Love getting lost in stories about travel and transformation? These are my favorite travel memoirs—honest, funny, and inspiring reads that will spark your wanderlust and remind you why we explore.
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My Reading Habit
I am a big reader. I cherish long flights as uninterrupted time that I can spend buried in a book. I read every night before bed, even if I am so tired I can barely read. It is so much a part of my bedtime routine that I feel like I need it to fall asleep. To me, the most important thing is to maintain the habit of reading that I switch genres depending on how I am feeling.
In Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about setting small goals. If you set a goal to read 20 pages a night to build a habit of reading that could be so much that some nights it can feel too overwhelming that you can’t possibly meet your goal, so you read zero pages. But if your goal is to only read one page, you can do that every night, because how hard is it to read one little page before bed? But the thing is, once you read one page, it is easy to just read one more page, and one more. You might read more if your goal is small than if you set a goal too high. Once you build a habit, and build momentum, it is easier to maintain it. So like I said, maintaining the habit of reading is more important to me than reading a certain type of book, so I choose books based on what I feel like I need at that moment in time.
Genre Preference
I don’t have a preferred genre, I switch all the time. I know this is unusual, but it keeps me interested in reading.
Sometimes I feel like I need something light and fluffy like a rom-com or even a children’s book. Other days I want a murder mystery that will keep me reading late into the night, or a travel memoir that will take me away to a different country. Occasionally, I want to understand why an old book was so popular or even just understand a common term that came from a book. This is what led me to read Catch-22 and 1984, and to re-read Wuthering Heights. I have also read some celebrity memoirs I’ve loved, business or self-help books, historical fiction… The point is, I don’t have a go-to genre when people ask what I like to read.
Favorite Travel Memoirs
If you found your way to my webpage, you probably already know I am passional about solo female travel. One genre I always return to is the travel memoir. There’s something about reading someone else’s journey that makes me feel both inspired and understood. The best travel books let you escape to another place, see the world through someone else’s eyes, and sometimes even spark the desire to pack your own bags. These are the travel memoirs that have inspired me most—stories of adventure, reflection, and finding meaning on the road.
1. Love with a Chance of Drowning and The Worrier’s Guide to the End of the World by Torre DeRoche
Okay, so that is two books, but I loved them both. Torre is afraid of the ocean, but she meets a man in a bar in San Francisco, falls in love, and goes with her boyfriend on his sailboat across the Pacific. I laughed out loud and wanted to go to the remote tropical islands she describes. In her second book, she unexpectedly joins another traveler Masha on an adventure walking through Italy, and then in India. She is so funny and inspiring, I found myself going down a rabbit hole researching long distance walks.
2. Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
How could I write about my favorite travel memoirs and not include this? I read it in my 20’s, again in my 30’s, and listened to the audiobook in my 40’s. It is a book I keep coming back to and resonate with it every time.
3. Ten Years a Nomad: A Traveler’s Journey Home by Matt Kepnes
This memoir is written by long time travel blogger, Nomadic Matt, and the only book on this list by a male author. I have day-dreamed of being a travel blogger for years (without ever doing anything about it) and I found this to be a very honest story of what life is really like on the road, and wanting to return home.
4. Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad
While not exactly the typical travel memoir, Suleka does embark on a road trip around the United States after surviving cancer on a journey on how to rejoin the kingdom of the healthy people after years in cancer treatment. I couldn’t put this down. I was also going through a debilitating back injury at the time and resonated with how it feels to be unable to participate in life like a healthy human.
5. A Thousand Days in Venice by Marlena de Blasi
I found myself wondering if this was even a memoir?! But it is a true story, and it inspired me to go to Venice.
6. Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes
I loved reading the story of Frances purchase and restoration of a villa in Tuscany. The book even includes recipes!
7. Wild by Cheryl Strayed
I loved reading the story of Cheryl Strayed’s healing process along the Pacific Crest Trail. I also liked the honesty and the sometimes awful parts of the story.
What should I add to the list?
Let me know if you have any favorite travel memoirs you think I need to add to my list. I’m always keeping lists of what I want to read next.
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