Travel Reading
I love travel. Heck, I love a trip to Target; I just love to go somewhere. I love the chance to see who I am in a new place and the chance to observe other people. I love the new scenery and the new place to stay, and at the end of it, I love coming back to my very own home.
On Father’s Day, my family loaded the car and headed out of town. We went to a state park several hours away where we could hike, swim, play mini golf, sleep in different beds, and eat breakfast on a balcony overlooking the woods. There was much laughter as we played Heads Up in our room, fell asleep to the world’s most boring movie, and ate pizza overlooking a lake (the same lake where it took Joe and me an embarrassing amount of time to figure out that the circular thing in the middle of the pedal boat was actually a steering wheel), and there was time to drive to surrounding cities for ice cream and bookstores. It was a beautiful little adventure, and while we have taken trips that were more complicated or involved, I’m not sure we have ever taken one for which we all felt more relieved.
I love travel at any time of year, but especially in the summer, when the weather is gorgeous and I feel so very free. I especially love reading about travel and letting my imagination take me to favorite places or dream about the ones I haven’t seen yet.
If any of this also describes you, here are five really fun travel books and writers, most of which are re-reads for me, that might help you scratch the travel itch, whether you are actually going anywhere this summer or not.
People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry. Poppy and her best friend Alex have taken a trip together every summer since college...until Croatia, when something happened that made their long friendship fall apart. Two years later, they tentatively plan a trip together to California to rekindle the friendship and attend Alex’s brother’s wedding, but is it too late for them? I loved the way Alex and Poppy approached travel, the descriptions of their trips, and most of all the descriptions of their own unique relationship. This story is a romance, so warning: it does contain steamy open door scenes.
2. Anything by Bill Bryson, but especially Notes on a Small Island and Neither Here Nor There, which I just finished re-reading for the Paperback Readers Podcast. Bill Bryson is my all-time favorite travel writer. He’s an American who traveled to England as a young adult, married a British woman, and stayed. Eventually he and his family relocated to America, and he has written about everything from the English language to short history and memoir to scientific musings on the human body--but nothing beats his writing about travel. He has a terrific eye for detail, especially about people’s foibles, his own included, and he is prolific on the beauty and downfalls of any place he visits. He’s a hilarious and gifted writer who will make you feel like you’re on the train beside him.
3. Field Notes on Love by Jennifer E. Smith. This was a sweet little YA romance in which Hugo and his girlfriend Margaret Campbell were supposed to take a train trip across America before college, until she broke up with him just before the trip. Everything was reserved in her name, so to go, Hugo has to find another Margaret Campbell to take the trip with him. I’ve always wanted to travel by train, and this book made the trip sound amazing. The budding friendship/romance between Hugo and Margaret was fun to watch too.
4. A Year in the World by Frances Mayes. Frances Mayes may have been the first travel writer I ever read, when the movie of her travel memoir Under the Tuscan Sun played. (The two are really nothing alike, and so it’s hard to compare them, but I think the book wins.) I read Tuscan Sun over and over, and all the sequels, including A Year in the World, in which Frances Mayes and her husband Edward expand their travel beyond Italy, visiting all kinds of places I’ve dreamed of, and she describes them exquisitely.
5. Dream, Plan, & Go by Rachel McMillan. I got it (and wrote about it) during the pandemic last summer when there was nowhere to go, and it helped me dream about the travel I would do again. This book is about learning to be adventurous and to plan solo travel as a woman. I don’t plan to do much solo traveling now, but her tips applied to traveling with those you love as well, and the stories of her own adventures were inspiring. I also loved the illustrations.
Whether you travel somewhere this summer, read about travel, or both, I wish you happy adventures!
