Women Travelers - Your all time favorite travel book?

Mine is "Nothing to Declare," by Mary Morris. No, maybe it is a real oldie,
"Black Lamb and Grey Falcon," by Rebecca West.

The Happy Isles of Oceana by Paul Theroux is one which I loved. I'm sure I will think of many more, including those by Thor Hyerdahl, Jon Kraukauer and Betty Bao Lord.

Mine is "Nothing to Declare," by Mary Morris. No, maybe it is a real oldie,
"Black Lamb and Grey Falcon," by Rebecca West.

Oh, I LOVED "Nothing to Declare"! I mentioned it in the Book Club thread in this forum. A more recent one that I also liked was "An Italian Affair."

Currently reading a good new book now called Sideways on a Scooter by a free lance journalist single lady who moved to India for several years. Fascinating details of life and customs of modern day Delhi and some about the villages.
It is unusual for a single woman to live alone there even today. I loved India but would be too intimidated to do that.

Bill Bryson's books are high on my list of favorite travel related stories. Not all of them are equally good, but there something in every one of them that I could take and keep in my own life. His Appalachian trail book actually got us out backpacking on the trail, albeit a much shorter trek than his.

Perhaps that is the ultimate measure of a travel book - that it got you to go somewhere or try something that you otherwise wouldn't have.

Betsy and the Great World by Maud Hart Lovelace is my all time favorite travel book. I read it as a child and it changed my life and instilled a huge desire to travel.

Mario Puzo's The Godfather. ^

Betsy and the Great World by Maud Hart Lovelace is my all time favorite travel book. I read it as a child and it changed my life and instilled a huge desire to travel.

I loved this book too! All of her books have recently been re-printed which thrills me. I remember checking them all out of the Fort Worth downtown library (which was the only place that had them) over and over again because only the first six books (which I still have, nice and worn out) were out of print.

When I got to college and joined a sorority, I wondered why my experience was so much like Betsy's in high school until I realized that Lovelace was one of our alumnae. :)

I loved this book too! All of her books have recently been re-printed which thrills me. I remember checking them all out of the Fort Worth downtown library (which was the only place that had them) over and over again because only the first six books (which I still have, nice and worn out) were out of print.

When I got to college and joined a sorority, I wondered why my experience was so much like Betsy's in high school until I realized that Lovelace was one of our alumnae. :)

I am sure that we read the same copies since I too checked-out my books from the Fort Worth downtown library. I have hard-cover copies of all of the Betsy series of books; I even purchased a few from the FWPL when they had a book sale. Years ago, I paid $250 for a copy of Emily of Deep Valley. Barnes and Noble just released most of Maud's books as nookbooks.

I belong to the Maud Hart Lovelace Society and the Betsy-Tacy Society. Betsy's house and Tacy's house in Mankato, MN have been purchased and restored. Tours are available on weekends through the Betsy-Tacy Society. The website is http://www.betsy-tacysociety.org.

A massive book is available that provides historical and biographical background for every chapter in every Betsy book. I have a copy and copies are available through both societies. It is really fascinating to compare Maud's actual trip to Europe with Betsy's fictionalized. The book is The Betsy-Tacy Companion by Sharla Scannell.

Unfortunately, Joe was not a real person in Maud's early life. She did marry Delos Lovelace (who was even better looking than Joe). He wrote King Kong.

I have read that Nora Ephron, Delia Ephron, Anna Quindlen, and Bette Midler have all expressed their fascination with Maud's books and said that reading them while growing up influenced their lives.

I too read all the Betsy-Tacy books growing up (not from Ft Worth but Woodbury Ct library - I went every Thursday afternoon after girl scouts^) and have started to collect books for my own shelves now.

Not sure what my favorite travel book would be - I think I've read most mentioned here. Sometimes I cannot tell if it's the book alone or the time & travel in conjunction with the book that makes it so special to me. I suspect the latter....

I belong to the Maud Hart Lovelace Society and the Betsy-Tacy Society. Betsy's house and Tacy's house in Mankato, MN have been purchased and restored. Tours are available on weekends through the Betsy-Tacy Society. The website is http://www.betsy-tacysociety.org.

A massive book is available that provides historical and biographical background for every chapter in every Betsy book. I have a copy and copies are available through both societies. It is really fascinating to compare Maud's actual trip to Europe with Betsy's fictionalized. The book is The Betsy-Tacy Companion by Sharla Scannell.

Too cool! I've considered joining the Betsy-Tacy Society in the past... I had heard about their annual event and was more than intrigued. I may have to look into getting a copy of the companion! The Crescent (of Gamma Phi Beta) had a feature on Maude a while back (probably several years ago) and I sadlymisplaced it but it was neat to see the real/fiction comparisons.

We no doubt probably checked out those very same hardcover copies. Too weird that we are both Fort Worth girls, FTers, AND Betsy-Tacy fans! Small world!!!

I am huge book reader...last count is around 2000 actual books and another 300 or so on the ipad/iphone

When i saw this thread initially I thought it was about your fav travel book (about travel!) which mine is "Absolutely Faking it" by Tiana Templeman. Her husband and her won a prize staying in Luxury hotels all over the world, but they had been backpackers up until then. A funny read and gives you a great insight into how people are judged by the clothes on their back.

Anyhow..i Digress! :)

I love Biographies...any...Entertainers, Business, True Accounts...anything that is by a real person (or their ghost writer!)

And can't wait to whip out Eat Pray Love when i hit Italy this year!

When i saw this thread initially I thought it was about your fav travel book (about travel!)

It isn't?! (I am pretty sure all the books have been travel books ... I haven't actually read The Godfather though so maybe that's an outlier?)

It isn't?! (I am pretty sure all the books have been travel books ... I haven't actually read The Godfather though so maybe that's an outlier?)

Well The Godfather does have some bits about the Italian countryside so maybe that counts ;)

Thank you for Absolutely Faking It, it sounds like a lot of fun to read. Going in the other direction from a fairly lavish lifestyle to an empty nested and empty handed divorcee, there is Tales of a Female Nomad, by Rita Gelman. Making it on less $20,000 a year, she is a children's book author who left it all behind, living with locals all over the world in Mexico, Nicarauga, Bali, New Zealand, New Guinea, and several European countries.
If you like to know what everyday life is like in different cultures, this book tells it like it is.

I have really enjoyed reading Under the Tuscan Sun and the sequels to it. I love that Frances Mayes includes recipes and details on her gardening. Books focusing on food, wine, gardening and travel are a great read for me! She reminds me how much I want to live in Europe at some point.

(PS - if you haven't read the book but have seen the movie, fair warning, they are two completely different stories. The movie has nothing to do with the actual book except that a lady has a house in Italy.)

also just finished two fun books I found on Amazon ebooks

50 jobs in 50 states, about a young guy trying to figure out his life...and travelled through all the US states doing a different job in each

Where the hell am I? A frequent flyer going on different trips and the funny mishaps that happen on each journey

Both easy and light reads for when we just want to flick and come back to the stories later

Just finished Paul Theroux's "Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown". Definitely not how I'd travel, but I absolutely loved the book.

I just read the "50 jobs in 50 states" book by the somewhat naive but positive young man. Cute story.

I also greatly enjoyed the Rita Gelman book someone else mentioned in this thread.

There are many good travel books but I have to confess that my favorites are in the fiction category. Maybe the all-time best is "Water Music" by T.C. Boyle (warning, sad) but the one that influenced me most as a tiny child was the Robert Heinlein's children's book, "Have Space Suit Will Travel," no doubt closely followed by "Podkayne of Mars." (Although Podkayne is a little spoiled by the ending where she essentially gives up hope of her dream to be a space pilot.) I have often thought that he should have stuck to these charming children's books, once he got into politics and sexual politics, ugh...but these two books were lovely. The travel, as you can guess, involves outer space and really captures the imagination.

Bad Trips. It's a collection of essays from travel writers about their worst trips ever. They are all funny accounts and really a good reminder that, when put in the right perspective, most anything that goes wrong can still make for a good trip - or at least a good trip report. ;)

I just read the "50 jobs in 50 states" book by the somewhat naive but positive young man. Cute story.

I also greatly enjoyed the Rita Gelman book someone else mentioned in this thread.

There are many good travel books but I have to confess that my favorites are in the fiction category. Maybe the all-time best is "Water Music" by T.C. Boyle (warning, sad) but the one that influenced me most as a tiny child was the Robert Heinlein's children's book, "Have Space Suit Will Travel," no doubt closely followed by "Podkayne of Mars." (Although Podkayne is a little spoiled by the ending where she essentially gives up hope of her dream to be a space pilot.) I have often thought that he should have stuck to these charming children's books, once he got into politics and sexual politics, ugh...but these two books were lovely. The travel, as you can guess, involves outer space and really captures the imagination.

Ah, Podkayne! I hadn't thought about her in years!

Just finished Paul Theroux's "Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown". Definitely not how I'd travel, but I absolutely loved the book.

I loved that book as well. I read it in conjunction with our trip to Kenya and Tanzania. It was fascinating to see his perspective on those fortunate enough to travel as we do. He was quite dismissive! He was also disparaging of NGOs, despite his own work with the Peace Corp in Africa. It gave me a good look at the arduous travel required to go overland the length of the continent.

Bad Trips. It's a collection of essays from travel writers about their worst trips ever. They are all funny accounts and really a good reminder that, when put in the right perspective, most anything that goes wrong can still make for a good trip - or at least a good trip report. ;)



I was asking around yesterday about good book for a long journey. I've read Bad trips, I loved it, and it passed the time well.

A couple of suggestions were made to me which I can add to the list.

Life fo Pi by Yann Martel , this is a bit different from normal books. and easy to dip into.

Why don't pengins feet freeze, a book of useless facts and answers to unusual questions, published by New Scientist. I have this and the follow up on Kindle, agisn, easy to pick up and put down on a journey.

Love, Sex and Tesco Finest Cava, by Steve Carter, this was very funny!

One suggested which I have not read was To Die For! by S N Drake, this was described as being much better and that Shades of Gray (another one I have not read).

Anyone here ever read BLUE HIGHWAYS by William Least Heat-Moon? The author is a Native American who traveled across the United States in the late 1970s on "blue highways" - the smaller, non-Interstate and more local thoroughfares on the map, which used to be printed in blue. He christened his van "Ghost Dancing" and travels for about three months. The book talks about people he meets and where he goes. Some places he picks solely because he liked the name of the town!

In 1992, my then sociology professor gave me a copy the spring before my sister and I drove across the US "for the hell of it", making a huge circle from Raleigh, NC across the northern plains (think SD, MT), to our older brother's home in Seattle. In an '82 Ford Granada. Really. Then we took I-5 down the CA coast and I-10 most of the way across the southern US. Something like 12,000 miles (and we never even had a flat tire - honest! just oil changes!). While we missed a lot of Moon's kinds of roads we met some interesting characters and saw amazing places nonetheless. Seeing the great vastness of this country up close as opposed to just flying over or reading about it in a book does have a profound effect on you in some way; sort of puts you in perspective, I guess.

Maybe not Kerouac, but a terrific book book regardless.

I like to read something about where I am, so in Ho Chi Minh City I read The Quiet American, in Barcelona I read Homage to Catalonia, in Berlin I read aChristopher Isherwood collection and so on.