Recommended Literary Travel Memoirs

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This is a list, not of any so-called cannon of the genre, but of the books that have been my teachers as I learned to write literary travel memoir. It also includes those I have read relatively recently and greatly admire. The ones that are starred are those that I have read and reread time and again; each, in its own way, has been vitally helpful to me, whether for shorter pieces such as A Visit to Swan House; longer ones such as From Mexico to Miramar or, Across the Lake of Oblivion, or my books, among them, Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California the Other Mexico. I aim to read many more literary travel memoirs, learn much more about the craft, and write more essays and books (indeed my book in-progress is a travel memoir of Far West Texas), hence I consider this an embryonic list.

If you, dear writerly reader, are writing literary travel memoir or anything in the realm of “creative nonfiction,” I would encourage you to read the books on this list; may you enjoy and learn from them as I did. 

At the same time, I would encourage you, if you have not already, to make your own list of works that you have already read and— never mind what anyone else thinks— that you admired and loved. Then ask yourself: What do these works you so love and admire have in common? How do they handle descriptions of nature, or animals, of crowd scenes? Transitions? Dialogue? Sandwiching in the exposition? Narrative structure? Throw whatever writerly questions you can think of at these, your True Faves, and I’ll betcha bucks to buttons, they will teach you something valuable.

A final note: “Literary travel writing” can be defined in myriad ways. How far does one have to travel to consider it travel writing? The Pushkar camel fair would be fab, but I say, your own backyard will do. The idea is to see with new eyes and an open heart, then tell a good story.

Armitage, Shelley. Walking the Llano: A Texas Memoir of Place

Bain, David Haward. Sitting in Darkness: Americans in the Philippines

Berger, Bruce. Almost an Island 

—. The End of the Sherry

—. The Telling Distance: Conversations with the American Desert.

—. A Desert Harvest
This splendid anthology collects selected essays from Bruce Berger’s masterwork of a desert trilogy, The Telling Distance, Almost an Island, and There Was a River. P.S. Read my Q & A with Bruce Berger apropos of the publication of this collection here.

Bogard, Paul. The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light.

*Brown, Nancy Marie. The Far-Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman

Buford, Bill. Among the Thugs

*Byron, Robert. The Road to Oxiana

Calderón de la Barca, Frances. Life in Mexico

*Chatwin, Bruce. In Patagonia

Childs, Craig. Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America

—. The Secret Knowledge of Water: Discovering the Essence of the American Desert

*Conover, Ted. Coyotes

—. Whiteout: Lost in Aspen

—. New Jack: Guarding Sing Sing (not precisely travel writing, but who’s to say? A masterpiece)

Ehrlich, Gretel. This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland

Ellis, Hattie. Sweetness and Light: The Mysterious History of the Honeybee

*Fergus, Charles. Summer at Little Lava: A Season at the Edge of the World

*Fisher, M.F.K. Long Ago in France: The Years in Dijon

Ford, Corey. Where the Sea Breaks Its Back

*Frazier, Ian. Great Plains

*Fussell, Paul. Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between the Wars
Not a travel memoir, rather its about travel memoir, nonetheless…

Gibson, Gregory. Demon of the Waters: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Whaleship Globe
(Yes, I’m calling this a literary travel memoir. Here’s why.)

Godwin, Peter. When a Crocodile Eats the Sun

*Iyer, Pico. Video Night in Kathmandu

Karlin, Wayne. Wandering Souls: Journeys with the Dead and Living in Viet Nam

Kapuscinski, Ryszard. Travels with Herodotus

Klindienst, Patricia. The Earth Knows My Name

Larkin, Emma. Finding George Orwell in Burma

Martínez, Rubén. Desert America

*Mowat, Farley. Walking on the Land

*Morris, Jan. Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere

Morris, Mary. The River Queen

*Naipaul, V.S. Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey

*—. A Turn in the South

Nickerson, Sheila. Disappearance: A Map

Peasley, W.J., The Last of the Nomads

*Poncins, Gontran de. Kabloona

Quinones Sam. True Tales from Another Mexico

*Seth, Vikram. From Heaven Lake, Travels through Sinkiang and Tibet

Steinbeck, John. The Log from the Sea of Cortez

SwainJon. River of Time: A Memoir of Vietnam and Cambodia

Synge, J.M. The Aran Islands

Taber, Sara Mansfield. Born Under An Assumed Name: The Memoir of a Cold War Spy’s Daughter

—. Bread of Three Rivers: The Story of a French Loaf

—. Dusk on the Campo: A Journey in Patagonia

Toth, Jennifer. The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City

Tree, Isabella. Sliced Iguana

Turner, Frederick. In the Land of the Temple Caves
Read my post about this book here.

Tweit, Susan J. Barren, Wild, and Worthless: Living in the Chihuahuan Desert

Wheeler, Sara. Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica

*White, Kenneth. Across the Territories: Travels from Orkney to Rangiroa

Whynot, Douglas. Following the Bloom: Across America with the Migratory Beekeepers

Wright, Lawrence. God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State

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See also:
From the Writer’s Carousel: “Literary Travel Writing”

Related:
Recommended Books on Craft;
Recommended Books on Creative Process

Q & A: Ellen Cassedy, Translator of On the Landing by Yenta Mash 

Why I Am a Mega-Fan of the Filofax 

Texas Pecan Pie for Dieters, Plus from the Archives:
A Review of James McWilliams’ 
The Pecan

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My new book is Meteor

The Power of Literary Travel Memoir: Further Notes on David M. Wrobel’s “Global West, American Frontier”

In this age of Instagram and Tripadvisor & etc. etc. etc. it would seem that increasingly fewer people have the interest, never mind the attentional focus, for literary travel memoir. But readers of this genre were always a tiny minority of the general population. I say, on this planet of billions of people, there will always be a good number of people who read, and read insatiably, seriously, broadly, and deeply. Ergo, we can be sure that someone somewhere will be writing something about someplace, and some number of these works, however small, will undoubtedly be read by some intelligent and thoughtful someone.

I write literary travel memoir and, on occasion, I teach a workshop on that genre, so when, as part of my reading for my book in-progress on Far West Texas, I came across cultural historian David M. Wrobel’s superb Global West, American Frontier, apart from its helping me get my mind around “Texas,” I felt moved to make a few notes on what he has to say about this oft-undervalued literary genre. Dear writerly reader, may you may find these quotes as heartening as I did.

“The travel book remained a key genre throughout the twentieth century, and still is today. In the early twenty-first century, when it is possible to fly to nearly anywhere in the world within a day and to travel virtually anywhere via the Internet, a quaint, old-fashioned printed companion remains surprisingly popular. A distinctive hybrid of the fiction and nonfiction forms, of reflection and reportage, of anthropology, history, and literature, still serves as an essential accompaniment for actual travel or provides core background reading for a journey.” (pp. 5-6)

“The truly gifted and valuable travel writers are, I would venture, the ones who come to realize that they are not just traveling through other landscapes but through the landscapes of other people’s lives; they are visitors who care to learn what a place means to the people who live there.” (p.13)

“[T]he travel narrative form has remained an important guide to western America even as new technological developments have compressed space and rendered the most faraway places more readily accessible. For this reason, the travel book can be deemed an unlikely survivor in the digital age.” (p.17)

“The travel book lives on, oblivious to the assumption that its time should long since have passed.” (p.187)

“The real authenticity or value of the genre surely lies in the expansiveness of the vision of its practitioners. This is why the travel book has persisted for nearly two centuries since its death was first announced and for more than three-quarters of a century since its demise was dramatically reproclaimed, and why today it seems as vital as ever, even though getting to almost anywhere in the world in next to no time at all is now more a chore than a challenge. The ease of travel does not restrict the vision of the obervant travel writer in the postmodern age any more than the difficulty of travel guaranteed smart observation in the premodern or modern periods.” (p.187)

“It is the ability of the traveler to experience and reflect on what is encountered along the way that is most important.” (p.187)

-David M. Wrobel, Global West, American Frontier

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PS I would consider these among the best of the genre:

Nancy Marie Brown’s The Far-Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman

Frances Calderón de la Barca’s Life in Mexico

M.F.K. Fischer’s Long Ago in France: The Years in Dijon

Gregory Gibson’s Demon of the Waters: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Whaleship Globe [The end recounts his own journey]

V.S. Naipaul’s  A Turn in the South

Jon Swain’s River of Time: A Memoir of Vietnam and Cambodia

See also the Q & A’s here on Madam Mayo blog with the brilliant Shelley Armitage (Walking the Llano); Bruce Berger (A Desert Harvest, etc.); and Sara Mansfield Taber (Bread of Three Rivers, etc).

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For those of you who write or might consider writing literary travel memoir, on my workshop page I maintain an extensive list of recommended literary travel memoirs, as well as recommended books on craft.

My own book of literary memoir is Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico and, apart from a raft of shorter essays about Mexico City and the Texas borderlands, I have two longform essays of travel memoir now available in Kindle: “Dispatch from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla” and “From Mexico to Miramar or, Across the Lake of Oblivion.”

Literary Travel Writing: 
Notes on Process and the Digital Revolution

From The Writer’s Carousel: Literary Travel Writing

A Visit to the Casa de la Primera Imprenta de América 
in Mexico City

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