretty amazing places.
Where our feet can’t go, our minds will.
Which book will be your next destination? Let me know in the comments below!
Also, make sure to drop any of your favorite travel books or books in general that you believe we must all read 🙂
To many {literature} adventures like these ✨
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