Those of you who have booked trips with me know that I love to read as you will have been given access to our library of articles covering well over 15,000 articles. I read to prepare for trips, or to simply get lost in another world.
Here are my picks for the top ten travel books I read in 2024 and loved.
Mountains of the mind - Robert MacFarlane
Combining accounts of legendary mountain ascents with vivid descriptions of his own forays into wild, high landscapes, Robert McFarlane reveals how the mystery of the world’s highest places has came to grip the Western imagination—and perennially draws legions of adventurers up the most perilous slopes.
His story begins three centuries ago, when mountains were feared as the forbidding abodes of dragons and other mysterious beasts. In the mid-1700s the attentions of both science and poetry sparked a passion for mountains; Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Lord Byron extolled the sublime experiences to be had on high; and by 1924 the death on Mt Everest of an Englishman named George Mallory came to symbolize the heroic ideals of his day. Macfarlane also reflects on fear, risk, and the shattering beauty of ice and snow, the competition and contemplation of the climb, and the strange alternate reality of high altitude, magically enveloping us in the allure of mountains at every level.
Adventure Coordinators opinion: MacFarlane is one of my favourite authors and like his other writings, this book delivers. 8 out of 10
On the Road to Kandahar: Travels Through Conflict in the Islamic - Jason Burke
A daring reporter's quest through the "living history" of Islam amid the War on Terrorism. In 1991, a British university student spent his summer break fighting alongside Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq. Now a prize-winning reporter and author of a book on al Qaeda, Jason Burke travels from the Sahara to the Himalayas and meets with refugees, mujahideen, and government ministers in a probing search to understand Islam, and Islamic radicalism, in the context of the "War on Terrorism." Praised by London's Daily Mail as "intensely personal and accessible," this is the gripping story of a search for answers to some of the most urgent questions of our time: What drives Islamic fundamentalism, and how should the West respond? Are we so fundamentally different that we can't coexist? Although much of his book concerns war and violence, Burke reaches an optimistic conclusion.
Adventure Coordinators opinion: Insightful and fascinating. The conclusion at the end of the book is one many travellers will come to at some point during their travels. 8 out of 10
The Carbon Cycle: Crossing the Great Divide - Kate Rawles
In 2006 “outdoor philosopher” Kate Rawles cycled 4553 miles from Texas to Alaska, following the spine of the Rocky Mountains as closely as possible. Cycling across unforgiving but starkly beautiful landscapes in both the United States and Canada – deserts, high mountain passes, glaciers and eventually down to the sea – she encountered bears, wolves, moose, cliff-swallows, aspens and a single, astonishing lynx. Along the way, she talked to North Americans about climate change – from truck drivers to politicians – to find out what they knew about it, whether they cared, and if they did, what they thought they could do. Kate tells the story of a trip in which she has to deal with the rigours of cycling for ten hours a day in temperatures often in excess of 100° F, fighting punctures, endless repairs and inescapable, grinding fatigue … . But in recounting the physical struggle of such a journey, she also does constant battle with her own ideas and assumptions, helping us to cross the great divide between where we are on climate change and where we need to be. Can we tackle climate change while still keeping our modern Western lifestyles intact? Should we put biofuel in our camper vans and RVs? Or do we need much deeper shifts in lifestyles, values and worldviews?
Adventure Coordinators opinion: An engaging read that inspired me to replace my old cranky bike with a great riding machine! 8.5 out of 10
The half known life - in search of paradise - Pico Iyer
Paradise: that elusive place where the anxieties, struggles, and burdens of life fall away. Most of us dream of it, but each of us has very different ideas about where it is to be found. For some it can be enjoyed only after death; for others, it’s in our midst—or just across the ocean—if only we can find eyes to see it.
Traveling from Iran to North Korea, from the Dalai Lama’s Himalayas to the ghostly temples of Japan, Pico Iyer brings together a lifetime of explorations to upend our ideas of utopia and ask how we might find peace in the midst of difficulty and suffering. Does religion lead us back to Eden or only into constant contention? Why do so many seeming paradises turn into warzones? And does paradise exist only in the afterworld – or can it be found in the here and now?
For almost fifty years Iyer has been roaming the world, mixing a global soul’s delight in observing cultures with a pilgrim’s readiness to be transformed. In this culminating work, he brings together the outer world and the inner to offer us a surprising, original, often beautiful exploration of how we might come upon paradise in the midst of our very real lives.
Adventure Coordinators opinion: Beautifully written and immensely recognizable. 8.5 out of 10
Gone Viking - a travel saga - Bill Arnott
Bill Arnott guides readers on this bestselling literary odyssey, following history’s most feared and misunderstood voyageurs - the Vikings. To “go viking” is to embark on an epic journey. For eight years Bill Arnott journeyed throughout the northern hemisphere, discovering sites Scandinavian explorers raided, traded, and settled – finding Viking history in a wider swath of the planet than most anthropologists and historians ever imagined.
With a small pack and weatherproof journal, Bill explores and writes with a journalist’s eye, songwriter’s prose, poet’s perspective, and a comedian’s take on everything else. Prepare yourself for an armchair adventure like no other!
Adventure Coordinators opinion: It took me a while to get into this book but later on I didn't want it to end. Strip away the quotes from other authors and the references to TV shows and you are still left with a delightful book full of interesting encounters, discoveries and information. 8.5 out of 10
This cold heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland - Gretel Ehrlich
For the last decade, Gretel Ehrlich has been obsessed by an island, a terrain, a culture, and the treacherous beauty of a world that is defined by ice. In This Cold Heaven she combines the story of her travels with history and cultural anthropology to reveal a Greenland that few of us could otherwise imagine.
Ehrlich unlocks the secrets of this severe land and those who live there; a hardy people who still travel by dogsled and kayak and prefer the mystical four months a year of endless darkness to the gentler summers without night. She discovers the twenty-three words the Inuit have for ice, befriends a polar bear hunter, and comes to agree with the great Danish-Inuit explorer Knud Rasmussen that “all true wisdom is only to be found far from the dwellings of man, in great solitudes.”
This Cold Heaven is at once a thrilling adventure story and a meditation on the clarity of life at the extreme edge of the world.
Adventure Coordinators opinion: Beautiful meditations and descriptions of Greenland, it's landscapes and it's people. 8.5 out of 10
Two trees make a forest - Jessica Lee
A chance discovery of letters written by her immigrant grandfather leads Jessica J. Lee to her ancestral homeland, Taiwan. There, she seeks his story while growing closer to the land he knew.
Lee hikes mountains home to Formosan flamecrests, birds found nowhere else on earth, and swims in a lake of drowned cedars. She bikes flatlands where spoonbills alight by fish farms, and learns about a tree whose fruit can float in the ocean for years, awaiting landfall. Throughout, Lee unearths surprising parallels between the natural and human stories that have shaped her family and their beloved island. Joyously attentive to the natural world, Lee also turns a critical gaze upon colonialist explorers who mapped the land and named plants, relying on and often effacing the labor and knowledge of local communities.
Two Trees Make a Forest is a genre-shattering book encompassing history, travel, nature, and memoir, an extraordinary narrative showing how geographical forces are interlaced with our family stories.
Adventure Coordinators opinion: Beautifully written memoir intertwining the stories of her grandparents with the author's own travels in Taiwan. 8.5 out of 10
The border: A Journey Around Russia - Erika Fatland
Imperial, communist or autocratic, Russia has been—and remains—a towering and intimidating neighbor. Whether it is North Korea in the Far East through the former Soviet republics in Asia and the Caucasus, or countries on the Caspian Ocean and the Black Sea. What would it be like to traverse the entirety of the Russian periphery to examine its effects on those closest to her?
An astute and brilliant combination of lyric travel writing and modern history, The Border is a book about Russia without its author ever entering Russia itself. Fatland gets to the heart of what it has meant to be the neighbor of that mighty, expanding empire throughout history. As we follow Fatland on her journey, we experience the colorful, exciting, tragic and often unbelievable histories of these bordering nations along with their cultures, their people, their landscapes.
Sharply observed and wholly absorbing, The Border is a surprising new way to understand a broad part our world.
Adventure Coordinators opinion- Delightful read, what with all the characters the author encounters and the stories she unearths. A timely reminder of the expansionist drive of Russia which has been going on since the middle ages. 8.5 out of 10
The wild places - Robert MacFarlane
Are there any genuinely wild places left in Britain and Ireland? That is the question that Robert Macfarlane poses to himself as he embarks on a series of breathtaking journeys through some of the archipelago's most remarkable landscapes. He climbs, walks, and swims by day and spends his nights sleeping on cliff-tops and in ancient meadows and wildwoods. With elegance and passion he entwines history, memory, and landscape in a bewitching evocation of wildness and its vital importance. A unique travelogue that will intrigue readers of natural history and adventure, The Wild Places solidifies Macfarlane's reputation as a young writer to watch.
Adventure Coordinators opinion: As always, insightful in it's discovery of hidden places and beautifully written. 9 out of 10
The January Man: A Year of Walking - Christopher Somerville
In January 2006, a month or two after my father died, I thought I saw him again – a momentary impression of an old man, a little stooped, setting off for a walk in his characteristic fawn corduroys and shabby quilted jacket. After teenage rifts it was walking that brought us closer as father and son; and this ‘ghost’ of Dad has been walking at my elbow since his death, as I have ruminated on his great love of walking, his prodigious need to do it – and how and why I walk myself.
The January Man is the story of a year of walks that was inspired by a song, Dave Goulder’s ‘The January Man’. Month by month, season by season and region by region, Christopher Somerville walks the British Isles, following routes that continually bring his father to mind. As he travels the country – from the winter floodlands of the River Severn to the lambing pastures of Nidderdale, the towering seabird cliffs on the Shetland Isle of Foula in June and the ancient oaks of Sherwood Forest in autumn – he describes the history, wildlife, landscapes and people he encounters, down back lanes and old paths, in rain and fair weather.
This exquisitely written account of the British countryside not only inspires us to don our boots and explore the 140,000 miles of footpaths across the British Isles, but also illustrates how, on long-distance walks, we can come to an understanding of ourselves and our fellow walkers. Over the hills and along the byways, Christopher Somerville examines what moulded the men of his father’s generation – so reticent about their wartime experiences, so self-effacing, upright and dutiful – as he searches for ‘the man inside the man’ that his own father really was.
Adventure Coordinators opinion: A wonderful read, both a naturalist's and walker's essay as well as a memoir of the author's deepening relationship with his father. 9.5 out of 10
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