National Geographic Traveler's "Ultimate Travel Library"

Add to my lists | Print this list

Books are added to the source list regularly. Feel free to add those books to this list! (But please add newly-represented countries to the list below.)

National Geographic Traveler "asked dozens of travelers…to name the books that have most enriched their sense of place and best informed their peregrinations. To their picks, we’ve added our own to offer here our ultimate library of travel books … novels and narrative nonfiction and classic photography books."

Each region has several "General" books listed, then books about specific countries.

  • Africa: Botswana, The Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, & South Africa
  • Asia: Afghanistan, Armenia, Borneo, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, incl. Tibet, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Mongolia, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, The Philippines, Russia, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Tibet & Vietnam
  • Australia & the Pacific: Australia, Bali, Borneo, East Timor, French Polynesia, Micronesia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands & Tuvalu
  • The Caribbean: Antigua, Bermuda & Haiti
  • Central & South America: Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay & Venezuela
  • Eastern Europe: Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Czech Rep., Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Turkey, & Ukraine
  • The Middle East: Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, West Bank, & Yemen
  • North America: Canada, Mexico, USA (General), USA East, USA Central, USA West
  • Polar Regions: Antarctica, & Greenland
  • Western Europe & the Mediterranean: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, & UK

Note: Some books are listed in more than one region: Shopping for Buddhas (Hong Kong/Nepal), Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice (General Central and South America/Brazil), The Beauty of History (Estonia/Latvia), Between the Woods and the Water (Hungary/Romania), The Sun Also Rises (France/Spain). Also, there are books about Tibet listed under both China and Tibet.

See also Around the World in 80 Books: http://www.listsofbests.com/list/8646.

Pages: 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

  1. 1.
    Africa on Six Wheels: A Semester on Safari
    by Betty Levitov

  2. 2.

  3. 4.
    Looking for Lovedu: A Woman's Journey Through Africa
    by Ann Jones

  4. 5.
    The Old Way: A Story of the First People
    by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

  5. 6.
    A Passage to Africa
    by George Alagiah

  6. 7.
    Sahara Unveiled: A Journey Across the Desert
    by William Langewiesche

  7. 8.
    Serengeti: Natural Order on the African Plain
    by Mitsuaki Iwago

  8. 10.
    The White Nile
    by Alan Moorehead

  9. 11.
    The Blue Nile
    by Alan Moorehead

  10. 12.
    Mating: A Novel
    by Norman Rush

  11. 13.
    The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency (The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency)
    by Alexander Mccall Smith

  12. 14.
    Heart of Darkness
    by Joseph Conrad

  13. 15.
    The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel (Perennial Classics)
    by Barbara Kingsolver

  14. 16.
    The Ponds of Kalambayi
    by Mike Tidwell

  15. 17.
    Black Gold of the Sun
    by Ekow Eshun

  16. 18.
    Out of Africa (Modern Library of the World's Best Books)
    by Isak Dinesen

  17. 19.
    West with the Night
    by Beryl Markham

  18. 21.
    The Race for Timbuktu: In Search of Africa's City of Gold
    by Frank T. Kryza

  19. 22.
    The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca
    by Tahir Shah

  20. 23.
    Glory in a Camel's Eye: Trekking Through the Moroccan Sahara
    by Jeffrey Tayler

  21. 24.
    In Arabian Nights
    by Tahir Shah

  22. 26.
    Spider's House: A Novel
    by Paul Bowles

  23. 27.
    Nomads of Niger
    by Carol Beckwith

  24. 28.
    Things Fall Apart
    by Chinua Achebe

  25. 29.
    Gorillas in the Mist
    by Dian Fossey

  26. 30.
    A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
    by Ishmael Beah

  27. 31.
    Age of Iron
    by J. M. Coetzee

  28. 32.
    Long Walk to Freedom: Autobiography of Nelson Mandela
    by Nelson Mandela

  29. 33.
    My Mother's Lovers
    by Christopher Hope

  30. 34.
    The Reader's Companion to South Africa
    by Alan Ryan

  31. 35.
    A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East
    by Tiziano Terzani

  32. 36.
    The Lost Heart of Asia (P.S.)
    by Colin Thubron

  33. 37.
    Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China
    by Paul Theroux

  34. 38.
    River Dog: A Journey Down the Brahmaputra
    by Mark Shand

  35. 39.
    The River's Tale: A Year on the Mekong
    by Edward Gargan

  36. 40.
    ?
    Shadow of the Silk Road
    by Colin Thubron

  37. 41.
    South Southeast
    by Steve McCurry

  38. 43.
    Travels in the East
    by Donald Richie

  39. 44.
    Turkestan Solo: A Journey Through Central Asia
    by Ella Maillart

  40. 46.
    Video Night in Kathmandu
    by Pico Iyer

  41. 48.
    Baechtold's Best: Afghanistan: The Ultimate Visual Travel Guide
    by Claude Baechtold

  42. 49.
    The Kite Runner
    by Khaled Hosseini

  43. 50.
    An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan
    by Jason Elliot

Pages: 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

This is a community list. You can contribute, edit, or help maintain it by adding it to your lists.
Created by bah on Aug 03, 2007.
 

Comments

Honorable Bandit — 2 years ago

I couldn’t find it on the original list, so I deleted it.

It’s not in Africa so I think it doesn’t belong at the top anyway.




or
Login with Facebook