Comments on: Food for the wandering mind

Question: Food for the wandering mind

koenie — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 06:54:27 -0800

In a while I will be going on a round the world trip to do a bit of soul searching (and to have a lot of fun of course). I'm looking for books on the subject of travel, not the pragmatically oriented genre, but philosophically and spiritually inclined ones. I'd like to read true stories about open-minded people backpacking around the globe and learning something about themselves and the world. I'd like to taste their joys as well as their disappointments, their insights as well as their confusion experienced during long-term world-wide travel.

I'd appreciate it if you could include a one-line summary with your recommendations, for example:
The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton: lighthearted, philosophically-inclined book about the peculiarities of travel.
Be Here Now by Ram Dass: successful Harvard psychologist ends up in India after experimenting with acid.

By: kooop

kooop — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 07:02:39 -0800

anything pico iyer.

By: JJ86

JJ86 — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 07:09:49 -0800

The classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. That may not necessarily fit your criteria completely but it is a very excellent read. Also there is the Micael Crichton's Travels. Again, much of the book revolves around different aspects of his bizarre life but there may be some things of interest there. For the record, he does come across as an ass through most of the book.

By: nebulawindphone

nebulawindphone — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 07:20:32 -0800

Kipling. Seriously, almost anything the man ever wrote. I know he's unfashionable these days, being an imperialist pig and all, but his stories are full of humanity and justice and wonderful life-changing adventures, and damn but the man knew how to put words together.

By: Jase_B

Jase_B — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 07:24:41 -0800

Hokkaido Highway Blues is pretty good. About a white Canadian guy who hitchhikes from the bottom to the top of Japan, following the spring cherry blossom front. A reoccuring theme tends to be how friendly the locals are to him but how they always consider him an outsider no matter how involved he gets in the culture. And despite their friendliness, xenophobia and ignorance follows him wherever he goes.

By: willmize

willmize — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 07:29:32 -0800

Peter Matthiessen's "The Snow Leopard". Part nature writing, part travel writing, part Buddhist writing.

Absolutely brilliant stuff.

By: grahamwell

grahamwell — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 07:29:55 -0800

I adore Jupiter's Travels. It's another motorcycle journey in the company of someone who can really lay claim to wisdom as a result. Gentle, funny and always well-observed. The only book in the world that will make you want to visit the Sudan.

I wish I liked Bill Bryson more, but I struggle. A good alternative is the more thoughtful Jonathan Raban. His book on Arabia - through the looking glass, is a classic.

By: nitsuj

nitsuj — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 07:34:13 -0800

Rolf Pott's Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel is a must read. He's also got a pretty good blog.

By: nitsuj

nitsuj — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 07:35:50 -0800

Oh, and for a one-line summary: "...an outlook on life that emphasizes creativity, discovery, and the growth of the spirit."

By: grahamwell

grahamwell — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 07:54:57 -0800

You might also have a look at anything by Jan Morris. She is probably the most talented travel writer of our time. Particularly recommended is the idiosyncratic The Matter of Wales, hardly a travel book at all, more an extended love-poem to a state of mind. Wales is the part of Britain that keeps itself artfully concealed. Jan understands it as no-one else.

By: Dean King

Dean King — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 08:07:21 -0800

The Spirit of Mediterranean Places, by Michel Butor. "A collection of essays covering Butor's travels in Cordova, Istanbul, Salonica, Delphi, Ferrara, and Egypt, conveying a deep sense of the places and the people who have inhabited them."

By: iurodivii

iurodivii — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 08:12:02 -0800

A Walk Across America is a wonderful story of one man's self-discovery as it corresponds to his (quite literally walking across the country) discovering the country he grew up in. Not World travel, but a huge journey nonetheless. Definitely fills the bill for Joys and Disappointments too.

By: mikepop

mikepop — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 08:24:43 -0800

Kite Strings of the Southern Cross by Laurie Gough.

By: tkolar

tkolar — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 09:43:31 -0800

Tim Cahill's stuff is excellent.

By: lazywhinerkid

lazywhinerkid — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 11:01:46 -0800

I highly recommend any of Paul Theroux's travelogues.

By: fionab

fionab — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 11:11:13 -0800

Soft City by Jonathan Raban: a quiet meditation on 1970s London. As much about the architecture and labrynth of the city as it is a personal autobiography. (Actually much by Raban is recommended: Passage to Juneau, Old Glory: A Voyage Down the Mississippi, etc.)

Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham - his family escaped the Vietnam war when he was 10 in a boat; at age 30, he returns to bike the length of the country. Spurred by his sister's transformation and death, he is biking towards a knowledge of himself and his history, as well as trying to escape the pain he already knows too well. Read before going to Vietnam.

By: willmize

willmize — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 12:15:29 -0800

Dang! I forgot to recommend Bruce Chatwin's "The Songlines". Would definitely include that with Matthiesens's above.

By: of strange foe

of strange foe — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 12:26:15 -0800

"Eat, Pray, Love : One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia" by Elizabeth Gilbert might fit your bill. I haven't read it, but I liked her earlier novel "Stern Men".

By: thebabelfish

thebabelfish — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 12:54:45 -0800

Definitely Ernesto "Che" Guevara's "The Motorcycle Diaries."

By: vagabond

vagabond — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 17:21:26 -0800

Take Me With You by Brad Newsham.

By: mtonks

mtonks — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 00:52:33 -0800

Tom Fremantle's books about his family history-inspired travels; in Johnny Ginger's Last Ride he cycles from Swanbourne, England to Swanbourne, Australia (apart from the wet bits, obviously) and in Moonshine Mule he walks from Mexico to New York with a mule.