Given the subject matter of my book, it won’t surprise you that travel memoirs are my favorite genre. I like fiction as much as the next gal, but for me there’s something powerful about going along on a transformational journey with a real person. (Even better, with a person who is still living and whose journey you could actually recreate if you wanted to!) That’s why I’ve compiled this list of the best non-fiction travel books. If you’re planning a trip, this is a great place to go for inspiration!
There’s a vulnerability to sharing your story and letting readers know the real you. I know for me, that’s been the hardest part of writing my memoir, so it gives me that much more appreciation for the ones on this list. Everybody in the world has character flaws and things they don’t like about themselves; I’ve always respected the writers who can make us empathize with them even if we share different beliefs. Even when they mess up bigtime. Even if you can read their story and see the red flags miles before they do.
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
–Ernest Hemingway, maybe
This quote is most often attributed to Ernest Hemingway, a travel fiction master, and he’s right. Writing is painful and challenging and about as much fun in the middle of it as giving blood, with memoir/non-fiction being the most akin to a gory injury. You relive some of the hardest times in your life, maybe make it funny if you can, and hope people laugh with you, not at you. (If you wanted to write a memoir, you don’t anymore, right?)
There’s no testimony without a test. And there’s no memoir without drama, heartache and hopefully, a resolution and lessons learned. When you dive into a memoir, whether you agree with the author’s choices, destinations or world view, you know you’re about to feel some deep feelings.
Not only are you getting a peek behind the curtain at the author’s life story, you’re also a passenger on the journey. That’s what I love – you get to know someone’s heart and soul AND travel with them vicariously through the book. If the author is a great storyteller, you’ll be able to feel their transformation, smell the spices in the market and hear the camels snorting along the way.
These books teach and inspire us to take journeys in spite of obstacles. So are you ready to add all these books to your wishlist? In no particular order, here’s a list of 24 travel memoirs for your TBR pile. (Want to add all these books to your wishlist at once? Click here for my curated list on Amazon.)
Top Non-Fiction Travel Books to Inspire Your Next Adventure
Flirting with Disaster by Angie Orth
What a coincidence that this list of travel books in no particular order has mine at the top?! I kid, I kid. Read my book, ok? It’s got love and loss, death, tragedy, deadpan jokes, behind-the-curtain peeks at PR, red carpets and Lady Gaga on a plane, me crying in clawfoot bathtubs, literary ghosts, near-misses and a whole lot of my Mom freaking out.
Buy Flirting with Disaster now!
From Amazon: Angie Orth should have had at least 2.5 kids by now—everyone else back home did. Despite a successful PR career in New York, Angie was failing at the roles she was born to play—those of submissive wife and grandchild incubator. Without a potential husband in sight or the hope of a photogenic brood to show off, she was beginning to wonder if God forgot about her.
Fasten your seatbelt for this sassy, relatable memoir about living life unscripted yet still on mission. By the time readers turn the last page of Flirting with Disaster, they’ll feel empowered, knowing God’s vision is better than anything we think we want—or are supposed to want—for our lives. And they’ll be ready to take on the world in their own way.
The Lost Girls: Three Friends. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around the World by Jennifer Baggett, Holly Corbett and Amanda Pressner
I love a good full circle moment, and this is definitely one of my favorites. It’s surreal for me to recommend this book here, because the journey of the Lost Girls – Jen, Holly and Amanda – inspired me so much when I was preparing for my RTW trip. There were very few women-written travel memoirs when I was planning my trip, so the fact that this book came out just before I departed on my adventure was huge. I attended the book’s launch party and truly, it inspired me to be brave enough to have my own travel adventure and to consider writing about it in the future.
Three friends took a year off their NYC jobs to travel around the world. Each friend takes turns writing a chapter form her own perspective, so it’s a unique take on the traditional travel memoir.
From Amazon: Traveling 60,000 miles across four continents, Jen, Holly, and Amanda push themselves far outside their comfort zones to embrace every adventure. Ultimately, theirs is a story of true friendship—a bond forged by sharing beds and backpacks, enduring exotic illnesses, trekking across mountains, and standing by one another through heartaches, whirlwind romances, and everything in the world in between. Buy now on Amazon.
What I was Doing While You Were Breeding by Kristin Newman
LOVED this book by TV writer Kristin Newman. It’s snarky, funny and meaningful in all the right places, plus great insight into the TV industry. Such a great read for a plane ride!
From Amazon: Kristin Newman spent much of her twenties and thirties buying dresses to wear to her friends’ weddings and baby showers. Not ready to settle down and in need of an escape from her fast-paced job as a sitcom writer, Kristin instead traveled the world, often alone, for several weeks each year. In addition to falling madly in love with the planet, Kristin fell for many attractive locals, men who could provide the emotional connection she wanted without costing her the freedom she desperately needed. Buy now on Amazon.
Love with a Chance of Drowning by Torre DeRoche
Torre is a shining example of the motto: Do it scared. She fell in love and ended up confronting a huge phobia head on.
From Amazon: City girl Torre DeRoche isn’t looking for love, but a chance encounter in a San Francisco bar sparks an instant connection with a soulful Argentinean man who unexpectedly sweeps her off her feet. The problem? He’s just about to cast the dock lines and voyage around the world on his small sailboat, and Torre is terrified of deep water. However, lovesick Torre determines that to keep the man of her dreams, she must embark on the voyage of her nightmares, so she waves good-bye to dry land and braces for a life-changing journey that’s as exhilarating as it is terrifying. Buy now, and also check out Torre’s 2nd book! Worrier’s Guide to the End of the World
Finding Katya: How I Quit Everything to Backpack the Former Soviet States by Katie Aune
Katie does the most amazing job of capturing the cultural implications of traveling solo through the Stans – somewhere I never made it on my RTW trip. She captures the ups and downs of solo travel is such an authentic way. This book is just about guaranteed to inspire you to visit a country ending in -stan at some point in your travel journey. And seriously, you’ll love the story but the colorful maps are chef’s kiss!
From Amazon: In a book that is part memoir, part travelogue, Aune takes readers along as she discovers places that are far off the typical tourist track, from riding the Trans-Siberian Railway across Russia and taking a cargo ferry from Ukraine to Georgia, to volunteering in Tajikistan and camping in the desert of Turkmenistan. Faced with the vulnerability of traveling solo through unfamiliar lands, she shakes off her insecurities, embraces the unknown and realizes that each journey is worthwhile, even if it doesn’t go as planned. Buy now on Amazon.
All Over the Place by Geraldine De Ruiter
Another smart woman traveling the world – are y’all seeing a pattern here? Geraldine is as funny as they get, so you’ll love this tale of travel and so much more.
From Amazon: Hilarious, irreverent, and heartfelt, All Over the Place chronicles the years Geraldine spent traveling the world after getting laid off from a job she loved. Those years taught her a great number of things, though the ability to read a map was not one of them. She has only a vague idea of where Russia is, but she now understands her Russian father better than ever before. She learned that what she thought was her mother’s functional insanity was actually an equally incurable condition called “being Italian.” She learned what it’s like to travel the world with someone you already know and love — how that person can help you make sense of things and make far-off places feel like home. She learned about unemployment and brain tumors, lost luggage and lost opportunities, and just getting lost in countless terminals and cabs and hotel lobbies across the globe. Buy now on Amazon.
Brave-ish by Lisa Niver
Brave-ish? No, this is fully, all-the-way BRAVE. From Cambodia to Borneo and beyond, Lisa’s journey is about more than just the destinations. She shares her story of domestic violence and getting out of an abusive marriage – which would become a catalyst for personal growth and bravery.
From Amazon: Newlywed Niver was on the adventure of a lifetime. She had quit her job, rented out her condo, and was traveling around Asia. To the outside world, Niver was a woman living out her dreams of exploring ancient ruins in Cambodia and seeing orangutans in Borneo. In private, she was keeping a dark secret. But, when she found herself lying on a sidewalk in Thailand, looking up at the sky in severe pain, she knew things had to change. At age forty-seven, Niver found the courage to set course on a new life. Buy now on Amazon.
Call You When I Land by Nikki Vargas
I’m almost finished with the audiobook for Call You When I Land and I can’t wait to meet Nikki in person later this year to talk about this whole family murder mystery in her book – for real! – I have questions. Don’t miss this one!
From Amazon: At twenty-six years old, life looked a certain way for Nikki Vargas. She’d settled in New York City ready to join the ranks of the Carrie Bradshaws of the world, had landed in a promising advertising career, and was newly engaged to her college sweetheart. But between corporate happy hours and wedding dress fittings, she couldn’t shake a deep underlying sense of imposter syndrome, a voice telling her that she was rocketing towards a future that didn’t look like her. And so, she bought a plane ticket: first to Cartagena. Then to Panama. Then to Iguazú.
What begins with one freelance travel writing assignment escalates into a whirlwind, globe-spanning journey that would transform Nikki’s life. Taking her from the street food stalls of Vietnam to the cascading waterfalls of Argentina, Nikki uncovers shocking truths about her family, comes face to face with a new love interest – or two – and ultimately turns a no-name blog into the internationally celebrated venture of Unearth Women, the first major female-focused travel publication. Buy now on Amazon.
Nowhere for Very Long by Brianna Madia
I found Brianna on Instagram well after her book came out, so I caught up with her NY Times best-selling book after getting to know her (and her pack of adorable dogs) online. If you’ve ever dreamed of van life and wanderlust, this book is for you.
From Amazon: In this beautifully written, vividly detailed memoir, a young woman chronicles her adventures traveling across the deserts of the American West in an orange van named Bertha and reflects on an unconventional approach to life. A woman defined by motion, Brianna Madia bought a beat-up bright orange van, filled it with her two dogs Bucket and Dagwood, and headed into the canyons of Utah with her husband. Nowhere for Very Long is her deeply felt, immaculately told story of exploration—of the world outside and the spirit within.Nowhere for Very Long is the true story of a woman learning and unlearning, from backroads to breakdowns, from married to solo, and finally, from lost to found to lost again . . . this time, on purpose. Buy now on Amazon.
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
The most famous travel memoir out there! It’s so popular, it inspired another book: Eat Pray Love Made Me Do It: Life Journeys Inspired by the Bestselling Memoir. Which… I mean, how many of us can relate to that?
I read Eat, Pray, Love when it first came out, and distinctly remember watching the Julia Roberts version just before I left for my big trip. Liz Gilbert definitely got me excited for my trip to Bali… although we had very different experiences.
I love how Gilbert shares her search for meaning and spirituality. She doesn’t have all the answers, but she effortlessly brings us into her thoughts as she seeks them with an open heart.
From Amazon: In her early thirties, Elizabeth Gilbert had everything a modern American woman was supposed to want – husband, country home, successful career – but instead of feeling happy & fulfilled, she felt consumed by panic & confusion. This wise & rapturous book is the story of how she left behind all these outward marks of success, & of what she found in their place. Following a divorce & a crushing depression, Gilbert set out to examine three different aspects of her nature, set against the backdrop of three different pleasures in Italy, devotion in India, & on the Indonesian island of Bali, a balance between worldly enjoyment & divine transcendence. Buy now on Amazon.
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Another must read for the list! Of course I would die for Reese Witherspoon so I am grateful she brought this book to the big screen. A beautiful, painful tale of a very long walk and the personal growth that came with it. Almost made me consider hiking the Pacific Crest Trail… almost.
From Amazon: At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and she would do it alone.
Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her. Buy now on Amazon.
Gator Country by Rebecca Renner
Not technically a travel memoir per se, but hey, it’s set in Florida and my home state is one of the top travel destinations in the world, so let’s go with it. Rebecca is a wonderful writer and this story mixes true crime and personal stories in a masterful way.
And how can I NOT recommend a book from a fellow debut author and Florida gal with a Molly Hatchet song as the title? Hello?!
From Amazon: Gator Country is the twisting true story of the impossible choices individuals must make to stay afloat in this world. Through its wholly unique blend of reporting, nature writing, and personal narrative, this book transports readers to vibrant and dangerous Florida landscapes and offers intimate portraits of those who call the region home. Broad in scope and vivid in detail, Gator Country is a fast paced tale of the risks people will take to survive in one of the world’s most beautiful yet formidable landscapes and the undercover investigation that threatens to topple the whole scheme. Read now on Amazon.
Travel Non-Fiction Coming in 2024
Two O’Clock on a Tuesday at the Trevi Fountain by Helene Sula
If you follow any other travel bloggers on social media, I’d be willing to wager Helene is one of them. She’s an adorable Texan tour-de-force, traveling with her spreadsheet-making, milk-drinking husband (I know way too much about Michael for someone who’s never actually met him) and two cute pups. I can’t wait to read her debut this year!
From Amazon: In this inspiring memoir—the antidote to the “just quit your job and ditch all your belongings to backpack the world” mentality—a young woman explores how she took calculated risks to follow her dreams: traveling and living abroad without sacrificing stability and comfort. If you’ve ever felt stuck in a mundane career or routine and want a fresh start without completely starting over, Helene’s story will prove that you don’t have to uproot your life to find meaning—just have the heart to take a leap. Pre-order now on Amazon.
Wander Woman: How to Reclaim Your Space, Find Your Voice, and Travel the World, Solo by Beth Santos
You might recognize Beth as the founder of the Women in Travel Summit (WITS) that I’ve been known to speak at every few years. She’s compiled years of travel wisdom into this new book and I know it’s going to be practical and helpful – just like WITS always is!
NOTE: I’ll be sharing the stage with Beth Santos, Lisa Niver, Nikki Vargas and Jen Ruiz at WITS in Utah talking about our books and our publishing journeys. Use code ANGIE15 for a discounted ticket.
From Amazon: As much a how-to guide as it is a source of inspiration and support, Wander Woman invites us to be mindful about why we travel, who it affects, and how we can make it better for everyone.
Whether you’re ready to chase your Under the Tuscan Sun fantasy, are preparing for study abroad, or just want to feel more comfortable on business trips, Wander Woman is your must-have guide to exploring the world without fear. Buy now on Amazon.
12 Trips in 12 Months by Jen Ruiz
Sure to be an inspirational journey! Former lawyer Jen has written several guides on becoming a travel blogger and this is her first memoir. Can’t wait to read this one.
From Amazon: In a moving and inspiring story, Jen invites readers along through the year wherein she decided to stop waiting for others and start living for herself, discovered the power of solo travel magic, challenged herself physically and emotionally, made meaningful connections … and learned that she could feel fulfilled and happy on her own. Pre-order now on Amazon.
Obviously, this is a very female-focused list, but I can’t leave out some of my favorite travel writing fellas! Check out the following brilliant reads – not all memoir, but all non-fiction, all travel and definitely all inspiring.
- The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise by Pico Iyer
- The Way of Wanderlust by Don George
- The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World by Chris Guillebeau
- The Longest Way Home: One Man’s Quest for the Courage to Settle Down by Andrew McCarthy
- Marco Polo Didn’t Go There by Rolf Potts
- World Travel: An Irreverent Guide by Anthony Bourdain
Post-pandemic, travel is back in a big way, so round-the-world adventures are back on the table. To the delight of book lovers and travel enthusiasts alike (and me, the girl with the book deal), the genre of non-fiction travel books has seen a remarkable swell in popularity. These books offer an unadulterated peek into places and experiences from around the globe, as seen through the eyes of intrepid authors who’ve traversed unknown lands to narrate their tales.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this list of top travel non-fiction reads. Whether you’re curled up at home or mapping out your next adventure, these books are sure to ignite your passion for exploration. Maybe next time I’ll write about all my favorite travel fiction!
Drop me a comment if you have a favorite travel book, non-fiction or not, that should be included on this list. I LOVE adding to my TBR pile!
