My Ongoing List Of Favorite Travel Book Recommendations

Ged pictures himself as the ideal blend of Indiana Jones and James Bond. Indiana Bond, if you will. So the idea of an organized bus tour is not very appealing but to experience the wonders of Central Asia in three weeks he doesn’t have much choice. This is a fun travel memoir full of unexpected experiences.

This is part adventure, part education as Paul Rosolie, a naturalist, conservationist, and explorer, takes us into the most remote sections of the Madre de Dios.

His love for the Amazon started in 2006 on his first trip there and over the coming years would return as often as possible. 

He ventured into some of the most inaccessible areas of jungle alone, seeing floating forests, jaguars, poachers, and more.  He raises an orphaned anteater and helps fight to protect the Madre de Dios from developers, oil giants, and gold miners.

Amy has left her pleasant narrow life for one rich in experiences with panpipe-playing Zen masters, nighttime jungle boat rides, Incan ruins, Patagonian glaciers, accidental volcano climbs, and even Giardia.

At the center of it all is a quirky surfer with wacky bits of wisdom and one real question: can you ever go home again?

Jordan Romero is actually the youngest person to summit Mount Everest at just 13 years, 10 months, and 10 days old.  And that was just the beginning.  By 15, he was the youngest person to reach the highest summits of all seven continents.

This memoir is the story of his journey, the idea of which was sparked at just nine years old, where we see all the hard work and training result in a dream come true.  I read this and really enjoyed it!

On her 35th birthday, Darcy set off on a 148-day journey kayaking the entire length of the Amazon River with her boyfriend of twelve years and a mutual kayaking friend/colleague. The emotional waters encountered on the trip were often more difficult to navigate than the class five rapids on the river itself.

Along the way they encounter 25 days of whitewater rapids, illegal loggers, narco-traffickers, Shining Path rebels, ruthless poachers, and surprisingly friendly locals before reaching the triumphant end becoming the first to achieve this accomplishment.

Her first life-changing trip was solo to Australia as a young graduate. Over the next 30 years, Rosita became enchanted by travel and visited some of the most remote parts of the world where she carried little more than a beat-up backpack and a diary.

Here are nine journeys from nine different moments in her life spent exploring the world, sharing how these experiences and the people met along the way can shape the course of a life dramatically.

Nina always yearned for adventure in far-off places but at 34 she found herself married and contemplating motherhood while living in Paris. She catches her reflection in a window and no longer sees the fearless woman of her youth.

Inspired by female explorers of the 1800s, she hops on a plane headed to West Africa to make her way overland to Timbuktu on her own.

This is actually why I went to Central America. For real. And yes, this is the amazing thriller author Catherine Ryan Howard.  

She invited herself on her friend’s backpacking trip through Central America, not sure what she’s getting herself into.  She’s happier reading by a pool but ends up climbing volcanos, attempting to learn Spanish, drinking coffee, living with mutant cockroaches, and throwing up in the street.

This is one of my favorite books ever and I re-read it probably every year.

Lauren Juliff, one of my favorite travel bloggers, hit rock bottom years ago and decided to leave home to travel the world.  She was suffering from debilitating anxiety, an eating disorder, and just had her heartbroken.  She had also never eaten rice or been on a bus.  What better time to leave it all behind for bad luck on near-death experiences on the road.  Not only that, but she falls in love and tries new food with the whole world opened up to her now.

Peter Allison is an Australian safari guide in South Africa and Botswana with a penchant for misadventures. These are the stories of his off-the-wall experiences as a safari guide.

No one knows what will happen next in Florida, just that something will. We get to follow Dave Barry as he travels to all the magnificently weird things Florida has to offer.

Jamie Alexander was nineteen when he took an impulse trip into the jungles of Kalimantan.  After his experience with the Krayan tribespeople, he decided to discover the truth of the world around him. 

From Indonesia to Palestine and the Philippines to Nepal, he visits some of the most remote and volatile places possible.  It’s a story of global change with a quirky sense of humor.  This is one I read on a semi-regular basis.