“Wander often, wonder always.”
Travel books are the perfect way to experience the world from the comfort of your home. Whether you’re searching for adventure, inspiration or just an escape from the every day, the best travel books can whisk you to faraway places, introduce you to different cultures and spark your wanderlust. With 2024 bringing a fresh wave of new titles, there’s no better time to dive into stories that take you across the globe. From compelling personal journeys to immersive explorations of unknown lands, this year’s new travel books offer something for every type of traveller. So, grab your passport and join us today at What We Reading as we compile our best travel books from 2024!
Why We Travel – Ash Bhardwaj
First stop on our journey through the best travel books from 2024 is Why We Travel. Ash Bhadwaj’s work is a smart-thinking travel book that uses travel as a window into human motivations. In it, Bhardwaj explores what we can gain from venturing out into the world.
A blend of evocative travelogue, research, conversation, advice, grand ideas and reflective musings, Why We Travel offers twelve unique journeys; some are epic adventures, others are closer to home and some are journeys of internal meditation. Each of these journeys is designed to tap into the twelve motivations, allowing readers to gain a deeper appreciation for the science behind where they come from. Bhardwaj shows how travel intersects with the rest of our lives, answering questions such as: why do we travel? How do we do it better? Can travel help us live more fulfilling lives?
Vagabond: A Hiker’s Homage To Rural Spain – Mark Eveleigh
Vagabond is a 2024 travel book by Mark Eveleigh, chronicling the incredible true story of one man’s 1,225-km trek across the Iberian Peninsula. Inspired by the nomadic ‘vagbundo’ he met decades ago, Mark sets out on his journey from Gibraltar in the far south of the Iberian Peninsular to Estaca de Bares, Spain’s most northerly tip – carrying just a backpack and a hammock.
Hiking through sleepy siesta-hour plazas, shady cork forests and heat-shimmering plains, Mark passes through many small and charming communities and villages, with his adventure coming to be characterised by the sharing of stories, the kindness of strangers and the freedom that comes from the open road. A celebration of rural Spain and its forgotten regions, Vagabond is a classic piece of travel writing brimming with detail and bursting with life.
Sunken Lands: A Journey Through Flooded Kingdoms And Lost Worlds – Gareth E. Rees
Gareth E. Rees takes readers on a tour through drowned forests, vanished villages, and sinking cities in his travel book from 2024, Sunken Lands. From Stone Age lands that have slipped beneath the surface of the English Channel to the rapid flooding of New Orleans, this work blends nature with history to explore the stories of submerged places from the past, and those disappearing before our eyes today.
Infused with myths and warnings from the past, these underwater worlds continue to strike a powerful emotional resonance with travellers and nature lovers alike and continue to teach us crucial lessons about the inevitability of change, the flow of Earth’s natural cycles and how futile it is attempting to prevent them. Rees pulls back the layers of silt, sea and mythology to reveal what our submerged past can tell us about our future as the world continues to grapple with rising sea levels that promise to transform our planet once more.
On The Shadow Tracks: A Journey Through Occupied Myanmar – Clare Hammond
In 2016, whilst working as a journalist in Yangon, Myanmar, Clare Hammond came across an obscure map that show a web of new railways spanning the length and width of the country – railways that weren’t shown on any other publicly accessible maps. Determined to learn the truth about the origins, purpose and silence surrounding them, she would spend three months travelling on these mysterious tracks, and the next five years piecing their stories together.
Her journey would lead her from Myanmar’s tropical south to the embattled mountain towns that lie on the borders with India and China. In dilapidated carriages, along tracks in dire disrepair and through contested ethnic states, tea shops, former sites of forced labour, temples and festivals, On the Shadow Tracks is one of the best 2024 travel books that showcase the colour and contradictions of Myanmar today.
Check Out The Best Books On The Myanmar Civil War
Foodie Places – Sarah Baxter
Sarah Baxter’s Foodie Places is undoubtedly one of the best travel books from 2024 for those travellers whose stomachs fuel their wanderlust. Foodie Places is a stunning, hand-illustrated guide for gastronomic adventurers who find themselves lured by the rich cultural heritage behind some of the world’s best cuisines and dishes.
The renowned travel journalist visits twenty-five food capitals from across the globe, including traditional foodie havens as well as underrated gems with their own world-class offerings. Complete with stunning coloured illustrations by Amy Grimes, each entry in Foodie Places simmers with the flavour and buzz of its home location, providing a tasty window into their history and culture. From restaurant-ready pastries handmade by nuns to pilgrimage-worthy curries, this is the essential 2024 foodie travel guide.
Enchanted Islands: A Mediterranean Odyssey – A Memoir Of Travels Through Love, Grief And Mythology – Laura Coffey
Looking for a distraction following a painful heartbreak and her father’s illness, Laura Coffey sets out on what was supposed to be a simple holiday. However, her fascination with ancient Greek myths transforms her trip into a six-month odyssey around minute archipelagos and mystical Mediterranean islands believed to be the setting of Odysseus’ epic adventure. As she follows the path of one of the mythological world’s most flawed and beloved heroes, she discovers the rugged beauty of the islands as well as the redemptive power of travel and nature.
Yet her quest to find happiness, safety and meaning is soon overshadowed by her father’s worsening condition. Returning home as he is dying, she is forced to confront the things she had been running from. One of the most powerful 2024 travel books, Enchanted Islands is Laura’s reflection on what she has lost, how to live between story and reality, and how slipping between the realms of myth and the real world helps her discover enchantment and healing in the magic of both.
To The City: Life And Death Along The Ancient Walls Of Instanbul – Alexander Christie-Miller
Caught between two seas and two continents, Istanbul lies at the epicentre of the most pressing challenges of our time. With environmental decay, rapid developments and increasing authoritarianism straining the social fabric to breaking point, it has reached a pivotal moment that many other civilisations are currently facing. In and around its crumbling Byzantine-era fortifications, Alexander Christie-Miller encounters people who are living through the looming crisis and striking back, no matter their odds of success.
To the City is a 2024 travel book that masterfully weaves together the story of Turkey’s tumultuous recent past through the lens of the people who have lived through it within the walls of Istanbul. From Sultan Mehmet II’s conquest in 1453 to the ways in which Recep Tayyip Erdogan invokes its memory with his efforts to transform the country in an echo of its imperial past, Christie-Miller walks readers through the city to see the danger, the beauty and hope in one of the most stunning destinations on the planet.
Check Out The Best Books Set In Istanbul
Save Me From The Waves: An Adventure From Sea To Summit – Jessica Hepburn
Jessica Hepburn is an unlikely athlete. Labelled the ‘arty’ not the ‘sporty’ one in school, she hates exercise and believes the sole reason for doing it is for food, booze and box sets on the sofa. However, in her forties, following a series of grinding life experiences, she found herself determined to use exercise as a winch out of heartbreak. She has now become one of the most accomplished endurance athletes on the planet. Hepburn is the first and only woman to complete the ‘Sea, Street, Summit Challenge’ – swim the English Channel, run the London Marathon and climb Mount Everest.
One of the best travel books from 2024, Save Me from the Waves is an inspirational tale of physical and mental endurance. It begins on the streets of London and culminates on top of the world. Hepburn chronicles the transformative power of music and mountains, how friends and family can be found anywhere on the planet and how adventuring will always change your life for the better.
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
