Renting a villa in Umbria this summer? Perhaps you’re hiking in Nepal or just lazing on a Bermuda beach. Or you may be taking the kids on their first U.S. road trip. Whatever your plans, we have a book for you, selected from our online Ultimate Travel Library of classic and new reads with a great sense of place. Each of these books will illuminate your destination, give you unexpected tips on what to see and do, and keep you turning pages during that long flight or that sunny poolside afternoon.
1. Nepal
The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen (1978). Matthiessen is a multi-task traveler. In this book—one of many fine ones he's written—he and zoologist friend George Schaller trek through Nepal in physical search of Himalayan blue sheep and the rare snow leopard, and in spiritual search (Matthiessen is a Zen Buddhist) of the Lama of Shey at the ancient Buddhist shrine on Crystal Mountain. Enlightenment, anyone?
2. Patagonia
In Patagonia, by Bruce Chatwin (1977). Let's face it: Chatwin was weird, but brilliantly so. This book, launched around a childhood fancy for his grandma's scrap of giant sloth skin, takes him to the "uttermost part of the Earth," from Rio Negro to the Chilean town of Punta Arenas.
3. The Arctic
Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape by Barry Lopez (1986). Lopez is dreamy, and his meditation on the "last frontiers" of the Arctic is as much about natural history as it is about human landscapes of imagination, desire, and progress. This National Book Award-winner is based on his travels throughout the North, including Baffin Island, Canada's Northwest Territories, and Greenland.
4. Hong Kong
Hong Kong, by Jan Morris (1989). The ever-piquant Morris masterfully unravels the enigma that is Hong Kong, from its Sino-British bipolarity to its megalithic economic structure, its hypercrowded urban landscape to its surprisingly under-explored nature reserves.
5. Australia
In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson (2000). Bryson would probably be the perfect desert-island companion—an acerbic naturalist and historian who just can't keep an absurd moment or thought to himself. His Australia story teems with toxic caterpillars and ridiculous place-names ("Tittybong," for one).
6. Venezuela
In Trouble Again: A Journey Between the Orinoco and the Amazon, by Redmond O'Hanlon (1988). Here's where travel becomes, perhaps, too adventurous: Thrill-seeking, hilarious O'Hanlon takes a four-month river trip and trek in the jungles of Venezuela, a buggy, shadowy, prehistoric-seeming netherworld. The result? An illuminating diary of the jungle's wildlife and people.
7. Paris
A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway (1964). "This is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy," recollects Hemingway in this vivid memoir of 1920s Paris, a metropolis brimming with creative types and revolutionary ideas.
8. China
The River at the Center of the World: A Journey Up the Yangtze, and Back in Chinese Time, by Simon Winchester (1996). Historian Winchester seems to know everything, but he's such an engaging raconteur you can hardly begrudge him his smarts. Here he travels the 3,434-mile (5,526-kilometer)Yangtze River, reflecting on the historic importance of the river and the social straits in which the Chinese now find themselves.
9. U.S.
Travels with Charley: In Search of America, by John Steinbeck (1961). "When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch," Steinbeck begins. The itch in question went unscratched until, at 58, he launched a road trip from Maine to California—accompanied by his poodle, Charley. The America he discovers surprises both himself and his readers.
10. Hungary
Valeria's Last Stand, by Marc Fitten (2009). This stripped-down modern day fairy tale depicts Zivatar, a fictional village in Hungary,as a place where not much new happens— until one fateful day when the town grump, 68-year-old Valeria, sees the elderly village potter as if for the first time, and is thunderstruck with love. Much of the charm of this tale lies in Fitten's portrayal of Zivatar, a place so far off the beaten track that German tanks (during WWII), Russian tanks (during the 1956 revolution), and even the modern highway all ignore it.
11. Peru
The Lost City, by Henry Shukman (2008). With poetic precision, Shukman conjures the cloud forest to life, in this powerful novel about a young, British ex-soldier's search for an ancient ruined city in a little-explored region of the Peruvian highlands.
12. Morocco
In Arabian Nights, by Tahir Shah (2008). Inspired by The Thousand and One Nights—also known as the Arabian Nights—Shah interweaves descriptions of his adventures in his adopted Casablanca and around the country as he pursues a time-honored Berber quest: to find the story in his heart.
13. Caribbean
Don't Stop the Carnival, by Herman Wouk (1965). For anyone who has ever vacationed in the Caribbean and contemplated moving there permanently, Wouk's satirical novel of a New-Yorker-turned-island-hotelier will make you think twice. Still, it's a work bathed in the kind of tropical charm that makes the Caribbean so enticing in the first place.
14. Umbria
My House in Umbria, by William Trevor (1991). In this closely observed novella, an English ex-prostitute/romance novelist invites an eclectic group of people back to her green-shuttered villa in Umbria after they survive a terrorist attack on a train. Maggie Smith stars in the 2003 film version.
15. Canada
Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw, by Will Ferguson (2004). This collection of essays about Ferguson's travels to the little known or undervalued bits of Canada—Churchill, Manitoba; Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan; Thunder Bay, Ontario—benefits from the Canadian humorist's dry wit. If you like Bill Bryson, you'll like Ferguson's pointed musings on what defines Canada and what it means to be Canadian.
16. Boston
The Bostonians, by Henry James (1886). Initially published as a serial in a magazine, this novel is James's intriguing portrayal of a Civil War veteran and lawyer, his Bostonian feminist cousin, and her protégé.
17. Alaska
Coming Into the Country, by John McPhee (1976). Alaska might be America's least portable state—photographs and travel tales rarely capture the complex sensuality of this frozen zone. But McPhee's passionate detachment brings the variety of Alaska into sharp focus; he spends time among miners, grizzly bears, a young Athabaskan chief, politicians, bush pilots, and durable (if cockeyed) settlers, and paints a picture that stretches from urban culture to pipeline-crossed wilderness to remote Arctic expanses.
18. The Sahara
Arabian Sands, by Wilfred Thesiger (1959). Simply said, a classic. Thesiger journeyed among the nomadic camel-breeding peoples of southern Arabia, fell in love with the desert and the Bedouin, and wrote a rich account of his experiences.
19. Mexico
Stones for Ibarra, by Harriet Doerr (1978). Doerr's first novel relates how an American couple, Richard and Sara Everton, set out from San Francisco for Ibarra, "a declining village of one thousand souls" in Mexico. The Evertons, the only foreigners in the town, hope to restore an ancestral house and copper mine. The mundane details of Mexican village life are cast in new light in this affectionate portrait.
20. Japan
Geisha, by Liza Dalby (1983). Cultural anthropologist Dalby turns in her American dress for kimonos and tabi (split-toed socks) to become the only American to be trained as a geisha. Studying in the Pontocho district, Dalby details the fascinating life of a geisha amidst cherry trees and white powder in modern Japan.
21. Bermuda
Bermuda Shorts: The Hidden Side of the Richest Place on Earth, by T.C. Sobey (1995). Discover a Bermuda most tourists never do as author T.C. Sobey moves to the island in search of paradise and finds "nothing is ever as it seems on the surface." He writes, "Living on a remote island twenty-two miles long and barely two wide can do strange things to your head."
22. Kenya
A Guide to the Birds of East Africa, by Nicholas Drayson (2008). This gently humorous tale weaves the destinies of bird-lover Mr. Malik; the object of his undeclared passion, Rose Mbikwa; and flashy Harry Khan, who flies in from North America and incites a romantic rivalry for Rose's attentions. Based on a bird-watching challenge between Malik and Khan, Drayson's narrative interlaces details about the birds of Nairobi and environs with equally insightful depictions of the capital's human inhabitants.
23. Eastern Europe
Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey, by Isabel Fonseca (1995). Fonseca spent four nomadic years living with the Roma (as the Gypsies call themselves), moving from Albania to Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Bulgaria to document their traditions.
24. Newfoundland
The Shipping News, by Annie Proulx (1993). After tragedy befalls his unfaithful wife, a desperate father relocates with his children and an elderly aunt to a remote harbor on the coast of Newfoundland. The icy, gray fishing village is filled with a cast of unforgettable townies that paints a picture of life in Canada's far-flung reaches. This novel is a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner.
25. Denmark
Smilla's Sense of Snow, by Peter Hoeg, translation by Tiina Nunnally (1993). Hoeg's protagonist, Smilla, a member of Denmark's Inuit/Greenlander community, confronts the tensions of Danish colonialism and the struggle for Greenlandic cultural identity as she investigates a young boy's death. The novel opens in Copenhagen and journeys through the city's streets to Greenland's Barren Glacier, tracing a mystery plot as chilling as the Arctic snow.
26. Greece
The Colossus of Maroussi, by Henry Miller (1941). Miller captures the spirit and warmth of the resilient Greek people in his story of a wartime journey from Athens to Crete, Corfu, and beyond with his friend Lawrence Durrell, himself the author of Bitter Lemons, a brilliant and funny evocation of Cyprus.
27. Iran
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, by Azar Nafisi (2003). Slip into a secret book club in revolutionary Iran as author and literature professor Nafisi remembers her clandestine discussions of Austen, Nabokov, politics, marriage, and everyday life—weekly pockets of freedom for Nafisi and students, insight into another world for us.
28. Rome
Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown (2000). This fast-paced novel by the author of The Da Vinci Code features intrigue at the Vatican and is largely set in the Holy See and Rome. The descriptions and histories of some of Rome's most famous sites—including Piazza Navona—make it worthwhile.
29. Santiago de Compostela
Travels With My Donkey: One Man and His Ass on a Pilgrimage to Santiago, by Tim Moore (2004). Take an ass named Shinto, a clueless traveler named Tim, and a country named Spain, and what do you get? Tim Moore's hilarious account of his 500-mile (805-kilometer) pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Tim is Britain's Bill Bryson—irreverent, funny, and surprisingly insightful and inspiring.
30. London
Brick Lane, by Monica Ali (2003). A Dickensian cast of characters and a fully realized setting in London's East End marks this Booker-shortlisted debut novel centering around Nazneen, a Bangladeshi girl whose parents arrange for her to be married to a Bengali immigrant in London. Her growing into her sense of self plays out against larger issues of immigration and identity in contemporary Britain.
31. New Orleans
A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole (1980). In this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Toole captures the absurd and raucous city of New Orleans through his protagonist, the inimitable Ignatius J. Reilly. Obese, unemployed, and living with his mother, Reilly gets a job as a hot dog vendor in the teeming French Quarter, delivering monstrously funny tirades against modern life and embarking on adventures with an unforgettable cast of local characters.
32. San Francisco
The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan (1989). This multigenerational novel set in San Francisco's Chinatown and in China details the complex relationships between mothers and daughters, the past and present, and Chinese and American cultures.
33. Vietnam
Over the Moat, by James Sullivan (2004). Biking from Saigon to Hanoi, Sullivan makes a stop in Hue and meets a beautiful Vietnamese shop girl who lives over a moat and within the walls of Vietnam's old imperial capital. Despite cultural differences and the lobbying of other suitors for Thuy's hand, their true-life romance unfolds across villa courtyards, exquisite meals, and leisurely bike rides.
34. France
My Life in France, by Julia Child (2006). Julia Child recounts her favorite, formative years (mainly 1948 through 1954) living, cooking, and eating with her husband in Paris and Marseille. Diving into cooking classes at the Cordon Bleu and buying produce from the "vegetable woman" at the neighborhood market on Rue de Bourgogne, Child tells how she fervently became transfixed with both the culinary arts and la belle France.
35. England
Notes from a Small Island, by Bill Bryson (1995). Originally from Des Moines, Iowa, Bryson wrote this book on his return to the U.S. after 20 years living in Yorkshire. Laced with wit, Bryson's book offers humorous commentary on aspects of England that one could only learn from experience in-country, such as how every conversation with a stranger begins with, "I'm terribly sorry but..." The Brits themselves voted this the book that best represents England in a 2003 World Book Day Poll.
36. Brazil
At Play in the Fields of the Lord, by Peter Matthiessen (1965). In this fictional thriller, Matthiessen takes readers to an isolated settlement in the nearly impenetrable Brazilian Amazon rain forest where a group of Christian missionaries and a pair of hired-gun mercenaries clash over the land and souls of the indigenous Amazonian tribe. This novel was made into a movie in 1991.
37. U.S. South
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War, by Tony Horwitz (1998). Witty Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Horwitz spent two years traveling through "the unvanquished South" (Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama), trying to understand why Americans are still obsessed with the war.
38. India
Slowly Down the Ganges, by Eric Newby (1966). We like A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush—Newby's breathless adventure in northeast Afghanistan (1958)—but we love his 1,200-mile (1,931-kilometer)journey down India's great river. Traveling with Newby is like traveling with Jeeves: He's a brilliant, stiff-upper-lipped companion, but he probably won't carry your bags.
39. Wales
A Writer's House in Wales, by Jan Morris (2002). This ideal introduction to Wales showcases Morris's skill at weaving telling details with sweeping historical themes. Each page illuminates her big-hearted affection for her home country.
40. Atlanta
Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell (1936). Tara—Scarlett O'Hara's fictional childhood home—may be the place most strongly associated with Mitchell's Civil War epic, but the bulk of the action takes place in Atlanta, the author's birthplace. Scarlett moves to Atlanta's Peachtree Street as a war widow and lives through its siege, bombardment, burning, and reconstruction.
41. New Zealand
The Bone People, by Keri Hulme (1983). With characters Hulme pulls from real-life experiences and a dream she had when she was 18, this novel takes readers deep into the heart of New Zealand, a nation still plagued by colonialism. Hulme weaves Maori heritage and history into this gripping tale of love, death, and redemption.
42. Savannah
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt (1994). While this best-selling page-turner reads like a potboiler mystery, it is a true account of a murder in Savannah in the early 1980s. From blue-blood society ladies and drawling southern belles to voodoo priestesses and the memorable Lady Chablis, the characters are as evocative of Savannah as the Spanish moss that drapes the city's trees.
43. Washington
Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson (1994). Centered around the murder trial of a Japanese fisherman on a small island in Puget Sound, Guterson's debut novel deals with lingering bitterness and racism in the aftermath of World War II. Forests of stately cedars shrouded in mist serve as the haunting backdrop for this page-turning mystery that travels back in time to reveal the truth about war and loss.
44. Middle East
Baghdad Without a Map, by Tony Horwitz (1991). Horwitz spent the late 1980s as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East. His adventures, told with humor and empathy, ranged from chewing the hallucinogenic qat in Yemen to covering an anti-American rally in Tehran. Despite friendships with locals and invitations to their homes, he admits that the Middle East remained a tantalizing mystery to him.
45. Portugal
Baltasar and Blimunda, by Jose Saramago (1987). The Inquisition, empire-building, aviation exploration—Saramago's Portugal of the 18th century is an epic canvas for big ideas. But at the heart of this rich novel is a transcendent love story between a soldier and a clairvoyant. Saramago masterfully combines actual historical figures and events with magical fiction.
46. China
Iron and Silk, by Mark Salzman (1986). American martial arts expert Salzman spent his days teaching English in Changsha, China, but devoted his mind to the study of contemporary Chinese society. His unpretentious and probing manner paves the way for genuine friendships with local Chinese.
47. Chile
The House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende (1985). The epic story of the Trueba family begins at the turn of the last century. Although this magical-realist novel is set in an unspecified country in South America, the political events are similar to those of the author's native Chile. This bestseller, Allende's first book, offers a mix of reality and fantasy.
48. Honduras
The Mosquito Coast, by Paul Theroux (1982). A disgruntled American intellectual, Allie Fox packs up his suburban family and travels to Honduras by ship, hoping to rid himself of the trappings of modern life. On the coast at La Ceiba, he buys a remote property and begins anew, but soon discovers that much is beyond his control in the wild jungle. Fox's son, Charlie, the 14-year-old narrator, adapts by building shelters and learning about the area's lush plants, yet Allie remains unsatisfied as his dream of finding peace seems forever out of reach. Mosquito Coast was also a 1986 film starring Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, and River Phoenix.
49. Dublin
The Van, by Roddy Doyle (1992). Two things are big in today's Ireland: football (soccer) and fried foods. The Booker Prize-nominated novel deals with both in a laugh-out-loud story of an unemployed dad and his friend who team up to operate a fish-and-chips van in a working-class North Dublin suburb during the heady days of Ireland's participation in the 1990 World Cup.
50. U.S.
Blue Highways: A Journey into America, by William Least Heat-Moon (1982). After losing his job, the author embarks on a 13,000-mile (20,920-kilometer) trip down America's back roads, into forgotten nooks and crannies from the South to the Pacific Northwest. The characters he meets make the journey come alive. As Robert Penn Warren said of Least Heat-Moon: "He has a genius for finding people who have not even found themselves."