10 Great Destination Reads

photo by Mookio Chen

The winter holidays have come to a close, and just because we have physically returned to work, school, and everyday obligations doesn't mean that our minds are fully checked back in just yet. Don't let yourself suffer too greatly with the tormenting thoughts of just how away your next great adventures are. Instead, allow yourself a great mental vacation and let the faraway places (and sometimes days gone by) come to you with some of these great destination books.

1. Worldwalker by Steven Newman
Chronicles of one man's 4-year journey across the world on foot

2. My Travels With Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck
Steinbeck documents his road trip across the U.S. , with poodle companion in tow. He seeks the identity of the "American" and desires to learn of his country on the most personal level.

3. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Memoirs of Hemingway's personal accounts as a writer in Paris in the 1920s

4. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
Perhaps Thompson's most famous work, this psychedelic novel narrates the story of a magazine writer and his lawyers traveling to Vegas in a 1970s drug-induced haze.

5. Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes
Fall in love with Tuscany, either for your first time or all over again, with Mayes' account of purchasing and restoring an abandoned villa in the countryside.

6. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
The train has sadly ceased its operation, but will forever live on in the pages of Christie's famous mystery novel. Conjure up images of luxery and intrigue as detective Hercule Poirot investigates the death of an American tycoon.

7. Pole to Pole by Michael Palin
My love for Michael Palin (of Monty Python fame) runs deep, and even more so due to his passion for travel. In his 1992 adventure, Palin travels from the North Pole down the 30 degree east line of longitude in a mission to reach the South Pole.

8. Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone by Mary Morris
Morris' memoirs of her solitary travels through Latin America over a period of 18 months. Her experience is that of participation, rather than spectating, as she interacts with locals and finds herself in some hairy situations.

9. The Old Patagonia Express: By Train Through The Americas by Paul Theroux
Beginning in Boston, and making his way through Latin America, Theroux tastes the flavours of each country he enters, genuinely seeking understanding of the culture and people he encounters.

10. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
The fictional flashback of a retired geisha of her poverty-stricken childhood, being sold to a geisha house, and education in the arts both before and after World War II.