From straightforward travel guides to personal memoirs, there is no shortage of great travel reads. That’s good news, because it offers countless ways to experience new parts of the world from your own couch. But it can be hard to know where to start.
Whether travel books are part of your reading repertoire or you’ve never cracked the spine of a memoir of a far-flung journey, we’ve found something new for you. Here’s a new crop of books—all published within the past year—that will take you all over the world.
The Catch Me If You Can: One Woman’s Journey to Every Country in the World
By Jessica Nabongo
Visiting every UN-recognized country in the world might seem a little daunting. Not so to celebrated traveler Jessica Nabongo, who has visited all of them. Full of her gorgeous photography, Nabongo’s beautiful memoir reveals her top hundred destinations from her global adventure and tells personal stories from each—from a harrowing scooter accident in Nauru to dog sledding in Norway. Paging through this joyful celebration of diversity and culture is guaranteed to expand your horizons—and your bucket list.
The Puma Years: A Memoir
By Laura Coleman
No list of travel reads is complete without an animal story. Activist Laura Coleman was backpacking through Bolivia in her twenties when she landed at a wildlife sanctuary at the edge of the Amazon jungle and was assigned to a beautiful puma named Wayra. Set against a tumultuous backdrop of deforestation, illegal pet trade and forest fires, The Puma Years explores what happens when two desperate creatures in need of rescue find one another.
Fifty Places to Travel with Your Dog Before You Die: Dog Experts Share the World’s Greatest Destinations
By DC Helmuth and Chris Santella
There are times when you need a break from the family dog, but then there are other times when on vacation, maybe while running on a beach or hiking a wooded trail, when you find yourself thinking, “Luna would love this.” This book will help you plan a trip you and your dog would love. Travel writers Chris Santella and DC Helmuth cover fifty locations around the world and detail recommendations in each place for hotels and restaurants that allow pets.
Oh My Mother! A Memoir in Nine Adventures
By Connie Wang
The Chinese exclamation “wo de ma ya,” which translates to “oh my mother” is a polite expletive, something you say when you have no other words. It encapsulates the heart of Connie Wang’s memoir in essays about her relationship with her mother and nine moments in their travels together. From watching a Magic Mike strip show in Vegas to experimenting with edibles in Amsterdam to walking on flip-flops through Versailles, this iconic mother-daughter duo venture through the world to rail against it—and find their place in it.
License to Travel: A Cultural History of the Passport
By Patrick Bixby
Do you love books that take an ordinary element of modern life and provide it with rich, fascinating context? Called “an impressive survey” by the Wall Street Journal and “A comprehensive, insightful history” by the New York Times, this surprising global history of an important document reveals how the passport has shaped art, thought, and human experience while helping to define the modern world. Journey from pharaonic Egypt and Han-dynasty China to the passport controls and crowded refugee camps of today until you never think of your passport the same way again.
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