My Travel Books for FFC & WOYB

I love travel guide books. Yes, I am that old that I used to read travel guide books as inspiration for planning my trips. I’m quite sure that most people nowadays use Instagram or Pinterest ( perhaps some people also use travel blogs) as a way of gathering information and/or inspiration for their travels. However, I still prefer a hardcover full of beautiful photographs and useful tips than an online article even if it is very well written. And yet I write a travel blog.

I don’t have that many travel guide books on my bookshelf though. I borrowed some from the library, others from friends so I bought just a few. I love reading travel related fiction books too and a kind of travel autobiography books. So, for this Friendly Friday Challenge & What’s On Your Bookshelf challenge I share with you a couple of my favourite travel books from my bookshelf.

501 Must visit cities

I got this book as a gift from my best friend for my graduation. I ticked off some of the cities in it but there are plenty more left to visit.

Top 10 London by Eyewitness travel (DK)

This is the first travel guide book I have ever bought. Actually, I bought it in Bologna (Italy) in a bookstore that also sold English books. Of course, I used this guide book for my first trip to London and for all the others. I love these Top 10 guides and I have used many of them for my past trips.

Paris Revealed by Stephen Clarke

Great resource to learn about Paris and the French way of life. It’s light hearted and very interesting but full of less known facts about Paris.

The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton

I bought the Croatian translation of this book of travel essays. I highly recommend it to all of you in love with travel.

Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson

This is a hilarious book and it made me laugh out loud multiple times. I have read other travel books by Bryson too. If you have travelled around Britain and/or like Britain you’d enjoy this book very much.

The Broker by John Grisham

I bought this book in Bologna and the plot is set in Bologna (Italy). It’s not a travel book. It’s a thriller but since I love Bologna so much I wanted to see how author describes this beautiful city.

I heart London and I heart New York by Lindsey Kelk

I have actually read all the books in I heart series but I own these two. I bought them at the airport on one of my trips to England. You know all about my London infatuation but New York is a city I fell in love with through movies. I’d love to visit it one day. These books are fun, easy read.

Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes

I bought it while on holiday in Dubrovnik (Croatia) a long time ago. I know this is a sacrilege but I actually prefer the movie with the same title than the book it was based on.

I have other favourite travel books but this is just a selection of my travel books from my bookshelf.

What are your favourite travel books? Share your travel books from your bookshelf too!

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32 thoughts

  1. Pingback: 2022 on the Red Phone Box travels – the Red Phone Box travels

  7. I love guidebooks too! I find that they are muche more practical to plan a trip and read a bit of history about a place, plus they usually have pretty pictures and good recommendations!
    I don’t have many travel books (intended as fiction), but I have always wanted to try to read a book set in the place that I am travelling to, I’m sure it makes the place even more memorable 😊

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  8. I love guidebooks and even though I don’t really need them so much these days (I use the internet mostly for planning and research), I often get one for a country just because I love to browse through for inspiration and later see the book on my shelf as a memento of the trip 🙂 I have some of the same ones as you. I like that Top Ten series and Notes from a Small Island is hilarious!

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  9. I used to buy a lot of travel guides before, but for the last few years I use the internet and travel blogs to plan my trips for the same reasons many people already mentioned here, travel guides get outdated very quickly and I also don’t like to carry it around with me while travelling. We have all the information we need on our phones, so why carry a book as well? Anyway, I love reading and I have already ordered 3 of your book’s suggestions from Amazon. Thanks for the tips.

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  11. I’ve read a few travel guides, but I don’t own any. I think it’s based on demographics, as I’m a Millennial and I tend to use the Internet to look up travel guides. My logic is that hardcopies, while informative, can get outdated within a few years, as places are constantly changing, so having the Internet to back it up is how it works for me. Glad you find hardcopy travel guides useful!

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  12. I used to do the same and in anticipation for a trip, I’d go to the bookstore and find the book with the best pictures. These all turned out to be the worst books to use while traveling and heavy to lug around too. After a while, I learned to leave them behind and use them only when I was planning.
    Thanks for joining in Tanja!

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  13. Hi Tanja, it’s great to discover your blog through this Friendly Friday challenge and WOYBS – I love travel too but it has been hampered somewhat in recent years! Thanks also for your suggestions on travel books. One I didn’t mention in my post was Great Bike Rides around the World – our daughters bought it for us for a wedding anniversary inspiring us to look at bike rides we could enjoy around the world! Thanks for joining in.

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  14. Thank you for joining us at FFC/WOYBS Travel Book Edition! I’m a Guide Book Gal as well and am delighted to discover that I am not the last remaining one (it sometimes feels this way). Thanks for sharing some of your top travel related books wth us. Right before reading your post, I read another recommendation for Bryson’s ‘Notes from a Small Island.’ This may be my message from the Universe to move that book up higher on my TBR pile! 😀

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  15. Great list Bill Bryson was always in great form writing about his travel. Nelson De Mille books usually are set in an interesting location – Plum island and the Gold Coast are two of them that have inspired me. In Canada we have Project Book Mark that places plaques in location mentioned in books. I read Barometer Rising Hugh MacLellan- about the storm that followed the Halifax explosion, No great Mischief by Allister MacLeod set at the Canso Causeway in Cape Breton, NS,, Sea Breeze Lounge In Rocky Harbour, Newfoundland, The Gable Windows by Lucy M Montgomery in PEI.. Others reads that have inspired me are Deer Island mysteries (New Brunswick)- Don Kelly, The secret treasures of Oak Island, NS by D’arcy Connors. I have an Iceland – Frommers and Peru- lonely planet guide. Ready takes me to place I want to see. Great post Idea thanks Love it

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  16. Aaaah Under The Tuscan Sun…I loved that one. I too still like a guidebook when I’m researching a holiday. There’s just something about them. Thanks for joining in.

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