
A Walk in the Woods (Bill Bryson, 1998): Bill Bryson hilariously narrates his epic journey along the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail stretching across the Eastern United States from Georgia to Maine.

The Mosquito Coast (Paul Theroux, 1981): The novel veers from travelogue to cautionary tale but it always keeps moving: down rivers, up mountains, in and out of mortal danger.

My Family and Other Animals (Gerald Durrell, 1956): Come for the captivating descriptions of Corfu landscapes, stay for Durrell's laugh-out-loud tales of his eccentric family.

Interpreter of Maladies (Jhumpa Lahiri, 1999): Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of short stories is transporting, rich and wistful.

"Voss" (Patrick White, 1957): Voss, based on the real-life Ludwig Leichhardt, whose expedition party vanished in 1848, is determined to be the first to cross Australia's wide expanse coast to coast. And we get to go with him.

"A Room with a View" (E.M. Forster, 1908): As the reader follows heroine Lucy Honeychurch through the streets of Florence and the surrounding countryside, it becomes clear to us, if not to her, that the English girl has been changed by Italy.

Care of Wooden Floors (Will Wiles, 2012): Anyone who's stayed in a friend's swanky apartment while they're away knows that this often comes at a much higher price than a hotel.

Wild (Cheryl Strayed, 2012): Cheryl Strayed hiked for three months along the Pacific Crest Trail, crossing the US from the Canadian border down to the Mexican border.

Letters from Thailand: A Novel (Botan, translated by Susan Fulop Kepner, 1969): This wildly entertaining book focuses on the life of Tan Suang U, a young Chinese immigrant who settles in Bangkok's Yaowarat neighborhood at the end of World War II.

The Great Railway Bazaar (Paul Theroux, 1975): It speaks to the timeless way travel brings us back to ourselves: "All travel is circular. ... After all, the grand tour is just the inspired man's way of heading home."

The Zuni Cafe Cookbook (Judy Rodgers, 2002): In my time living in San Francisco and many visits before and since, I've eaten a lot of excellent food. But it wasn't until I tasted another roast chicken in another city that I realized what Rodgers had given me.

The Glass Hotel (Emily St. John Mandel, 2020): Set on Vancouver Island, the characters passing through the glass hotel get involved in a Madoff-esque Ponzi scheme that shatters and fragments their lives in unexpected ways.