Travel Memoir Books

The superb classic memoir from a dazzlingly eccentric and endlessly fascinating author and feminist icon - a woman very much ahead of her time - including her time spent on the glorious island of Skiathos. Nancy Spain was one of t…

When Jade's partner leaves the barn that they moved into just weeks before, he leaves a dent in the wall and her life unravelled. Numbed from years in a destructive, abusive relationship, she faces an uncertain future and complete…

'I took seven years over this work, spent all I had, my time, money and energy. Part of the journey was a green riot and part a deathly bleakness. I got ill, I got well. I went to the freedom fighters of West Papua and sang my hea…

And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn’t hold him, but it did lure him back.After ten years in England, he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical sm…

A journey along the greatest land route on earth, from the master of travel writing Colin Thubron On buses, donkey carts, trains, jeeps and camels, Colin Thubron traces the drifts of the first great trade route out of the heart of…

Jonathan Raban's enthralling journey into the history of the Great Plains of Montana - the least populated, most uncharted region of the United States - to uncover the heart and soul of the country. Bringing to life the extraordin…

Over two decades of turmoil and change in the Middle East, steered via the history-soaked landscape of Palestine. This new edition includes a previously unpublished epigraph in the form of a walk. When Raja Shehadeh first started …

From the author of the Samuel Johnson prize shortlisted 'The Return of a King', this is William Dalrymple's captivating memoir of a year spent in Delhi, a city watched over and protected by the mischievous invisible djinns. Lodgin…

Among the Russians is a marvellous account of a solitary journey by car from St. Petersburg and the Baltic States south to Georgia and Armenia. A gifted writer and intrepid traveller, Thubron grapples with the complexities of Russ…

Having learned Mandarin, and travelling alone by foot, bicycle and train, Colin Thubron set off on a 10,000 mile journey from Beijing to the borders of Burma. He travelled through the wind-swept wastes of the Gobi desert and finis…

One of the most successful, influential and acclaimed travel books of recent years from the author of 'Return of a King', which has been shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize. At the age of twenty-two, William Dalrymple left hi…

Following A Month by the Sea, her acclaimed exploration of life in Gaza, Dervla Murphy describes with passionate honesty the experience of living with and among Jewish Israelis and Palestinians in both Israel and Palestine. In cra…

For over 300 years, Japan closed itself to outsiders, developing a remarkable and unique culture. During its period of isolation, the inhabitants of the city of Edo, later known as Tokyo, relied on its public bells to tell the tim…

A rich blend of history and spirituality, adventure and politics, laced with the thread of black comedy familiar to readers of William Dalrymple's previous work. In AD 587, two monks, John Moschos and Sophronius the Sophist, embar…

Sir Edmund Hillary described Douglas Mawson's epic and punishing journey across 600 miles of unknown Antarctic wasteland as 'the greatest story of lone survival in polar exploration'. This Accursed Land tells that story; how Mawso…

When Kerri and her partner M moved to a small, remote railway cottage in the heart of Ireland they were looking for a home, somewhere to stay put. What followed was a year unlike any other. Cacophony of Bone maps the circle of tha…

Sir Ranulph Fiennes has travelled to the most dangerous and inaccessible places on Earth, almost died countless times, lost nearly half his fingers to frostbite, raised millions of pounds for charity and been awarded a polar medal…

This is the story of three unheralded nineteenth-century dissidents, whose lives were profoundly shaped by the winds of empire, nationalism and autocracy that continue to blow strongly today: Louise Michel, a leader of the radical…

In 1968, Vashti Bunyan gave up everything and everybody she knew in London to take to the road with a horse, wagon, dog, guitar and her then partner. They made the long journey up to the Outer Hebrides in an odyssey of discovery a…

The eight feet belong to Dervla Murphy, her nine-year-old daughter Rachel and Juana, an elegant mule, who together clambered the length of Peru, from Cajamarca near the border with Ecuador, to Cuzco, the ancient Inca capital, over…

Through Siberia by Accident is a book about a journey that didn't happen - and what happened instead. Dervla Murphy never had any intention of spending three months in the vast territories of Siberia. Instead she had planned to go…

One woman, one bike and one richly entertaining, perception-altering journey of discovery. In 2015, as the Syrian War raged and the refugee crisis reached its peak, Rebecca Lowe set off on her bicycle across the Middle East. Drive…

Some people live to walk. Raynor and Moth walk to live . .. Raynor Winn knows that her husband Moth's health is declining, getting worse by the day. She knows of only one cure.It worked once before. But will he - can he? - set out…

Geert Mak spent the year 1999 criss-crossing the continent, tracing the history of Europe from Verdun to Berlin, St Petersburg to Auschwitz, Kiev to Srebrenica. He set off in search of evidence and witnesses, looking to define the…

In this book Geert Mak returns to the small Frisian village of his childhood, Jorwert (pop. 330 and falling). It's a typical European village where the shops are closing down, the few children left will escape to a less arduous li…

In 1960 John Steinbeck and his dog Charley set out in their green pickup truck to rediscover the soul of America, visiting small towns and cities from New York to New Orleans.The trip became Travels With Charley, one of his best-l…

The late 1890s saw the start of a 'heroic age' in polar exploration. This book tells the story of three men who were to embody the spirit of the time - driven by courage, determination and ambition, to be the first to discover the…

The Places In Between is Rory Stewart's moving account of his death-defying walk across war-torn Afghanistan in January 2002. Now with illustrations and an afterword. Caught between hostile nations, warring factions and competing …

The extraordinary story of how the Endurance, Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship, was found in the most hostile sea on Earth in 2022On 21 November 1915, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship, Endurance, finally succumbed to the crushing ice. Its…

Join writer and podcaster Roisin Ingle on a journey to the most-loved locations of thirty of Ireland's most extraordinary personalities, as they share stories of why their perfect place in Ireland means so much to them. Including …