Great Literary Travel
Discover the world through classic travel literature. Explore curated literary journeys with Eric Newby, Bruce Chatwin, and Steinbeck.
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A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
by Eric Newby
The view was colossal. Below us on every side mountains surged away it seemed forever; we looked down on glaciers and snow-covered peaks that perhaps no one has ever seen before, except from the air.' Feeling restless in the world of London's high-fashion industry, Eric Newby asked an old friend to accompany him on a mountain-climbing expedition in the wild and remote Hindu Kush, in north-eastern Afghanistan. And so they went - although they did stop first for four days of climbing lessons in Wales - becoming the first Englishmen to visit this spectacular region for mor ethan half a century. Newby's frank and funny account of their expedition to what is still amongst the world's most isolated areas is one of the classics of travel writing.
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Roughing it
by Mark Twain
Describes the author's experiences during the six years he spent in California, Nevada, and Hawaii
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Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
by Rebecca West
Shares the author's impressions of Yugoslavia, and describes the history of the region and the sources of its political problems
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The Songlines
by Bruce Chatwin
Fictional account of travels around Alice Springs; place names fictional; concepts of relationship between songs, land and identity.
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Travels with Charley in Search of America
by John Steinbeck
An intimate journey across America, as told by one of its most beloved writers To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the trees, to see the colors and the light—these were John Steinbeck's goals as he set out, at the age of fifty-eight, to rediscover the country he had been writing about for so many years. With Charley, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the interstates and the country roads, dines with truckers, encounters bears at Yellowstone and old friends in San Francisco. Along the way he reflects on the American character, racial hostility, the particular form of American loneliness he finds almost everywhere, and the unexpected kindness of strangers.
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The Snow Leopard
by Peter Matthiessen
When Matthiessen went to Nepal to study the Himalayan blue sheep and, possibly, to glimpse the rare and beautiful snow leopard, he undertook his five-week trek as winter snows were sweeping into the high passes. This is a radiant and deeply moving account of a "true pilgrimage, a journey of the heart".