Need a gift idea for the traveler in your life? Look no further! Wanderlust Books
Here are some of the best travel memoirs and location-inspired non-fiction to help your family and friends explore the world!
Around the World
The Longest Way Home: One Man’s Quest for the Courage to Settle Down
Unable to commit to his fiancée of nearly four years, the author finds himself plagued by doubts that have clung to him for a lifetime. So, he sets out on a deeply personal journey played out amid some of the world’s most evocative locales. Award-winning travel writer and actor Andrew McCarthy (best known for Pretty in Pink) writes chapters set in Patagonia, the Amazon, New York City, Dublin, Vienna, Costa Rica and Mount Kilimanjaro. Also available as an audiobook. By Andrew McCarthy.
The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World
Setting out to answer questions such as, “Are people in Switzerland happier because it is the most democratic country in the world?” and “Are people in wealthy countries happier?” follow the author’s exploration of how happiness is connected to a place. Also available as an audiobook. By Eric Weiner.
I Could Live Here: A Travel Memoir of Home and Belonging
When the author and her husband learn their rented house has sold, they hatch a plan to live in Mexico for the length of a visitor visa. They then move to Nicaragua. What ensues over the next decade of long-stay travel, as they migrate from one continent to the next across the Americas and Europe, is an uncertain yet fulfilling quest to discover their new home. Is it a long-term place they love, with the familiarity of accumulated belongings? Or is it being nomadic, future unknown but ever adapting and exploring? By Ellen Barone.
Foodie Travels
On the Noodle Road: From Beijing to Rome, with Love and Pasta
As a newlywed traveling in Italy, the author is struck by culinary echoes of the delicacies she ate and cooked back in China, where she’d lived for more than a decade. How had food and culture moved along the Silk Road and what could still be felt of those long-ago migrations? She sets out to discover the connections, both historical and personal, eating a path through western China and on into Central Asia, Iran, Turkey and across the Mediterranean. Also available as an audiobook. By Jen Lin-Liu.
Wine Grapes
A must-have for the curious wine aficionado, a tour-de-force review of the world’s wine grapes—for each variety (even the most obscure), the revered Master of Wine Robinson offers its genetic parentage, where it’s found and what to expect in the bottle. It’s expensive, but worth it. We highly recommend the Kindle version, as puts access to this invaluable information at your fingertips in any location, at any dinner table. By Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding and Jose Vouillamoz.
Lunch in Paris | A Love Story, with Recipes
In Paris for a weekend visit, the author, a New Yorker, sat down to lunch with a handsome Frenchman—and never went home again. This memoir is about a young woman caught up in two passionate love affairs, one with her new beau, Gwendal, the other with French cuisine. Also available as an audiobook. By Elizabeth Bard.
Stories of Specific Locations
Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff
Despite civil unrest and the local belief that women don’t travel down the river, the author embarks on a solo journey down the Egyptian Nile, opening a window in to the lives of rural Egyptians. By Rosemary Mahoney.
The Only Kayak
In this coming-of-middle-age memoir, the author, who is working as a National Park ranger in Glacier Bay, discovers the history, beauty and challenges of the region. He explores the paradox of wanting to preserve the land while wanting others to experience it through stories and photos of his adventures. Also available as an audiobook. By Kim Heacox.
Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All
In this compassionate memoir, the author recounts the story of her romance and eventual marriage to a Maori man, interspersing it with a narrative history of the cultural collision between Westerners and the indigenous people of New Zealand. Also available as an audiobook. By Christina Thompson.
Arctic Dreams
Based on 15 extended trips to the Canadian far north over a five-year period (traveling between Davis Strait in the east and Bering Strait in the west), a National Book Award-winning examination of this obscure world—its terrain, its wildlife, its history of Eskimo natives and intrepid explorers who have arrived on their icy shores. Also available as an audiobook. By Barry Lopez.
The Puma Years: A Memoir
Laura is in her early twenties when she quits her job to backpack in Bolivia. Fate lands her at a wildlife sanctuary on the edge of the Amazon jungle where she is assigned to a beautiful and complex puma named Wayra who would ultimately teach Laura about love, healing, and the person she was capable of becoming. Set against a turbulent and poignant backdrop of deforestation, the illegal pet trade and forest fires, this memoir explores what happens when two desperate creatures in need of rescue find one another. Also available as an audiobook. By Laura Coleman.
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