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These New Adventure Memoirs Lay It All on the Line

The authors of the season’s best new vacation reads get naked about what it takes to climb through a panic attack, patch up a marriage, and come back from the dead

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When I worked as an editor at Outside , the formula for a typical adventure memoir often read like this: get trapped in blizzard, trigger avalanche, capsize in Southern Ocean, watch as climbing partner falls hundreds of feet to certain death. But now the adventure world has become much more open to things that were rarely mentioned back then: mental illness, body image, trauma.

This opening has made room for a new kind of exposure in the wild. These books reveal what’s really going on for the people writing them, with room for honesty, vulnerability, grief, and questions without easy answers.

These are the books I’m reading this summer, many of them by longtime Outside contributors.

1. In My Time Of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife,  by Sebastian Junger

$21 at Amazon

After years as a combat reporter in some of the most dangerous places on earth, Junger was weathering the pandemic on Cape Cod with his wife and two young daughters when he doubled over in pain. As doctors worked to save his life—his pancreatic artery had burst—Junger crossed a threshold. “I became aware of a dark pit below me and to my left. The pit was the purest black and so infinitely deep that it had no real depth at all. It exerted a pull that was slow but unanswerable, and I knew that if I went into the hole, I was never coming back.”

Junger, an Outside contributor and the author of The Perfect Storm ( among many other books), thankfully did come back, with this searching meditation on what life—and death—mean to all of us. “You will know yourself best at that moment; you will be at your most real, your most honest, your most uncalculated. If you could travel back in time to make use of such knowledge during your life, you would become exactly the person you’d always hoped to be—but none of us do that. We don’t get that knowledge until it’s too late.”

2. Becoming Little Shell: Returning Home to the Landless Indians of Montana,  by Chris La Tray

$26 at Amazon

Montana poet laureate Chris La Tray’s father wanted no part of his Chippewa heritage. So much so that when young Chris went to his grandfather’s funeral, he was floored to see that most of his relatives were Indigenous. “Here was a collection of people I’d never known but was clearly connected to,” he writes. “Who were they? Why didn’t I know them? Why was I never allowed to know them?”

La Tray’s chronicle of his journey to track down that heritage is as much a history of a forgotten tribe struggling to get federal recognition as it is a personal homecoming. When he is finally accepted as an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of the Chippewa Indians, “The moment is overpowering,” he writes. “I take a breath. I’m part of this, part of them. I wipe the sweat from my brow and take a quick look around me for snakes. Then I follow the trail down the slope, across time, through genocide and diaspora, and fear and death and now rebirth, to food, to companionship, and increasingly, to community.”

3. A Light Through the Cracks: A Climber’s Story,  by Beth Rodden

$16 at Amazon

Beth Rodden sheds her skin as climbing’s girl next door to write with honesty and precision about the years-long buried trauma that followed her infamous 2000 kidnapping —in which Rodden, Tommy Caldwell, and their climbing partners were shot at by Islamic militants while big wall climbing in Kyrgyzstan. But she also reveals harder things: the disordered eating rituals she used to believe helped her float up rock and the desire that awakened when she left Caldwell for her now-husband Randy.

Ultimately, she shares a newfound strength as a happier mother and wife, one who uses her squishy mama belly as just another climbing tool, her flesh “wrapping around the rock like cling wrap on a chocolate chip cookie.” As Rodden realizes, “I had treated myself like a robot for so long, thinking my discipline made me better than regular people. I finally understood that pursuing ‘greatness’ didn’t fill me the way a ‘normal life’ did. If I wanted to have a big life, I needed to live a smaller one.”

4. The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within,  by Cory Richards

$27 at Amazon

Rarely, if ever, has a climber produced a more searing survival story. Among the things that photographer Cory Richards has survived: summiting Everest without oxygen; windstorms at 25,000 feet; and the 2010 avalanche on the Pakistani peak Gasherbrum II that launched his self-portrait onto the 125th anniversary cover of National Geographic . But what he has endured is much harder: his brother’s fists; unwilling stays in rehab facilities and institutions; recurring panic attacks; and hollow mornings after paid-for sex.

Richards holds almost nothing back, owning the psychiatric diagnoses that have saddled him since he was a boy. “I chose to live madly to outrun madness itself,” he writes. “I’ve thought that by rebellion, doing more, being better, and being different, I might be able to out-climb, out-explore, or out-create the disquiet of my mind. But what if the noise and madness were the gift?”

5. Sharks Don’t Sink: Adventures of a Rogue Shark Scientist,  by Jasmin Graham

$22 at Amazon

When she was six, Jasmin Graham’s father gave her a yellow Tweety Bird fishing rod and took her fishing off the pier in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. So began a love of the ocean that led her to a master’s in marine biology and a career as a shark scientist—a dream come true even if being a young Black woman scientist also came with sexism and racial microagressions.

Burned out and scrolling Instagram late one night, she was startled alert. “My life was changed forever by a single photograph,” she writes. “It was of a Black female researcher floating underwater with an adorable nurse shark. I felt like I had discovered a unicorn.” As a result, she and three other Black shark experts founded the nonprofit Minorities in Shark Sciences to generate more opportunities in the field.

“I see myself and my people in sharks,” Graham writes. “All too often Black people are perceived and treated much like sharks: feared, misunderstood, and brutalized, often without recourse; assumed to be threatening when so often we’re the ones under threat; portrayed unfairly in the media, so that others are predisposed to have a negative interaction with us.”

6. Fi: A Memoir,  by Alexandra Fuller

In her darkest hour, Alexandra Fuller retreats to a sheep wagon in a high alpine meadow where she can be alone in the agony of her grief. Her son Fuller, or Fi, has just died from a seizure at the age of 21—“in the fatness of summer, in the fullness of youth, on the brink of manhood”—and the wild is the only place she can exist as she breaks apart.

The author of four previous memoirs, including the award-winning Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight , Fuller raised her children in Wyoming with echoes of her own wild childhood in Zimbabwe, picking them up after school on horseback, “whooping and hollering, cantering home through aspen groves, horses steaming, dogs panting.” As she tells Fi’s surviving sisters, “He’s our ancestor now. Our young ancestor: feel him in the wind and the sun and the trees, feel him there.”

7. Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World: Zen and the Art of Running Free,  by Katie Arnold

A former editor at Outside and a frequent contributor , competitive ultrarunner Arnold was celebrating her tenth anniversary on Idaho’s Middle Fork of the Salmon River when the raft flipped, ejecting her into the shallow water and shattering her tibial plateau. Her husband was at the oars, and back home she finds herself immobilized, seething with anger at him she can’t burn off. The brief flashings in the title come from Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind , the classic collection of talks by the late Japanese Zen master Shunryu Suzuki, who describes the everyday awakenings we all experience as “flashings in the vast phenomenal world.”

As Arnold writes, “they are happening all around us, all the time—while eating an ice cream cone or riding our bike or sitting broken beside a river—but we’re usually too distracted to notice.” With Suzuki Roshi as her guide, Arnold begins again, putting one foot in front of the other, back to her husband—whose equanimity, she realizes, makes him a natural Zen master—and all the way to victory at the Leadville 100 ultramarathon.

8. Never Leave the Dogs Behind: A Memoir,  by Brianna Madia

We love it when influencers expose their vulnerabilities, but the mercurial social media world can quickly turn against them. Brianna Madia ( 317K @Insta and author of the bestseller Nowhere for Very Long ) watches her #vanlife bubble pop when she and her ex-husband’s dog Dagwood gets run over. A GoFundMe campaign saves Dagwood’s life, but when Madia admits that it was their own van that hit the dog, she’s the one who takes the blame for not disclosing it sooner. Never mind that her ex was the one driving.

The resulting online bullying is epic and profane, with multiple subreddit threads devoted entirely to proving her a fraud. Holed up in a trailer in the desert outside Moab with her four dogs, Madia hits red-rock bottom. Her recovery, in its tenuous progress, feels raw and believable in the book. And when she enlists a digital forensic investigator and reveals the real names of internet trolls stalking her—well, now who are the ones exposed?

9. Wild Life: Finding My Purpose in an Untamed World,  by Rae Wynn-Grant

Rae Wynn-Grant knew what she wanted at a young age: obsessed with wildlife shows hosted by Marlin Perkins and Steve Irwin, she casually told her parents one night at dinner that she was going to host a nature show on TV. Never mind that she lacked the three attributes she figured were essential: being white, male, and having a British or Australian accent.

Today Wynn-Grant is a wildlife ecologist, National Geographic Explorer—and, like her hero Perkins—co-host of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom reboot, Protecting the Wild .  “One thing that I didn’t anticipate was that the knowledge I gained in the field, studying predators and their prey, would apply to my own life,” she writes. “As a young Black mother and professional, I’ve built a career for myself in a space dominated by older white men and charted my own path in a society riddled with ill-fitting expectations.”

10. This Ordinary Stardust: A Scientist’s Path from Grief to Wonder,  by Alan Townsend

$23 at Amazon

“While our flashes may be brief,” writes Alan Townsend in this remarkable memoir, “some of them are impossibly bright, and everything that matters is contained in the ways your own light sparks the ones that lie in everybody else.” Townsend, an ecosystem ecologist and dean of the University of Montana’s College of Forestry and Conservation, finds his own ecosystem rocked when both his wife and four-year-old daughter are diagnosed with brain tumors.

His wife, a dedicated scientist herself, shows him how to walk through uncertainty with grace and light, while his young daughter possesses a heart as big as the giant stuffed lion that is her companion in the hospital. It is science, in the end, that offers Townsend some measure of comfort. Each of us is a collection of trillions of atoms, he reminds us, coming together and coming apart. “No matter what happens, we’re still here,” he writes. “And we always will be.”

11. We Loved It All: A Memory of Life,  by Lydia Millet

$20 at Amazon

Can you feel the loss of something you never knew in the first place? This is the question novelist and conservationist Lydia Millet poses in her first nonfiction book, an examination of extinction, humanity, and our soul. We surround our children with animals, she notes, stuffed and plastic tigers and bears and dinosaurs, and teach them how to live through storybooks starring animals. But then something happens.

“The other animals don’t vanish from our lives as we grow up: they stick around, working in sales,” Millet writes. From the Geiko gecko to Tony the Tiger, “much is lost when the animals are turned into brand ambassadors: their reduction takes a toll on our imaginations.” Millet writes about “endlings,” an individual who is the last of its kind, and about species loneliness, that piercing longing we feel as we hold ourselves farther apart from our animal neighbors.

This is a memoir to be sure—from Millet’s first loves to her own shortcomings as a parent—but more than that, it is an uncomfortable mirror held up to all of us, a species disconnected, obsessed with our own reflection. Perhaps our duty as parents is, as much to care for our own children’s well being, to teach them to care for and about the other species who will—with any luck—serve as their companions.

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Tips for Writing a Travel Memoir

Some of the world’s best literature exists in the form of travel memoirs. Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods , Julia Child’s My Life in France , Jamie Zeppa’s Beyond the Sky and the Earth , and John Higham’s 360 Degrees Longitude are all examples of critically acclaimed and universally loved travel memoirs. What makes each of these memoirs so aspirational? Each contains a clever mix of vulnerability, connection, and exoticism.

To create a compelling travel memoir, you must be a great storyteller, first and foremost— and we can help with that. What follows is a list of tips to help you engage your reader with a spellbinding travel story.

Let’s get started.

Here’s a list of the 15 most riveting travel memoirs. Subscribe to receive this extra resource.

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Travel Writing Isn’t The Same As a Travel Memoir

Let’s draw an important distinction right away: A travel memoir is not the same as writing a guide book or a generic book on how to travel.

While the latter two may provide the travel-minded tourist hopeful with generic advice on what to see and do, the travel memoir is focused on the writer’s experience and takeaway. A travel memoir may appeal to the reader with wanderlust, but a love of and a desire to travel is not a requirement. The only true requirement for a travel memoir is a good story.

On the other hand, a reader isn’t likely to curl up with a non-narrative guide book.

Blogging, guide books, tutorials, and other forms of travel writing certainly have their place, but they aren’t the same as a memoir. A travel memoir isn’t just a list of experiences in a unique location. It’s a written documentation of the author’s awakening or evolution.

So, unless you’re being sponsored by the visitor’s bureau to write a marketing pamphlet on the destination, your travel memoir should be intimate, honest, and focused on the emotional takeaway.

Give Yourself Some Time

You can’t write a travel memoir while you’re actually on the journey. At best, you’re writing field notes or a travel journal. However, a memoir must have a deeper meaning that’s only evident after you’ve come to the end of your journey.

Before writing your memoir, you must take time to reflect on your travels and to contemplate your story’s overarching theme.

This past summer, I went on a month long adventure to the American West. Although I’d love to write about it one day, I’m still parsing through the experience and figuring out what I’ve learned. The best stories emerge after they’ve had an opportunity to breathe and you’ve gained much needed self-awareness.

To write with self-awareness, let it settle. Realize how the experience has changed you, and then write from that informed perspective.

You may not have it all figured out. Like me, you may be the type of writer who understands their thoughts while writing, but it’s still important for subconscious processing to give yourself space after an event and before writing.

Define Your Voice

When crafting a memoir of any type, you must define your voice.

Your voice is a combination of the following:

• Your unique perspective
• The type of language and cadence you use when writing your story
• The way you choose to tell the story (i.e. humorous, relatable)

Many travel memoirists choose a voice that’s either friendly, self-deprecating, or conversational, however remember that you’re not bound to this type of voice. You can be aloof, formal, or matter-of-fact. Your voice will impact how the reader experiences your memoir, so choose a voice that carries the sentiment you’re hoping to convey.

We’ve tackled voice before. Check out this post for a thorough guide on finding your writer’s voice .

Focus on the Meaning

The most important part of your travel memoir is the takeaway, or the moral of the story. This advice applies to any memoir, by the way. Creating a travel log of what happened and when it happened is boring. It’s the literary equivalent to showing slide show pictures of your vacation.

But if you dig underneath the surface and discuss not only what happened but what you learned from what happened, you’ll forge a stronger connection with the reader.

Find the universal takeaway that any human over the age of 12 can understand. To do this effectively, you’ll need to take the reader on two separate but parallel journeys. Those two types of journeys involved in your travel memoir are the physical journey and the emotional one. It’s relatively easy to write about the events you experienced on your trip. It’s harder to write about what you learned from the trip.

The meaning of your book is tied to its theme. Whether you go with a popular memoir theme like self-discovery, coping with loss, or coming of age, your theme will help you connect with readers who identify with your struggles.

Pick and Choose the Right Stories

I’m one of those weirdos who believes there’s no such thing as a mundane story, just a mundane way of telling it. This is why it’s crucial to edit yourself and get edited by professional readers .

Without editing, you’re likely to prattle on and on about every event during your journey. And not just you— we’re all prone to rambling. This why we need editing.

When editing yourself, always keep the theme in mind. This will help you include the stories that support your theme and cut the stories that are nice, but ill-fitting. You must be a slave to theme. It’s that important.

Don’t try to tell the entire story blow by blow. Instead, piece together the story that fits in with your overall theme.

Don’t Make Yourself Look Too Good

Sometimes you’re going to sound like a jerk. You’re human. Your reader is human and they’ll understand. In fact, embracing your raw stupidity is what will make you endearing to the reader. It will also make your experience real and relatable which is the entire point of reading a travel memoir. Readers like to travel with you on your emotional journey, and hopefully observe your growth.

Unfortunately, self-preservation dictates that we try to look good at all times. Avoid that urge when writing your travel memoir. Or, at least, edit it out.

You must be willing to look foolish if this is ever going to work. When traveling to different places you’ve never been before, the reader won’t expect you to be completely prepared and perfect. You’re going to mess up. You’re going to offend people. You’re going to hate some of the food. You’re going to pack your preconceived stereotypes right next to your socks and undies. But you’re also going to connect with the reader because your honesty will be relatable.

Have an open mind when you hit the open road.

The story may not go as you’ve anticipated. You’ll be surprised and changed in ways that you never expected but that’s the gift of travel. To document how you’ve changed for the better, you’ve got to show the cringe-worthy before .

Titles Are Crucial

For a travel memoir, especially if you’re an unknown author, so much of your initial success will depend on a clear, catchy, or promising title. While I may not judge a book by it’s cover, I always judge a book by its title, and I suspect I’m not the only one.

J. Maarten Troost’s The Sex Lives of Cannibals wins my award for “Best Travel Memoir Title”. I purchased the book without even reading the first page just because it had a killer title (no pun intended).

That title was catchy, but your title need not be clever to be effective. Cheryl Strayed’s one word title, Wild, sets you up for the type of journey you’re about to take.

Then there’s the promising title, I'll Never Be French (no matter what I do) by Mark Greenside. The reader knows going in that the book will be about France and some rather misfortunate experiences.

Whether you choose a title that’s descriptive or intriguing, at the very least, make it memorable. It should be a title that your reader will remember when they’re recommending your memoir to friends.

Additional Resources

Before you go, check out these related posts:

• How to Find Your Writer's Voice
• Don't Make These 7 Mistakes When Penning Your Memoir
• How to Write a Memoir That People Care About

Enter your email for your FREE 7-Day Bootcamp and learn:

• 5 Unconventional Techniques to help you finish your Draft
• The Key to Getting Readers to Care About Your Characters
• How to Master Dialogue, even if you’re a First-Time Writer
• What You Need to Know to Hold Your Reader’s Interest

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Last updated on Apr 06, 2021

21 Memoir Examples to Inspire Your Own

About the author.

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About Martin Cavannagh

Head of Content at Reedsy, Martin has spent over eight years helping writers turn their ambitions into reality. As a voice in the indie publishing space, he has written for a number of outlets and spoken at conferences, including the 2024 Writers Summit at the London Book Fair.

About Tom Bromley

Author, editor, tutor, and bestselling ghostwriter. Tom Bromley is the head of learning at Reedsy, where he has created their acclaimed course, 'How to Write a Novel.'

Writing a memoir is a daunting endeavor for any author: how do you condense your entire life story into a mere couple hundred pages? Of course, you'll find plenty of online guides that will help you write a memoir by leading you through the steps. But other times that old adage “show, don’t tell” holds true, and it’s most helpful to look at other memoir examples to get started. 

If that’s the case for you, we’ve got you covered with 21 memoir examples to give you an idea of the types of memoirs that have sold well. Ready to roll up your sleeves and dive in? 

The autobiographical memoir

The autobiographical memoir — a retelling of one’s life, from beginning to present times — is probably the standard format that jumps to most people’s minds when they think of this genre.

At first glance, it might seem like a straightforward recount of your past. However, don’t be deceived! As you’ll be able to tell from the examples below, this type of memoir shines based on three things: the strength of the author’s story, the strength of the story’s structure, and the strength of the author’s voice.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. The woman who Toni Morrison said “launched African American writing in the United States,” Angelou penned this searing memoir in 1969, which remains a timeless classic today.

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. Less of a singular memoir than a collection of humorous anecdotes framed around his life as a transplant to Paris, the star of this book is Sedaris’ dry voice and cutting humor.

A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby. Chacaby’s remarkable life — from growing up abused in a remote Ojibwa community to overcoming alcoholism and coming out as a lesbian as an adult — is captured in this must-read autobiography.

The “experience” memoir

One of the most popular memoirs that you’ll find on bookshelves, this type focuses on a specific experience that the author has undergone. Typically, this experience involves a sort of struggle, such as a bitter divorce, illness, or perhaps a clash with addiction. Regardless of the situation, the writer overcomes it to share lessons learned from the ordeal.

In an "experience" memoir, you can generally expect to learn about:

• How the author found themselves facing said experience;
• The obstacles they needed to overcome; and
• What they discovered during (and after) the experience.

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. Faced with the prognosis of terminal cancer at the age of thirty-six, Paul Kalanithi wrote an unforgettable memoir that tackles an impossible question: what makes life worth living?

A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. An account of drug and alcohol abuse that one reviewer called “the War and Peace of addiction,” this book became the focus of an uproar when it was revealed that many of its incidents were fabricated. (In case you’re wondering, we do not recommend deceiving your readers.)

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. Adapted in 1999 into a critically acclaimed film starring Angelina Jolie, Girl, Interrupted enduringly recounts the author’s battle with mental illness and her ensuing 18-month stay in an American psychiatric hospital.

The “event” memoir

Similar to the “experience” memoir, the “event” memoir centers on a single significant event in the author’s life. However, while the former might cover a period of years or even decades, the “event” memoir zeroes in on a clearly defined period of time — for instance, a two-month walk in the woods, or a three-week mountain climb, as you’ll see below.

Walden by Henry David Thoreau. In July of 1845, Henry David Thoreau walked into the woods and didn’t come out for two years, two months, and two days. This is the seminal memoir that resulted.

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer. The controversial account of the 1996 Everest disaster, as written by author-journalist Krakaeur, who was climbing the mountain on the same day that eight climbers were killed.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. Immortalized as one of the classic books about mourning, The Year of Magical Thinking recounts the grief Didion endured the year following the death of her husband.

The “themed” memoir

When you look back on your own timeline, is there a strong theme that defines your life or ties it all together? That’s the premise on which a “themed” memoir is based. In such a memoir, the author provides a retrospective of their past through the lens of one topic.

If you’re looking to write this type of memoir, it goes without saying that you’ll want to find a rock-solid theme to build your entire life story around. Consider asking yourself:

• What’s shaped your life thus far?
• What’s been a constant at every turning point?
• Has a single thing driven all of the decisions that you’ve made?

Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby. Throughout an up-and-down upbringing complete with a debilitating battle with depression, the single consistent thread in this author’s life remained football and Arsenal F.C.

Educated by Tara Westover. If there’s one lesson that we can learn from this remarkable memoir, it’s the importance of education. About a family of religious survivalists in rural Idaho, this memoir relates how the author overcame her upbringing and moved mountains in pursuit of learning.

Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth. Now best known for its BBC adaptation, Worth’s account of her life as a midwife caught people’s imagination with its depiction of life in London’s East End in the 1950s.

The family memoir

In a family memoir, the author is a mirror that re-focuses the light on their family members — ranging from glimpses into the dysfunctional dynamics of a broken family to heartfelt family tributes.

Examples of this type of memoir

Brother, I’m Dying by Edwidge Danticat. A love letter to her family that crosses generations, continents, and cultures, Brother, I’m Dying primarily tells the intertwined stories of two men: Danticat’s father and her uncle.

Native Country of the Heart by Cherrie Moraga. The mother is a self-made woman who grew up picking cotton in California. The daughter, a passionate queer Latina feminist. Weaving the past with the present, this groundbreaking Latinx memoir about a mother-daughter relationship confronts the debilitating consequences of Alzheimer's disease.

The childhood memoir

A subset of the autobiographical memoir, the childhood memoir primarily focuses (spoiler alert!) on the author’s childhood years. Most childhood memoirs cover a range of 5 - 18 years of age, though this can differ depending on the story.

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. The groundbreaking winner of the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, McCourt’s memoir covers the finer details of his childhood in impoverished Dublin.

Boy: Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl. Evoking his schoolboy days in the 1920s and 30s, the stories in this book shed light on themes and motifs that would play heavily in Dahl’s most beloved works: a love for sweets, a mischievous streak, and a distrust of authority figures.

The travel memoir

What happens when you put an author on a plane? Words fly!

Just kidding. While that’s perhaps not literally how the travel memoir subgenre was founded, being on the move certainly has something to do with it. Travel memoirs have been written for as long as people could traverse land — which is to say, a long time — but the modern travel narrative didn’t crystallize until the 1970s with the publication of Paul Theroux’s Great Railway Bazaar and Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia .

In a travel memoir, the author isn’t the star of the show: the place is. You can expect to find these elements in a travel memoir:

• A description of the place
• A discussion of the culture and people
• How the author experienced the place and dealt with setbacks during the journey

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Proof that memoirs don’t have to tell catastrophic stories to succeed, this book chronicles Gilbert’s post-divorce travels, inspiring a generation of self-care enthusiasts, and was adapted into a film starring Julia Roberts.

The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux. A four-month journey from London to East Asia (and back again) by train, this is the book that helped found the modern travel narrative.

The celebrity memoir

The celebrity memoir is just that: a memoir published by a celebrity. Though many celebrity memoirs are admittedly ghostwritten, the best ones give us an honest and authentic look at the “real person” behind the public figure.

Note that we define “celebrity” broadly here as anyone who is (or has been) in the public spotlight. This includes:

• Political figures
• Sports stars
• Actors and actresses

Paper Lion by George Plimpton. In 1960, the author George Plimpton joined up with the Detroit Lions to see if an ordinary man could play pro football. The answer was no, but his experience in training camp allowed him to tell the first-hand story of a team from inside the locker room.

Troublemaker by Leah Remini. The former star of TV’s The King of Queens tackles the Church of Scientology head-on, detailing her life in (and her decision to leave) the controversial religion.

It’s Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong. This is a great lesson on the way authors often write books to create their own legacy in the way they see fit. As history confirmed, Armstrong’s comeback success wasn’t entirely about the bike at all.

Now that you know what a memoir looks like, it’s time to get out your pen and paper, and write your own memoir to pass down family generations ! And if you want even more memoir examples to keep being inspired? We’ve got you covered: here are the  30 best memoirs of the last century .

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14 Amazing Travel Memoirs to Read When You're Stuck at Home

Sarah Schlichter

Deputy Executive Editor Sarah Schlichter's idea of a perfect trip includes spotting exotic animals, hiking through pristine landscapes, exploring new neighborhoods on foot, and soaking up as much art as she can. She often attempts to recreate recipes from her international travels after she gets home (which has twice resulted in accidental kitchen fires—no humans or animals were harmed).

Sarah joined the SmarterTravel team in 2017 after more than a decade at the helm of IndependentTraveler.com. Sarah's practical travel advice has been featured in dozens of news outlets including the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Budget Travel, and Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio. Follow her on Twitter @TravelEditor .

The Handy Item I Always Pack: "A journal. Even years later, reading my notes from a trip can bring back incredibly vivid memories."

Ultimate Bucket List Experience: "Road tripping and hiking through the rugged mountains of Patagonia."

Travel Motto: "'To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.'—Freya Stark"

Aisle, Window, or Middle Seat: "Aisle. I get restless on long flights and like to be able to move around without disturbing anyone else."

Email Sarah at [email protected] .

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At times when you can’t travel, the best travel memoirs can transport you to far-away places, helping to feed your wanderlust even if you’re currently confined to your couch. The travel memoirs below capture destinations as far-flung as India, Australia, and Antarctica, and are all worth adding to your to-read list.

Travels with Charley in Search of America , John Steinbeck

This classic travel memoir follows John Steinbeck and his French poodle Charley across the U.S. from New York to Maine to California and back again. Travels with Charley offers a striking portrait of early 1960s America, from dramatic natural landscapes and simmering racial tensions to quirky characters he meets along the way.

The Singular Pilgrim: Travels on Sacred Ground , Rosemary Mahoney

From Spain’s 500-mile Camino de Santiago to the Ganges River in Varanasi, India, Rosemary Mahoney follows in the footsteps of religious believers on some of the world’s holiest journeys. The Singular Pilgrim blends humor, curiosity, and keen insight as Mahoney confronts her own Irish Catholic heritage and finds grace in unexpected places.

10 Engrossing Audiobooks for Travelers

From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home , Tembi Locke

“In Sicily, every story begins with a marriage or a death. In my case, it’s both,” writes Tembi Locke on the first page of this moving memoir . Locke, an African-American actress, falls in love with a Sicilian chef whose family disapproves of their union. But after her husband’s untimely death, Locke brings their daughter to Sicily and slowly forges a relationship with his family that helps them all heal.

In a Sunburned Country , Bill Bryson

There’s a reason Bill Bryson is one of the most popular travel writers in the English language, and his signature wit and insight are on full display throughout In a Sunburned Country . As Bryson travels across Australia, he peppers fun facts with wry observations and conversations with cheery locals, bringing the country to life in his own inimitable style.

All the Way to the Tigers , Mary Morris

The newest travel memoir in this list, All the Way to the Tigers is well worth a preorder. It covers two journeys in one: Morris’ recovery from a devastating injury and her subsequent trip to India in search of tigers. Morris offers both inspiration and insight in this beautifully written book.

The 10 Most Anticipated 2020 Books

Comfort Me with Apples: A Journey Through Life, Love and Truffles , Ruth Reichl

In Comfort Me with Apples , readers can eat their way around the world with food writer Ruth Reichl, sampling dry-fried shrimp in China and truffles in France. Reichl’s conversational writing style makes it feel like she’s talking to a friend—and her food descriptions will leave you hungry.

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail , Cheryl Strayed

You might not expect a story of a woman hiking alone to be a page turner, but this international bestseller proves that wrong. Strayed writes about a period of crisis in her 20s, following the death of her mother and the dissolution of her marriage, when she made the brash decision to hike more than 1,000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from California to Washington. Her journey was as much emotional as physical, and Strayed writes about it in raw, visceral prose.

Ice Diaries , Jean McNeil

In Ice Diaries , Jean McNeil combines personal stories from her childhood in the Canadian Maritimes with vivid descriptions of her four months in Antarctica, as well as journeys to other icy destinations such as Svalbard and Greenland. Whether you’ve traveled to Antarctica or it’s still on your bucket list, McNeil’s book offers fascinating insight into the continent’s history and landscape.

10 Days in Antarctica

Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria , Noo Saro-Wiwa

Though she grew up mostly in London, Noo Saro-Wiwa made frequent visits to Nigeria to visit her father, an activist who was later executed by the government. As an adult, she returns to the country for a deeper exploration of its corruption, culture, and unexpected charms. Looking for Transwonderland uses insight and humor to paint a multifaceted portrait of Nigeria.

The Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in Kyoto , Pico Iyer

Pico Iyer intended to spend his year in Kyoto studying Zen Buddhism at a monastery and learning about Japan’s traditional culture—but his plans are upended when he meets a woman named Sachiko. The Lady and the Monk details their relationship, marked by cross-cultural misunderstandings and Iyer’s deepening appreciation for Japan in all its complexity.

All Over the Place: Adventures in Travel, True Love, and Petty Theft , Geraldine DeRuiter

Geraldine DeRuiter leads off the aptly titled All Over the Place with a wry disclaimer, noting that her book is not particularly informative and confessing, “If you follow my lead, you will get hopelessly, miserably lost.” But that only makes this book even more fun to read, as DeRuiter and her husband careen around the world, getting sick, getting lost, and falling even more deeply in love.

The 10 Best Books of 2019, According to Amazon

Wild Coast: Travels on South America’s Untamed Edge , John Gimlette

If you’re drawn to the unfamiliar, Wild Coast is well worth a read. Gimlette takes readers to three rarely visited countries in South America—Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana—to reveal their colorful history, rare wildlife, and remote jungles.

The Snow Leopard , Peter Matthiessen

A masterwork of nature writing, The Snow Leopard details the author’s trek into the Himalayas in search of one of the Earth’s rarest and most elusive creatures. Matthiessen was a Zen Buddhist, and his memoir also includes his own internal journey toward a deeper understanding of the world around him.

Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle , Dervla Murphy

The ultimate adventure story, Full Tilt follows an Irish woman in the early 1960s on a solo bicycle expedition across Europe and through Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, accompanied only by her .25 revolver. Murphy encounters snow, sunstroke, stomach trouble, and other discomforts, but her struggles are offset by the fascinating people she meets and the magnificent landscapes through which she rides.

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More from smartertravel:.

• 11 Books That’ll Help Boost Your Travel Inspiration Right Now
• 11 Funny Books to Read When You Need a Laugh
• 21 Sites Offering Virtual Tours and Live Streams for Travelers Stuck at Home

Follow Sarah Schlichter on Twitter @TravelEditor for more travel tips and inspiration.

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Writing a Travel Memoir: How to Capture Unforgettable Moments

August 13, 2021

Traveling is one of the most memorable occasions in a person’s life. Discovering new places can create memories that last a lifetime. And for some travelers, these adventures are so meaningful that they decide to chronicle them in a journal or diary.

Written descriptions of places and experiences can provide the perfect complement to breathtaking photographs. And in some instances, journals and diaries can become the source of a great travel memoir .

In this article, we will discuss the elements that comprise a compelling travel memoir and the importance of chronicling timeless moments in a person’s life. As T.S. Eliot once said, “The journey, not the arrival matters.”

Travel Memoirs 101

When dissecting a travel memoir, it is best to start with what is not a travel memoir. On the whole, a travel memoir does not constitute a guidebook or generic description of a destination. Moreover, a travel memoir is not merely a collection of random anecdotes pertaining to a trip.

A travel memoir is so much more than a collection of experiences and descriptions of unique places. A travel memoir encompasses a personal journey that culminates in a singular location. According to Writer’s Digest , a travel memoir is “… a delicate mixture of recollection and reflection that reveals how a journey, or a series of journeys, transformed the writer.”

This succinct description underscores the transformative nature of a travel memoir. Therefore, the memoir must highlight a “before” and “after” in the author’s life.

On the surface, a travel memoir should reflect the beauty of its unique location.

Deep down, it should reflect the author’s personal interaction with that singular destination.

As a result, this interaction leads to a metamorphosis within the writer. The memoir should record how an exterior change leads to an interior one. It should narrate how the author’s transformation took place because of the journey.

Also, a travel memoir is not a blow-by-blow account of a trip. A wonderful travel memoir should not waste precious space on inconsequential details and events. Instead, it should focus on the specific moments that led to the author’s awakening. Hence, the trip itself ought not to be the memoir’s main focus. Instead, the author’s experience, feelings, and thoughts should permeate the story.

A great travel memoir must deliver an enthralling story. The story needs to begin with the author’s life prior to the journey. Readers need to know what motivated the author to embark on the journey. From there, the story must take the readers through the entire process of self-discovery.

The climax of the story must highlight that special moment of awakening. Readers must be privy to that intimate moment in which the author reaches their ultimate transformation.

At the core of an indelible travel memoir is the overarching theme. This theme must clearly reflect what aspect of the writer’s life changed forever.

For instance, the author got over a past love or gained a new lease on life following a tragic loss. Whatever the theme, the memoir’s narrative must unmistakably reflect it.

In the words of Saint Augustine, “The World is a book. And those who do not travel read only one page.” A travel memoir brings those pages to the reader. It enables the writer and reader to come face-to-face with one another while being miles apart.

Making the Decision to Write a Travel Memoir

Choosing to write a travel memoir is a deeply personal decision. Any individual who chooses to write a travel memoir must be willing to bare their soul for readers to see. The intensely personal nature of a travel memoir must communicate a profoundly life-altering message.

A gripping travel memoir must reflect a profound journey of personal growth. The travel experience is solely the vehicle enabling the personal transformation to take place.

Journalist and published author Alexis Grant has this to say about a travel memoir’s message: “Your memoir should be about more than your trip; you need an overarching theme that readers relate to, a story arc that includes personal growth.”

Indeed, a travel memoir must connect with readers at an intense level. This connection can only happen when a travel memoir explicitly lays out the writer’s transformation.

For some authors, penning a travel memoir is a cathartic process. It enables them to vent their emotions creatively.

The outcome is to reflect the author’s process from pain and suffering to healing. In such cases, writers must be willing to be honest with their readers. Readers will swiftly smell out embellishment or exaggeration.

A compelling memoir, travel or otherwise, must depict the writer’s moments of weakness. Doing so will provide enough support to the overall outcome.

Not all travel memoirs have to be about the transition from pain to healing. A great travel memoir can serve to help others achieve their dreams.

A classic example is Julia Child’s My Life in France . This book depicts Julia Child’s time and experiences in France. In particular, the story chronicles the beginnings of her extraordinary culinary exploits.

To Julia, France was a spiritual homeland. It was the site where her personal transformation began into one of the world’s most renowned chefs. It is safe to say that Julia Child would not have become the celebrity she did if she had never been to France. Thanks to this transformational journey, Julia Child found her true calling in life. As such, her memoir shows readers just how meaningful her time in France was to her.

The decision to write a travel memoir ultimately boils down to a genuine desire to help others undergo a similar journey. The destination itself is not the main purpose. The journey of self-discovery and transformation is the key element. The destination serves as the backdrop for the journey.

While the destination is certainly meaningful, the writer’s awakening to a new reality makes the entire journey a life-changing one. This message needs to resonate throughout the text. If successful, readers will walk away inspired to pursue their own dreams.

Structure of a Travel Memoir

Authors must be careful not to confuse a travel memoir with a chronological description of events. While a timeline format is useful in developing the story, a compelling travel memoir is a story. Therefore, the narrative must reflect this characteristic. This approach explains why chronological order is not necessarily a requisite structure.

First and foremost, a travel memoir is a tale. Thus, it should sound like a work of fiction, even though it is not.

In this regard, a memorable travel memoir uses the writer’s message—their transformation—as the core element around which all other events revolve. Consequently, places and events should serve to frame the story. However, the book should not be about the place itself.

The story’s overall narrative should take readers through the author’s entire transformative process. This process must reflect the motivations for the trip. Ultimately, the destination is secondary insofar as the author’s inner metamorphosis. Throughout the metamorphosis, the memoir’s theme must become evident. The theme sets the stage for the specific events that will accentuate the protagonist’s singular journey.

The most important decision travel memoir writers must then make is selecting the theme. The theme ought to emerge from a motivation within the writer that led to the trip itself. For example, a writer fed up with the corporate world chooses to leave a six-figure job to embark on a volunteer work tour. By the end of the tour, the writer discovers that the meaning of life helping others and not making money. This discovery could not have been possible without the trip.

The characters in the story must also directly contribute to the author’s transformation. The decision to include characters depends largely on their role. As such, great characters provide some support along the writer’s trek. For instance, they may provide eye-opening advice or meaningful encouragement.

Additionally, specific characters may serve as the catalyst for the author’s decisions. A classic example is the end of a romantic relationship. Thus, the writer’s romantic partner catalyzes the transformative process. It is worth noting that no other character should overshadow the author, regardless of their role’s importance. The author is the main character. Hence, all events need to revolve around the writer.   

As for narrative style, travel memoirs need to resonate to a deeply personal degree. Therefore, a first-person narrative style would be most suitable. This narrative style gives readers the impression they are hearing the author’s voice. After all, this is the author’s journey. Thus, readers expect to hear the author’s words as they would have spoken them.

This idea underscores the importance of keeping the narrative style as close to the writer’s own words as possible. Fancy prose may help the story come alive, but it may not be a true reflection of the author’s personality. Please bear in mind that this is an individual process. Furthermore, the narrative must make the reader feel as if they were sitting right next to the writer, listening to their story.

Mistakes to Avoid when Writing a Travel Memoir

Penning a travel memoir can be a perfectly imperfect endeavor. For first-time authors, it may prove to be a complex exercise. For experienced writers, the process may be simpler to manage. Nevertheless, producing a travel memoir requires close attention to specific pitfalls. By avoiding these pitfalls, writers can reduce the likelihood of failing to meet their goals.

When an individual first thinks of writing a travel memoir, it helps to plan.

Ideally, anyone thinking about producing a travel memoir should keep a diary of the trip itself. Diaries help keep track of events, and most importantly, personal reflections throughout the trip. Without a diary, writing the memoir would rely on memory.

Often, this practice may lead the writer to omit valuable details from the story. Mainly, the aim of a diary is to capture feelings as they occur. The power of these feelings may be lost when writing after the fact.

Also, writers must strive to focus on themselves as the main character. After all, a travel memoir is about the author’s own life and experiences. Therefore, focusing on other individuals takes away from the purpose of the memoir. Consequently, attempting to tell someone else’s story may shift the readers’ attention from the author to someone else. Ultimately, shifting focus away from the author defeats the story’s purpose.

A common mistake is trying to force the narrative. By “forcing” the narrative, writers may try to recreate a surreal environment using overly creative prose. In reality, authors should try to maintain a narrative consistent with their personality. The aim is to take readers inside the author’s soul. As such, the narrative should reflect this reality as faithfully as possible.

A great rule of thumb is to be humble at all times.  Attempting to embellish a travel memoir may lead readers to question the veracity of the accounts in the story.

Lastly, writers must be careful with including intimate details. While the aim is to provide readers with an insider account of the journey, there are boundaries to consider. Mainly, intimate details should be off-limits unless they somehow contribute to the story’s development.

Inexperienced writers would do well to seek assistance once completing a rough draft. Enlisting the help of an editor goes a long way to polishing up a final draft. In doing so, potential book agents and publishers will get a look at a neat product before making a decision.

A travel memoir is a deeply personal endeavor aiming to depict a profound transformation.

Writers seeking to produce a travel memoir should strive to recreate their journey as faithfully as possible. And they should adhere to the story as closely as they can.

In doing so, readers can get a sense of what the author went through. Ultimately, readers should be privy to the struggles and triumphs represented in the story.

The narrative ought to reflect the writer’s own voice.

Attempting to embellish a story with ornate prose may cause the reader to question the accuracy of the accounts in the story. Consequently, keeping a humble attitude is always the best approach.

This approach should enable the story’s theme to resonate throughout the journey. As the theme becomes evident, the book’s underlying message will strike a chord in the readers. A successful memoir will transport the reader into the author’s life. A great narrative will leave readers feeling a deep connection, perhaps motivating them to seek their transformation.

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20 travel memoirs to take you around the world (from the comfort of your couch)

• BY Anne Bogel
• IN Book Lists , Books & Reading , Literary Tourism

I love how a good book takes me places I have never been and may never see with my own eyes—whether that place is close to home or halfway around the world.

Readers have long enjoyed vicarious travel and prepared for their trips by turning to the written word. These days I, like many readers, am especially grateful for armchair travel.

When a reader recently asked for travel memoir recommendations on on our  What Should I Read Next Instagram account  as a WSIRNReaderRecs  request, we received piles of great book suggestions. We’ve gone through them all and curated this reader-generated book list for you. As so often happens, my TBR grew as a result.

Today I’m sharing some books I love and some I’m eager to read because of your enthusiastic recommendations. This list of 20 travel memoirs will hopefully provide some vicarious experiences while you dream about your next trip. This is by no means an exhaustive list so I’d love to hear about your favorite travel memoirs in the comments.

Some links (including all Amazon links) are affiliate links.  More details here .

20 travel memoirs to take you around the world

Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam

Rudy’s Rules for Travel: Life Lessons from Around the Globe

A Year in the World: Journeys of A Passionate Traveller

Waking Up On the Appalachian Trail: A Story of War, Brotherhood, and the Pursuit of Truth

Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle

Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park

Hardly Working: A Travel Memoir of Sorts

The Singular Pilgrim: Travels on Sacred Ground

Around India in 80 Trains

A Walk in the Woods

A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines

Travels with Charley in Search of America

How to Be a Family: The Year I Dragged My Kids Around the World to Find a New Way to Be Together

At Home in the World: Reflections on Belonging While Wandering the Globe

Paddling with Spirits: A Solo Kayak Journey

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Alone Time: Four Seasons, Four Cities, and the Pleasures of Solitude

Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman

How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir

What are YOUR favorite travel memoirs? Tell us all about them in comments!

P.S. 20 books to take you around the world , and 20 terrific titles from #ownvoices and #diversebooks authors .

97 comments

‘Wherever the River Runs’ by Kelly Minter is not really a travel memoir, but it tells of her journeys on the Amazon river to minister to the people there. It’s a wonderful book!

I would suggest Notes from a Small Island over A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson and my second of his travel books would be In A Sunburned Country.

Agreed!! Anything by Bill Bryson is wonderful, but Notes From a Small Island is an absolute must-read. (Perhaps not strictly a travel memoir as he had lived there for 20-some years when he wrote it and was preparing to return to the U.S.. Let’s just call it a really LONG trip!! 😁)

I loved In a Sunburned Country. I think it’s my favorite of his.

Second that, absolutely fascinating and really made me want to get Australia

I was supposed to travel to Poland in June with my mom and sister to visit my aunt and uncle. It was a much anticipated trip (I’ve never been) and I was planning to ask for reader recs! No WW2 😉 Alas, we will try again next year. Several of these look really interesting. Sadly my library does not have many of them, but I do have a hold on At Home in the World 🙂

The trumpeter of krakow is middle grade kids lit set in medieval Poland. I really enjoyed it as i knew nothing about Poland with the exception of it’s role in WW 2.

Thanks for the rec! I do love middle grade.

My daughter lived in Warsaw for 3 years, and I had the treat of visiting twice. Never got to Krakow, but Poland is so interesting. If you can, Warsaw is very worth taking time to visit, it has wonderful museums and (before COVID) a really vibrant city vibe with a much more affordable price point. I just used my fav, Rick Steves for planning (I think the guide was Poland and Hungary?). People are very friendly, but most people above 30 don’t really speak much, if any, English, so good to have some key “polite words” memorized.

Paris, Part Time by Lisa Baker Morgan is a memoir that takes you to Paris. Her book is the story of her journey to find the place she can call home – part time. Her book includes many of her recipes, her travels through France and her photos of her favorite city – Paris. Pick it up as it is a wonderful read.

I LOVE A Walk Across America and A Walk Across China by Peter Jenkins. Getting to know a country by getting to know its people is such a precious experience to me. I’ve never had the privilege except through those two books, but would love to do that in either country.

I loved Walk across America and The Walk West, also Jenkin’s book Along the Edge of America. I’ll have to try his one in China.

Added A Cook’s Tour to my list – thanks! There’s another one that’s on my TBR you may be interested in: Four Seasons in Rome by the same author as All the Light We Cannot See.

Four Seasons in Rome is great by Anthony Doerr. Loved this book.

I read Four Seasons in Rome 11 years ago when I was on bed rest in the last few weeks of my pregnancy. I have such fond memories of being “in” Rome when I couldn’t go anywhere but my couch. (I also read all four Twilight books in that same stretch, lest you think I was all classy travel memoirs! ha!)

I loved Four Seasons In Rome!! It’s on my all time favorite list!!

Thanks for this!! I’ve added two more books to my ever-growing TBR list. (I will never live long enough to finish it!!)

Lands of Lost Borders, by Kate Harris. A story of biking along the silk road.

A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins, as well as his Across China.

J. Maarten Troost – my favorite travel writer -is missing from this list- his books titles alone inspire interest!

Falling in Love with the English Countryside by Susan Branch I read it over a rainy weekend on the couch and felt like I had actually been to England!

Oh yes! I love this one and, in fact, all of her books. They do make you feel as if you have been on a holiday somewhere else.

That one is a delight! It would be a great one to read right now. Very light and enjoyable!

I had the same experience with this book. I loved it and have recommended it to several friends who felt the same. We are planning to take this same trip!

I love all of her books! I like her approach to her visit – visiting homes of authors, National Trust sites, walks about the countryside – I’m in!!

Absolutely agree with all these comments. I read this during quarantine and it was so delightful. Also loved her book about Martha’s Vineyard (Martha’s Vineyard: Isle of Dreams)

I loved The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell. It gave words to my experiences in Denmark and taught me some new info that I wouldn’t have known otherwise. I can’t say enough good things.

I loved this book! It was hilarious and informative.

I love this list because I feel like there are so many books (almost all of them) that I haven’t heard of!! And love that there are so many backlist options I can probably find at the library 🙂

Love With a Chance of Drowning was really funny and interesting- the author and her then boyfriend live on a small sailboat for a period of time.

Really enjoyed The Salt Path about the author and her husband and their walk along a sea path after losing their home. Her husband has a chronic disease and their journey is really interesting.

Loved The Salt Path. Listened to it on audio, fabulous.

Does anyone have a suggestion on a travel memoir that is based in Spain? Going there for the first time next year and would love anything that would give me some insights.

Driving Over Lemons, by British writer Chris Stewart. I haven’t read it, but my British sister-in-law loved it.

I hope it is okay drop a link to a different page… But this was JUST in my Google feed: https://bookriot.com/books-set-in-spain/

A lesser known memoir that’s fabulous reading is Miles From Nowhere by Barbara Savage. She and her husband did a round-the-world cycling trip in the late 1970’s, and her descriptions are at times funny, at times truth-is-stranger-than-fiction, and definitely adventurous. The memoir is made even more poignant because she died not too many years later from a triathlon accident, if I remember correctly.

Loved this one too.

Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone by Mary Morris. She’s written several other travel memoirs, but this is my favorite of hers. She’s also a wonderful fiction writer – I would recommend her most recent work – Gateway to the Moon.

Susan Allen Toth wrote a wonderful series of travel memoirs about England, beginning with “My Love Affair with England: a Traveler’s Memoir.”

I love her books – so comforting – and her approach to travel.

I love her books and have all of them.

I just loved “A Year in the World.” I’ve read several on this list and am thankful for the reminder of how much I love good travel writing. Also, may I suggest anything by Jan Morris and “Italian Days” by Barbara Grizzutti Harrison.

I loved “The Yellow Envelope” – so did my book club!

From Scratch by Tembi Locke was lovely when we were considering a move to Italy.

I loved “Travels with Charley” by Steinbeck!!!! I have a standard poodle so that’s one reason I loved this travel book!! And thank you for this list. Many more titles to add to my TBR list!

Travels With Charley is one of my all time favorite books, and one I’ve read several times. I rarely do that.

Where do you buy the book- Hardly Working a Travel Memoir of Sorts by Zukiswa Wanner? I can’t find it anywhere.

Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon is a classic but still so good!

Anything by Paul Theroux

The Cat Who Covered the World by Wren Even my cat hating son liked this when I read it aloud to the children.

Free Country, by George Mahood, is one of my favorites. George and his friend, Ben, have three weeks to cycle 1000 miles from the bottom of England to the top of Scotland. But they start with only their boxer shorts, and rely on the British public for everything else for their journey. It’s an amazing story about the goodness of humankind, and it’s a hilarious read about a beautiful journey.

Am noting alot of these TBR. I loved McCarthy’s Bar which I read years ago. An English comedian travels from Cork to Donegal visiting bars with him name (McCarthy)

A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle made me fall head over heels in love with Provence before I had ever visited! It’s an oldie, published in 1989, but a wonderful member of his first year in this idyllic spot in Southern France.

I loved all of his books, for his humor and the eye openers about the French people in the countryside. Re-reading that one right now.

Loved it! I think I’ve read all but one of his books now.

What an amazing list and more in the comments!! I shall be able to travel through the eyes and experiences and words of these authors, to places I can only now dream of from the comfort (and safety) of my arm chair. I am reminded of Dr Seuss…..’Oh, the Places You’ll Go!’

I must add my enthusiasm for Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr. I read it years ago and still think about it.

Road Trip Rwanda. by Will Ferguson. He is a Canadian author, often known for his humour. He and his friend, Jean-Claude Munyezamu, who left (escaped) Rwanda just before the genocide travel to Rwanda in 20 years after. It is hopeful, often funny, beautiful book about a country that because of its horrific history, we only know the tragedy, not the beauty and vibrancy of its people and how the country has been reborn. Highly recommend.

I LOVED the memoir The Traveling Feast: On the Road & At the Table with my Heroes by Rick Bass. The author travels around the world, thanking writers that have influenced him, and cooks them a meal in gratitude. (while bringing along some of his own writing students for mentoring.) Its fascinating for the travel, the food and the writing life. Also want to echo the sentiments in the comments of the BRILLIANCE of Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr. It definitely is one of my favorite travel memoirs. A great list here, as always.

I have so many, but this year liked “ A Paris All Your Own” ( various authors with notes on their trips to Paris). Also, “We’ll Always Have Paris/ A Mother-Daughter Memoir” by Jennifer Coburn telling of trips to several countries with her daughter. Thanks for the list!

I loved To the Field of Stars: A Pilgrim’s Journey to Santiago de Campostela by Kevin Codd. Actually made me want to do the long walk!

Not a travel memoir but I highly recommend the audio version of A Year in Provence. It’s dlelightful — so much so that the author had to move because he did not disguise the actual area and people came from around the world to see his home

I love travel memoirs! Alice Steinbach’s Without Reservations is my favorite book ever, not just for the travel writing but also for how she discusses the seasons of women’s lives. The sequel, Educating Alice, is also fantastic. I also really enjoyed Mark Adams’ Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love.

Yay, another Alice Steinbach fan!

I’ve read both of those multiple times – they’re so great!

Give Me the World by Leila Hadley. She truly had crazy adventures–with her six year old son!–and writes about them so very well.

Anything by Paul Theroux- The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonia Express, Riding the Iron Rooster… All are lovely to read and re-read!

I’m currently reading Thirst by Heather Anderson. This is another memoir about a solo hike on the PCT. I like this better than Wild because “Anish” Is an experienced hiker with the audacious goal of breaking the record for fastest time. Still all the ups, downs and triumph over adversity themes and compelling insight into how she got to this point in life.

Footprints is also on my TBR after a friend recommended it. We plan all family vacations around visiting national parks. I’m excited to armchair travel with that one!

Three Weeks With My Brother by Nicholas Sparks and Traveling With Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd are two I enjoyed. Just read Leave Only Footprints and truly enjoyed that as well.

My favourite is Le Road Trip by Vivian Swift. Illustrated with beautiful watercolour sketches, this travel journal follows her journey through France as a newlywed. I love her sense of humour, travel tips and how she draws comparisons between travel and relationships.

Last year I read “Dear Bob and Sue” by Matt and Karen Smith and really enjoyed it. Matt and Karen Smith, a recently empty nester couple, set a goal to visit all the National Parks in the United States. This book chronicles those trips. It’s interesting, informative and funny. I thoroughly enjoyed Matt and Karen’s personalities and the way they interacted with one another. Travel + Nature + Humor = a winner!

Yes! I was going to say the same! I’ve been binge reading the three books in the “Dear Bob and Sue” series and have their book “Dories Ho!” on my nightstand now.

One Room in a Castle by Karen Connelly.

This is a great list and I really appreciate all the comments as well! I LOVE travel books and have read many, but there are definitely a few on this list and in the comments I had never heard of! So now my TBR has grown again…thanks!

I have to suggest my favorite travel book – Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman. At the age of 48, the author decides to leave her pampered life and embark on a lifetime of travel. What makes this book so special is that she isn’t content to merely be an observer, she meets the people and learns about their cultures. This book is inspirational – she is living a lifelong dream, beginning in her middle years. It caused me to lift my head, look around at my life, and make significant changes. Thanks to everyone who enlarged the original list! My TBR list has grown by leaps and bounds.

I love this genre! A few I’ve enjoyed immensely: Dove, by Robin Lee Graham. An account of a hippie kid in the 1960s who sailed around the world alone. A Thousand Days in Venice, by Marlena de Blasi. Her account of falling in love with a Venetian and moving to Venice in her 50s. Sometimes her writing is a bit much, but she describes the city beautifully (and makes me want to add velvet wall hangings and crystal chandeliers to my house!) The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain. His super-sarcastic sense of humor is perfect in this, as he travels and complains his way around Europe in the 1800s. It was interesting to read about what international travel was like, 150 years ago, as well. Learning to Bow, by Bruce Feiler. A man’s adjustment as he moves to Japan as an English teacher.

I loved all of Marlena de Balsi’s books. Agree the writing can be a little ‘flowery’ to say the least but she has a certain style!

My Love Affair with England & others by Susan Allen Toth

Absolutely loved WILD, also enjoyed A WALK IN THE PARK. Several of the others are now on my TRB list, TX!

My favorite is A House in the Sky – true story following Amanda Lindhout – 19 year old cocktail waitress who saves every penny to go on adventures around the world. If it sounds like a bad idea to travel the world along as a young teen, it is. She gets kidnapped in Somalia and becomes a hostage to a young militant group. It might frustrate some but I could really relate. I was hooked from the start of the book.

I would add:

*anything by Michael Palin, former Python and English traveller extraordinaire *Guy Delisle’s graphic novels ‘Shenzhen’, ‘Burma Chronicles’ and ‘Chroniques de Jérusalem’

Thanks for this great post. Like most people I love to travel, but we can’t right now due to the pandemic. This is a way to satisfy my wanderlust for the time being. I just ordered Without Reservations and At Home in the World and can’t wait for them to arrive!

The two that I still think about to this day are No One Goes to the Ice Alone (which is a memoir of a National Geographic author’s research trips to Antarctica to write about it for the magazine. Faaaaansinatinating look at life on the Antarctic. )

The other is Lost on Planet China- a reporter/memoirist decides to travel along the only highway in China that goes from the coast to the Eastern border. He explores different themes and people’s everyday life along the way. It’s less about his journey and more about the people and everyday life realities of China. But still fascinating.

Tales of a female Nomad by Rita Gelman is another great book if you’ve ever been a guest in other cultures and miss making friends abroad during this time of lock down. Speaking of Bryson, I also laughed out loud at Bill Bryson’s Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe book. Looking forward to finding some of these mentioned, thank you!

One of my first travel memoirs was “Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven.” This is from Amazon: In 1986, fresh out of college, Gilman and her friend Claire yearned to do something daring and original that did not involve getting a job. Inspired by a place mat at the International House of Pancakes, they decided to embark on an ambitious trip around the globe, starting in the People’s Republic of China. At that point, China had been open to independent travelers for roughly ten minutes.

Found it fascinating!

When I think of travel writing I immediately think of Paul Theroux’s many books, particularly those focusing on his travels in South Africa. His writing style always draws me in and keeps me going. I enjoyed Dark Star Safari and The Last Train to Zona Verde in particular. The Great Railway Bazaar is his best known but I haven’t read it yet.

On the Noodle Road: from Beijing to Rome by Jen Libn-Liu!! It’s still one of my favorite memoirs. Recipes included.

This is concerning Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley.” I remember the days written about in New Orleans with the desegregation of the New Orleans’ public schools. I was young but I knew the man who walked his daughter to school every day. Fifteen years later I would meet him and 2 years later I would marry him. He died back in 2005. But those days were always fresh in his mind. He and his daughter appeared on the Oprah tv show. He talked about writing a book about those days and calling it the Longest Walk. He was a Methodist minister and his church in the French Quarter district was damaged and his young family(first wife and kids) had to be moved and protected by the FBI. It was a dangerous time for those who chose to protect kids’ rights to get an education.

I love travel books which transport you to different places, times and cultures. Some of my favorite books are: Roughing It–Mark Twain Poisonwood Bible–Kingsolver Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight–Fuller Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town–Theroux Iron and Silk–Hessler Ice Bound–Nielsen Skeletons on the Zahara–King

Several years ago I read and loved Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman.

One of my favorite books is ‘Japan: In Search of Wa’ by Karin Muller. The author lives with a Japanese family as she becomes acquainted with the country and discovers another side of it. Unfortunately, they expect more of her than she bargained for. The writing is beautiful and has a thoughtful cadence to it, if that makes sense!

Sorry, I wrote the title incorrectly. It’s ‘Japanland: A Year in Search of Wa’

Bad Tourist by Suzanne Roberts.

Trying to find the title of a memoir written in (I think) the 1950s. Possibly by a young man who subsequently became a successful ad guy. About his travels to Mexico (I think). Can anyone help?

I loved “The Turkish Embassy Letters” (Mary Wortley Montagu), I read it in full years ago, but keep going back to re-read some parts. It gives an exceptional insight of traveling through Europe and the Ottoman Empire as a woman in the 18th century.

I’d also love to recommend Soul Truth by Bianca Caruana. It’s about one women’s journey from corporate to backpacker and the people she meets along the way through Southeast Asia. It’s a story about love, loss and the journeys we take to meet our untethered selves.

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12 Inspiring Travel Memoirs to Fuel Your Wanderlust

December 14, 2019 By Jen Ambrose 27 Comments

Updated February 12, 2024

For me, one of the small silver linings of the early days of the pandemic is that I finally got into the habit of reading. I’ve always loved books and reading, but it wasn’t until 2020 that it became part of my daily routine.

Now, I read almost every night before bed, and listen to audiobooks while cooking or cleaning, walking, driving, and riding on buses, planes, or trains. I’m usually in the middle of at least four books and one or two audiobooks at any given time. (Add me on Goodreads if you’re on there!)

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In a surprise to absolutely nobody, travel memoirs are one of my favorite genres – especially female travel memoirs, I think because their perspectives tend to resonate more. Likewise, there are some great fiction travel books out there, but I find it a lot easier to relate to non-fiction. Reading about things that actually happened and hearing a real person’s reflections just leaves a bigger impact on me, at least when it comes to travel stories.

For me, books about traveling are both a huge source of inspiration and a means of reflecting on my own experiences. I love reading about the types of travel experiences I’ve had myself and places where I’ve spent time. But I also love hearing about experiences I’ll probably never have (like sailing around the world, biking across the country, and working as a flight attendant).

My “To Read” list in this genre is literally never-ending, and I still haven’t read some of the obvious picks – like Bill Bryson’s In a Sunburned Country (which I do plan to read) and J. Maarten Troost’s The Sex Lives of Cannibals (which I don’t ). And one day I’ll re-read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love to see how differently it lands now, compared to when I read it as a 20-year-old on study abroad in 2007.

But I wanted to share some of the best travel memoirs I’ve read so far. (Update: And I’m always adding to this list!) Whether you’re looking for serious travel inspiration, a fun vacation read, or gifts for travelers who love to read, one of these will surely be the perfect pick.

• 1. Love with a Chance of Drowning – Torre DeRoche

2. Kinky Gazpacho – Lori L. Tharps

• 3. The Yellow Envelope – Kim Dinan

4. Wild – Cheryl Strayed

• 5. Free Country – George Mahood
• 6. Cruising Attitude – Heather Poole
• 7. A Thousand New Beginnings – Kristin Addis
• 8. How Not to Travel the World – Lauren Juliff
• 9. Turn Right at Machu Picchu – Mark Adams
• 10. It’s Only the Himalayas – Sue Bedford
• 11. Adventures of a Continental Drifter – Elliott Hester
• 12. All Over the Map – Laura Fraser

More Memoirs About Traveling

The best travel memoirs, 1. love with a chance of drowning   –  torre deroche.

This is one of those travel books about an experience I don’t plan to ever have. While living in California, Torre falls in love with an Argentinian man whose dream is to sail around the world in his little boat named Gracie .

She’s prone to seasickness and terrified of deep water, but agrees to go on the journey anyway. They spend weeks at a time on the water with no land in sight, subsist on a diet mostly devoid of fresh fruits and vegetables, and brave storms that nearly capsize the sailboat.

While their time on the water is sometimes challenging, Torre and Ivan reap serious rewards, too. They make their way through the South Pacific, visiting idyllic islands that are pretty much only reachable by sailboat and far removed from globalization and mainstream tourism.

I also really enjoyed Torre’s follow-up, The Worrier’s Guide to the End of the World , which is a memoir about travel of a totally different kind. Instead of sailing, it’s mostly about walking pilgrimages – and instead of romance, there’s grief, heartbreak, and female friendship. I would recommend them both, but start with Love with a Chance of Drowning .

Recommended for anyone who dreams of sailing the world or just visiting a remote tropical paradise – and it’s the perfect choice if you’re searching for gifts for outdoorsy women !

There are travel memoirs that relay the story of a trip, and then there are those that weave history, culture, and personal identity with adventure. This book is definitely the latter.

Lori’s story starts with her childhood in Wisconsin, where she’s (no surprise) the only Black student at her school. She’s enamored with Spain from her first Spanish class, but her relationship to the country gets more complicated when she studies abroad there.

The book is a candid account of Lori’s experiences as an African-American in Spain, first as a student, then as part of a blended family over the years, and even as an investigative journalist uncovering the country’s hidden history of slavery. Reading this made me incredibly nostalgic for my year abroad in college, and it helped me think about travel from a perspective that’s totally different from my own.

Recommended for anyone who’s interested in Spain or the Black travel experience  – and this would be a great book club pick!

3. The Yellow Envelope   –  Kim Dinan

When I read this book, I related to it so much. Then I noticed a stark polarization in the reviews: people either related deeply to it like I did, or they absolutely loathed both the story and the author. Interesting.

Like many of the other writers on this list, Kim wanted something different than the career, house, wealth, and other material things we’re told we’re supposed to work for. So, she and her husband left their jobs and their home to explore around the world.  (Um, you’re probably starting to see why I related to it so much!)

They travel from Ecuador to India and many countries in between, sometimes staying in places they love for weeks at a time. The book chronicles their adventures and missteps, the people they meet, and Kim’s reflections on everything from travel to body image to her sometimes-difficult relationship with her husband.

Recommended for anyone who’s thinking of traveling long-term with a partner

I listened to Cheryl Strayed’s Pacific Crest Trail memoir while Ryan and I were walking the Camino de Santiago, which made it feel especially poignant (even though I was reminded every day of how the challenges of the Camino pale in comparison to thru-hiking!).

There are plenty of adventure memoirs out there, so why did Wild become a household name? The writing is beautiful, the stories are entertaining, and the insights are profound.

But I think it’s also because this book is fully a hiking memoir and also fully a memoir of Cheryl’s often-troubled life before the hike – and both threads are incredibly compelling. Interspersed with the PCT journey are her reflections on her unstable childhood, drug abuse, relationships, and most notably, her mother’s death from cancer at age 45.

My only gripe? That Cheryl Strayed didn’t narrate the audiobook herself! I always hate when memoirs are narrated by someone other than the author, especially when the author’s voice is already familiar.

Recommended for anyone who’s grieving, overcoming addiction, or interested in thru-hiking

5. Free Country   –  George Mahood

If funny travel memoirs are what you’re after, this is the one for you. I laughed out loud more than once while reading it, and really, I don’t see how you couldn’t. The premise? George somehow convinces his pal that it would be a fun adventure to cycle the 1,000 miles across Great Britain – with the completely absurd stipulation that they can’t spend any money.

Instead of letting the actual bike ride be enough of a challenge, they start in southern England with nothing – no bicycles, no food, not even any clothes (except their “pants,” as the British would say). The plan is to acquire those things along the way.

Throughout their journey, George and Ben make new friends, encounter all kinds of characters (or maybe they are  the characters), receive help from strangers, and get into more unlikely and hilarious situations than I can count.

George has another book called Not Tonight, Josephine , about road-tripping through the U.S., and it’s equally full of random mishaps, funny stories, and obscure places. It was also a great read, but I’d go with Free Country if I had to recommend just one.

Recommended for anyone who wants both entertainment and a reminder of the goodness in humanity

*The Kindle version of Free Country is currently available for free through Kindle Unlimited!

6. Cruising Attitude   –  Heather Poole

Heather spent 15 years working as a flight attendant, so she has plenty of fodder for this tell-all book about the job. From the strenuous training and hiring process to the high expectations and demanding schedules, being a flight attendant is not as glamorous as it might seem.

Packed with stories of drama involving passengers, pilots, flight attendants, and airlines (both in the air and on the ground), this book is as funny as it is eye-opening. Plus, it’s a quick and easy read – perfect for your next flight !

Recommended for anyone who’s ever been on a plane

7. A Thousand New Beginnings  – Kristin Addis

Kristin is the writer behind a travel blog I used to read while sitting in my office at my old job in Boston (yes, when I was supposed to be working), so I was excited when her book came out. The book follows her initial solo travel journey, a 10-month backpacking trip through Southeast Asia in her mid-20s.

Based largely on Kristin’s old journal entries, the book takes you on a day-by-day journey across Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, and the Philippines, often to places far from the tourist trail. Some of the stories that stood out to me covered a silent meditation retreat in Thailand, a wild motorcycle trip, and all kinds of scuba diving adventures. With short chapters, it’s a quick and easy read, but an inspirational one that makes both solo female travel and long-term travel feel attainable.

Recommended for anyone who’s interested in solo travel or getting off the beaten path

*The Kindle version of A Thousand New Beginnings is currently just $2.99 on Amazon!

8. How Not to Travel the World   – Lauren Juliff

Another book by a  popular blogger , this one has a decidedly different bent. Lauren calls herself a walking disaster, and after reading her travel stories, it’s easy to see why. While she’s on the road, she gets scammed, attacked by sandflies, bitten by fish, caught up in a tsunami scare, and has a host of other problems.

In fairness, maybe some of Lauren’s disasters were the result of her carelessness or her sometimes shocking level of naiveté. . But anyone who’s felt unlucky or out of their element will relate to many of the stories, and the way Lauren faces her fears and challenges herself to grow and change is enormously inspiring. By the end of the book, you can’t help but admire her.

Recommended for anyone who feels anxious or insecure about traveling

9. Turn Right at Machu Picchu   –  Mark Adams

This was the slowest read of the books on this list, but that’s only because the travel narrative is accompanied by meticulously researched historical context on Peru. Travel writing that manages to simultaneously inspire a deep sense of adventure and provide a serious education is rare, but this book pulled it off.

Mark sets out to recreate the first recorded expedition to Machu Picchu – which is a massive undertaking for someone who’d never even been camping before (!). As he travels the Sacred Valley, he relies on his guides, treks to areas rarely visited by foreigners, and learns enough history to write a book (literally). It sounds like his books on traveling Alaska and searching for Atlantis are a similar mix of historical research and adventure memoir.

Recommended for anyone who loves history or hopes to visit Machu Picchu

10. It’s Only the Himalayas   –  Sue Bedford

Sue tells the story of a year-long trip she takes with her friend Sara, partly in an attempt to escape her waitressing job and try to figure out what she wants to do with her life. In one of the more memorable sections, the two are joined by their aging fathers to trek the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal, despite all four of them being utterly unprepared. They also tour Southern Africa, study meditation at an ashram in India , and unexpectedly take part in a death ritual on Borneo.

While I have to admit that parts of the second half of the book devolved into a blur of parties, drugs, and hook-ups with little attention to the actual countries Sue and Sara visit, the first half chronicles some seriously inspiring adventures.

Recommended for anyone planning to travel long-term with a friend

11. Adventures of a Continental Drifter   –  Elliott Hester

Another funny travel memoir, this one is truly a round-the-world story. After Elliott leaves his job as a flight attendant in the wake of 9/11, he spends a year traveling solo and ends up visiting more than 20 countries. He seems to be one of those people who just keeps encountering unexpected things on the road, and he writes about it all with a self-deprecating sense of humor that you can’t help but enjoy.

The book is a series of short stories, with tales from places as diverse as Argentina, Ethiopia, and French Polynesia. It’s a quick and easily-digestible read, and each story will keep you guessing. His first book is a behind-the-scenes peek into air travel and the life of a flight attendant, and it looks like it’s just entertaining.

Recommended for anyone who’s thought of leaving everything behind to travel the world

12. All Over the Map   –  Laura Fraser

This story of a solo female traveler breaks the mold of the 20-something globetrotter, something I’m coming to appreciate more and more. When Laura turns 40 at the beginning of the book, she’s already found career success and is torn between searching for love and wanting to be independent. So, she travels, sometimes on writing assignments, sometimes for love, and sometimes simply for the adventure.

No stranger to memoirs of travel, Laura’s even better known for her first book,  An Italian Affair , which tells the beginning of her story of post-divorce travel and romance .

Recommended for anyone who dreams of travel and romance

Like I said, my “To-Read” list of memoirs about travel is never-ending – and these are some of the next ones on the list! Since I haven’t read any of these yet and can’t personally recommend them, I’m including the Goodreads rating for each one.

Catfish and Mandala – Andrew X. Pham (4/5) : After his sister’s suicide, Andrew quits his job to take a year-long bicycle trip, eventually heading to their father’s home country of Vietnam. Cycling from Saigon to Hanoi, the trip becomes his search for cultural identity.

A Cook’s Tour – Anthony Bourdain (4.1/5) : I’ve read (actually, listened to) two of Anthony Bourdain’s books and loved them both, especially Kitchen Confidential . This one was his first travel memoir, and I can’t wait to read it; I’m just sad he’ll never be able to record it.

Around the World in 80 Trains – Monisha Rajesh (3.8/5) : The title is literal – there really are 80 train journeys, covering 45,000 miles (twice the circumference of the earth). Monisha and her fiancé ride everything from Amtrak to the Trans-Mongolian to the world’s highest-elevation railway in Tibet.

Four Corners – Kira Salak (4/5) : Papua New Guinea is one of the least-visited countries in the world, and Kira spent three months traversing it solo. This is a book about places, people, and cultures you’re unlikely to read about anywhere else.

The Cat Who Went to Paris – Peter Gethers (4.1/5) : This was published in 1991, and is exactly what it sounds like. I can’t believe I haven’t read it yet. Former cat-hater Peter receives a kitten named Norton as a gift, falls in love with him, and from then on, they go everywhere together, including Paris.

What are the best travel memoirs you’ve read? Share your recommendations in the comments!

About Jen Ambrose

Jen Ambrose was born and raised in Montana, but has lived on both coasts and abroad. She and Ryan got married in 2016, and promptly got rid of their stuff, quit their office jobs, and left their Boston apartment to travel long-term. Now, they travel together (and occasionally apart) while working remotely, often housesitting along the way. Jen previously served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Rwanda and earned a Masters degree in International Development - both of which have shaped her passion for responsible tourism. She's also a yoga teacher and personal trainer, working both online and in many of the places she visits.

July 4, 2022 at 4:40 am

Heya, thanks for sharing your list and introducing me to a genre, which I’m usually not too fond of. I’ve tried Bill Bryson but couldn’t get access to his writing. The story about the waitress who ends up climbing a mountain unprepared sounds very much like me. I often run naively into travel mishaps but afterward they do make for the best stories, so I may give this one a try!

July 5, 2022 at 1:38 pm

In that case, I think you’ll definitely enjoy that one! 😀

December 1, 2021 at 2:22 pm

Thanks for sharing this list – I love these kinds of books and have already read several of those you’ve listed. (And now am adding the rest of them to my to-be-read list :o) Also I’d love to suggest my own family travel memoir – it’s about the 3+ years that my family spent living in a camper van driving from California to Argentina. “Monkeys on the Road: One family’s vanlife adventure south in search of a simpler life” by Mary Hollendoner. I’ll message you directly Jen to see if you might like to read it. If my comment is too self-promotional please delete it!

May 12, 2020 at 10:09 pm

I love this list! There’s some I’ve read and others I haven’t–the perfect list for right now when we can’t travel! Thanks for sharing (also saw that you’re a fellow Montanan from Practical Wanderlust).

May 14, 2020 at 9:13 pm

Thanks for commenting, Alex! I’m trying hard to find silver linings of the lockdowns, and reading more has definitely been one of them. 🙂 Where in Montana are you from? We both grew up in Great Falls, but Ryan also lived in Bozeman for quite a while and we love going back to visit!

May 14, 2020 at 9:22 pm

That’s so funny! I great up in Kalispell–been to both Great Falls and Bozeman many times, though. Love catching up with fellow Montanans!

May 14, 2020 at 9:36 pm

Ditto! And I’m looking forward to following your blog! 🙂

January 9, 2020 at 6:08 am

Thank you for sharing this! So many memoirs on here I have never heard of and they sound amazing. Will be checking my library for these titles now!

January 10, 2020 at 3:28 am

You’re welcome! Hope you find one you like 😀

December 22, 2019 at 10:49 pm

I really need to start reading all the wonderful books I keep hearing about, I get inspired just reading the summaries but I never seem to get around to it. That one about the guys who biked with no money sounds awesome, that’s definitely going to be the first one I check out!

If you like road trip stories, I’d recommend Chuck Klosterman’s “Killing Yourself To Live”.

January 2, 2020 at 9:22 am

Ooh, I haven’t heard of Killing Yourself to Live – thanks for the rec!

December 22, 2019 at 2:59 pm

Thanks for the great recommendations. This is a reminder that I definitely don’t read enough travel memoirs! I’ll be adding some of these to my list to keep me occupied on my 2020 travel!

December 22, 2019 at 9:45 pm

No better time to read one than on a trip! 🙂

December 21, 2019 at 6:58 pm

Can;t travel without books. Thanks for the great, great list! And keep it up!

December 22, 2019 at 2:14 am

Thanks Elsa! 🙂

December 21, 2019 at 2:44 pm

Great list! I will have to add some of those to my reading list, thanks for sharing!

December 22, 2019 at 2:13 am

Thanks for commenting! 🙂

December 21, 2019 at 2:01 pm

I feel like I already have wanderlust right now, but I’m definitely looking forward to adding these to my to-read list! The only one I’ve read so far is Wild!

December 22, 2019 at 2:12 am

I can’t believe I still haven’t read Wild!

December 21, 2019 at 10:54 am

Oh I love a book that gives me wanderlust. It was the book I am David that first inspired me to travel as a young girl.

Oh, I haven’t heard of that one – I’m going to look it up!

December 21, 2019 at 4:27 am

Travel Memoirs are an addiction of mine! I’ve read some of these but not all. I’ve just added a bunch to my list 🙂

December 22, 2019 at 2:11 am

Mine too! Usually I finish reading one book, and then add about 10 new ones on Goodreads. 😀

December 20, 2019 at 9:54 am

I’m always looking for new travel reads so this was great! Thank you for posting!

December 21, 2019 at 3:43 am

Thanks for commenting, Mary! Hope you find one you like! 🙂

December 15, 2019 at 7:55 am

Beautiful! I love your list, and I’m inspired to pick at least a couple of them and read. Thanks for sharing!

December 20, 2019 at 7:47 am

Hope you like them as much as I did! 🙂

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12 Best Travel Memoirs of All Time

There are several life-changing books that have shook my being and made me question everything I have known to be true. Written words that have pushed me to keep going, travel solo and be the woman I am today. I think it’s important to surround yourself with people who motivate and inspire you. At first, those people might be authors.

I hope you find a book on the list to get lost in and befriend whether you’re at home or on an adventure.

Note: I will update this list with every new book I fall in love with. Cheers!

This post may contain affiliate links. If you use my links, I get a small percentage without costing you a thing. Thank you for using my links and supporting my blog! xoxo

My Best Travel Memoirs List

A list of my personal favorite travel memoirs that I love and cherish. The first couple are classics, I’m sure most of you have read these BUT if you haven’t, here’s your sign!

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Wild is about a woman’s 1,100-mile solo journey across the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) . Cheryl Strayed’s journey is beyond physical; it’s a journey of self-discovery, addiction recovery, and mourning the loss of her mother. The book is relatable, inspirational, and warning: may cause you to start planning a long-ass hike . Her words are comforting and hilarious, you feel as though you are with her on her solo journey.

I am a Cheryl Strayed super-fan. I had the privilege of seeing her on stage at Travel Con . Spoiler alert: she’s even more inspirational in person!!! She also has a podcast called Dear Sugar that I love and recommend checking out!

Click here to purchase Wild on Amazon

“I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me.” cheryl strayed

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Gilbert is struck with a feeling that her perfect life isn’t so perfect. She yearns for more, more adventure, more purpose, more meaning in her life. When she can’t run away from the feeling any longer, she quits everything; her job, her marriage, and her “normal” life. She books a trip to Italy (eat), India (pray), and Bali (love) to leap out of her comfort zone and rediscover herself.

I’ve read Eat Pray twice in English, once in Spanish (language learning tip: read a familiar novel for practice!), and watched the movie about 7 times. Some say it’s a cheesy travel novel but it completely changed my life. I bought Eat Pray Love just before my first solo backpacking trip and read it during my first weeks in Lima, Peru. This book is like an old friend, a book I reread from time to time when I need the company.

Tip: I recommend reading the book before watching the movie!!! (although, this is a good rule of thumb and applies to all the books I mention!)

Click here to purchase Eat Pray Love on Amazon

“When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.” Elizabeth gilbert

Under The Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes

Under the Tuscan Sun is a classic (a travel memoir OG). The story is about Frances Mayes who discovers her husband is cheating on her. To bring herself out of a deep depression, her best friend encourages her to take a trip to Tuscany. In Tuscany, Frances ends up impulsively buying and restoring a villa in the Tuscany countryside . *sounds like a good idea right about NOW*

If you feel like visiting Italy this summer, read Under The Tuscan Sun to escape into the warm Italian culture of delicious food, delightful people, and neighborhood markets.

Click here to purchase Under the Tuscan Sun on Amazon

“Life offers you a thousand chances… all you have to do is take one.” frances mayes

Ten Years A Nomad by Matthew Kepnes

Matt took a short vacation from his 9-5 to Thailand that changed the course of his life. On this trip, he realized that living life was more than buying a car, paying mortgage, and moving up the corporate ladder. His Thailand trip inspired him to embark on a year-long trip around the world. Over 500,000 miles, 1,000 hostels, and 90 different countries later, TEN YEARS had passed .

Ten Years a Nomad is about his 10-year journey as a nomad – stories and life philosophies he has learned along the way.

Nomadic Matt is one of my idols in the travel blogging space. I bought his Business of Travel Blogging Course (highly recommend!!!) and shortly after bought his book. I think Matt’s story is worth reading especially those who want to be a nomad or travel blogger. I think it’s always a good idea to read books written by the most successful in your industry. Although it’s not my favorite on the list, I think it’s worth the read.

Click here to purchase Tens Years a Nomad on Amazon

Vagabonding by Rolf Potts

Vagabonding is LOADED with everything you would ever need to be a budget, long-term traveler. It is an information goldmine. If you are apprehensive at all about being a nomad, this book will make you buy your plane ticket, sell your shit and fly one-way to Guatemala.

Click here to purchase Vagabonding on Amazon

“And let me tell you something. That first morning, when you are in your country of choice, away from all of the conventions of atypical, everyday lifestyle, looking around at your totally new surroundings, hearing strange languages, smelling strange, new smells, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ll feel like the luckiest person in the world.” rolf potts

Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer

The synopsis is literally on the cover of the book which makes my life too easy. Anyways, this guy sells everything, gives up his entire life to live simply. By live simply, I mean he quite literally moved “Into The Wild.” *lol*

This one is a classic. The moral of the story (much like other travel memoirs) is to value experience over materialism and do whatever the hell makes you happy. Read it. It’s amazing.

Click here to purchase Into The Wild on Amazon

“Make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality, nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty.” jon krakaur

The Good Girl’s Guide to Getting Lost by Rachel Friedman

Rachel, just like many college graduates, has no idea what to do next. All her life she’s been “the good girl.” On a whim, she buys a ticket to Ireland and it changes the course of her life. She meets a free-spirited Aussie and they become fast friends. Three continents and many adventures later, Rachel finds a passion for travel, but more importantly, the ability to live in the moment.

Click here to go on an adventure with Rachel

“Before, some places just seemed too far, too difficult to reach, but once you start traveling, you never want to stop. You want to hear other people’s stories, see where they live, eat their food. You realize–and of course, it’s a cliche, but like many cliches, it’s true–the way we are all interconnected.” rachel friedman

Without Reservations by Alice Steinbach

Alice Steinbach decides she needs a change (don’t we all?). She quits her job as a journalist and buys a plane ticket to France. Her children are grown, she’s divorced, and she yearns for something different. Without Reservations details Steinbach’s yearlong adventure through Europe.

Click here to be inspired by Alice

“Women would be better off when they no longer needed men more than they needed their own independent identities…How long a time it took me after my divorce to understand that being alone is not the same as being lonely.” alice steinbach

What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding by Kristin Newman

Kristin Newman spent much of her twenties and thirties watching her best friends get married and produce babies. Not ready to settle down and in much need from an escape from her job (fun fact: she was a writer for That 70s Show!), Kristin chooses to travel the world for several weeks each year. Kristin falls in love with cultures, countries, and attractive local men. She shares the good, bad, and ugly of her adventures and sex-capades.

This was one of those books that you can’t put down. It will “ruin” your Saturday, you will cancel all your plans to finish this damn book. It takes a special author to be able to speak to you. I felt like I was Kristin’s best friend observing her life.

Warning: it may lead to sudden bursts of laughter, crying, and/or breaking up with your partner to travel the world.

Read this book if you: are almost 30 or in your 30s. You’re welcome.

Click here to buy my favorite book in the world on Amazon

“The experience also illuminated another fact: regardless of how you travel, as you get deeper into your thirties you might be the only person your age out on the road at all, whether it’s in the hostels with the twentysomethings, or on the fancy cruises with the sixtysomethings. In your fourth decade, your compatriots are mostly at home, working, raising humans, getting husbands through rehab, living for someone besides themselves.  Suckers.” Kristin newman

Bonus: Favorite Travel Memoirs Recommended By Female Travelers

Submissions from you guys. You’re the best. Thanks to everyone who contributed!!!

Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart by Carrot Quinn

Like so many people, Cheryl Strayed’s “Wild” introduced me to the idea of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Since then, I’ve read numerous memoirs about adventurers who’ve walked from Mexico to Canada. However, no book—nope, not even “Wild” itself—has captured my imagination and allowed me to so fully picture myself on the trail like Carrot Quinn’s “Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart.”

Anyone who has ever said “I want more for my life” will appreciate and admire Carrot’s last-minute decision to walk the PCT. Her stream of consciousness narration makes you feel like you’re contemplating a chilly dip in a glacial lake, summiting snow-covered mountains and crossing the storied Bridge of the Gods right alongside her. From periods and hiker hookups to getting sick and running out of supplies, Carrot doesn’t hold back while providing an honest and raw account of life on the trail.

To say Carrot is a likable narrator is an understatement. In some sections of the book, Carrot waxes philosophical about the beauty of nature and the meaning of life. Then, just a few pages later, she’s back to being a person doing her best to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Carrot’s relatability keeps me rereading and recommending this memoir. 

If you’re anything like me, the final pages will have you in tears and wishing for another 2,600 miles with Carrot Quinn.

Submitted by: Alex Wittman, Backpacking Brunette

Click here to check out Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart

It’s Only The Himalayas by S. Bedford

“It’s Only the Himalayas” by S. Bedford is a hilarious tale of two Canadian twenty-somethings traveling around southern Africa and East Asia for a year.   The subtitle says it all: “And other tales of miscalculation from an overconfident backpacker”.  Bedford dives into all the mishaps and shenanigans they got into because of the belief that they had already overcome the impossible: leaving their jobs to travel the world.  Everything else should be easy, right?  Like hiking in the Himalayas in Converse… nothing could possibly go wrong. 

This memoir resonated with me when I read it on the heels of my first big backpacking trip around Europe in 2015.  I arrived home feeling like I should visit Machu Picchu next, or tackle Kilimanjaro.  Why couldn’t I trek the Annapurna circuit without any training or fancy equipment?  I picked up this book and was delighted that someone else shared my excitement, but I quickly reigned it in as reality hit me.  I appreciated Bedford’s candor; it helped me reflect on whether there is a ‘right way to travel’.  In the end, no matter what misfortunes we as travelers bring upon ourselves, learning through travel is the best education there is.   

Submitted by: Alexandra, The Adventure Classroom

Click here to check out It’s Only The Himalayas

It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War by Lynsey Addario

It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War by Lynsey Addario is a fascinating memoir recounting Lynsey’s life as a photojournalist traveling to some of the most war-torn countries in the world. Lynsey’s courageous travels immediately drew me in – she doesn’t shy away from trying new things, being willing to fail, and walking straight into danger to pursue honest and moving journalism. She takes readers on her journey to shine a light on the lives of others – particularly women – in countries many will never get to visit.

As a young photographer, traveler, and feminist, every reread finds me more inspired by Lynsey’s ability to show how travel and photography can be hugely impactful in the world .

Submitted by: Jen, Glasses and Boarding Passes

Click here to check out It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War

Another big thank you to those who contributed! Do you love travel memoirs? Have you read any of the books listed above? Have a favorite that’s not on the list? Comment below to share! <3

Need some new podcast recommendations? 18 Podcasts for Female Travelers (Updated 2020)

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13 Comments

The Traveling Tay

I loved reading this list! So many of my personal favorites & also some new reads that I can’t wait to check out. A personal recommendation is Love with a Chance of Drowning by Torre DeRoche. Torre’s story of leaving behind normal life to sail around the world with her new boyfriend continuously inspires me to take risks!

Chills! I want to read them all!!

Thanks a lot for sharing all these interesting titles, there are a few I haven’t read yet, perfect for my summer reading shopping list 🙂

Yay! Happy reading!!

What an inspiring post, I love it! I have read “into the wild” and I have to tell you that story still shakes me today. I recently watched Eat Pray Love on TV and the wanderlust came back.

Yesss love that movie!!! 💛💛💛

Jill Robbins

I’ve heard of some of these but there are lots of new ones for me to check out. Thanks for the recommendations.

Great list. I’d better get reading, I’ve only read two (Wild, and Into the Wild). If you’re looking for recommendations I’d say: We’ll Always Have Paris by Emma Beddington, and for a classic try A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. Both great books, both very different but both loosely based around Paris.

Yeee thanks girl! 😊

My Favorite 50 Top Travel Memoirs - Fifty plus nomad

[…] are recommendations from Amazon, Smarter Traveler, Passion and Places, Courtney the Explorer, Matador Network, and CN […]

5 Travel Memoirs to Read When Your Stuck at Home – Choose 2 Wander

[…] in love with the world and has a slew of romances.  I’m excited to read this book because all reviews say it is an incredibly funny and frank book that is impossible to put […]

Mary Hollendoner

Thanks for sharing this list – I love these kinds of books and have already read several of those you’ve listed. (And now am adding the rest of them to my to-be-read list :o) Also I’d love to suggest my own family travel memoir – it’s about the 3+ years that my family spent living in a camper van driving from California to Argentina. “Monkeys on the Road: One family’s vanlife adventure south in search of a simpler life” by Mary Hollendoner. I’ll message you directly Courtney to see if you might like to read it. If my comment is too self-promotional please delete it!

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How To Write a Travel Memoir: Capturing Your Journey with Authenticity

By: Author Valerie Forgeard

Posted on May 30, 2024

Categories Travel , Storytelling , Writing

Writing a travel memoir can be a deeply rewarding experience, allowing you to share your unique journey with others.

A great travel memoir must blend your personal experiences with reflections on how the journey transformed you.

Start by recounting your life before your travels and what prompted you to embark on this adventure.

Make sure to capture the moments that truly define your journey .

These can be the challenges you faced, the people you met, or the emotions you felt.

Your memoir should not just be a list of places visited but a story of personal growth and discovery during your travels.

Organizing your memoir is crucial.

Use an outline to keep your narrative focused and engaging, guiding your readers through your transformative journey.

Visit NY Book Editors for tips on crafting an intimate and honest memoir.

Understanding the Travel Memoir Genre

Travel memoirs focus on the author’s personal experiences and reflections on journeys. They often blend detailed recollections of places visited with the emotional and transformative aspects of travel.

Defining a Travel Memoir

A travel memoir is more than just a diary or travel guide.

It combines personal narrative with an exploration of a destination’s culture , landscape, and people.

For example, My Life in France by Julia Child not only details her experiences in France but also her growth and learning during her stay.

This genre allows readers to experience the destination through the author’s eyes.

It should include vivid descriptions and engaging storytelling .

The key to a good travel memoir is the balance between recounting events and sharing personal insights and growth.

History and Evolution

Travel memoirs have evolved significantly over the years.

Early examples often focused on the exploration aspect, detailing adventures in unknown lands.

Over time, the genre has expanded to include more introspective works.

Modern travel memoirs like Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert emphasize personal transformation alongside travel experiences.

This shift highlights the autobiographical element , where the journey becomes a metaphor for personal challenges and growth.

The genre has become more inclusive, reflecting diverse voices and experiences from around the world.

Elements of a Compelling Travel Memoir

Several elements are crucial to creating a captivating travel memoir:

• A strong narrative is necessary, with a clear overarching theme that ties the experiences together.
• This theme could be personal discovery, cultural immersion, or overcoming adversity.
• Descriptive passages are essential to transport readers to the places visited.
• Authors should also weave in local details like food, music, or customs to enrich the story.
• Personal reflections and emotional honesty make the memoir relatable and engaging.

Ultimately, the goal is to connect with readers deeper, allowing them to see the world through the author’s perspective.

Preparation for Writing

Gathering material and conducting thorough research are essential first steps when preparing to write a travel memoir.

A detailed outline will help you organize your thoughts and develop a cohesive story .

Gathering Material

Start by collecting all notes, journals, and photographs from your travels. These materials will serve as the foundation for your narrative.

Write down your memories and experiences while they are still fresh in your mind.

Notes taken during the journey can capture emotions and details that might be forgotten.

Interview people you met along the way. Their perspectives can add depth and authenticity to your story.

Keep all these materials organized. Use a system that allows you to find and reference them later easily.

Research and Fact-Checking

Double-check the facts you include in your memoir.

Accuracy is important to create a believable and trustworthy narrative.

Verify dates, place names, and historical details to ensure you are presenting correct information.

Use multiple sources to confirm the accuracy of your information.

Cross-reference your notes with reputable guidebooks, travel websites, and historical records.

Research the cultural practices and customs of the places you visited.

This will help you present a respectful and informed perspective.

Fact-checking is vital, especially when writing about sensitive topics. This will enhance the credibility of your memoir.

Creating an Outline

Create a clear outline to organize your thoughts and structure your memoir:

• An outline helps you see the big picture and ensures your story flows logically.
• Start with broad chapters based on major locations or periods in your travels. Then break these down into sub-sections covering key events or experiences.
• Use bullet points or numbered lists to detail what each section will cover. This will make it easier to expand your outline into full chapters later.
• Include notes on themes and messages you want to convey.
• Discuss your emotional journey and how different experiences impacted you. This helps maintain focus and continuity throughout your memoir.

Crafting Your Narrative

When writing a travel memoir, your narrative is key. You need to create a compelling story , complete with well-developed characters, a vivid setting , and balanced pacing.

Reflect on moments of conflict and growth to engage your readers fully.

Developing the Story Arc

Start by thinking about the overall journey. You should have a clear beginning, middle, and end.

• The beginning sets up your life before the trip. Describe your motivations and what led you to travel.
• The middle should include key events and experiences during the trip. Focus on significant moments that show your growth.
• The end reflects on how the journey changed you.

This arc keeps your storytelling organized and engaging.

Building Characters and Setting

Your travel memoir should include well-rounded characters.

Aside from yourself, describe people you meet along the way.

Give readers details like physical appearances, mannerisms, and personalities. These details make characters feel real.

Also, describe the setting vividly. Use sensory details—sights, sounds, smells—to transport readers to the locations you visited. This builds a rich, immersive experience in your narrative.

Balancing Descriptive Writing with Pacing

Balancing description and pacing is crucial.

While you want to paint a vivid picture, avoid overloading readers with too many details at once.

• Use short, descriptive passages to showcase important moments or settings.
• Keep the narrative moving by focusing on the most critical parts of your story. This helps maintain readers’ interest and keeps the story flowing smoothly.

Incorporating Dialogues and Reflections

Dialogues and reflections add depth to your memoir.

Use conversations you had with others during your travels to break up narrative blocks and reveal character traits.

Reflections help you tie your experiences to personal growth. Share your thoughts and feelings about what you encountered.

Reflect on conflicts and how they shaped your journey.

This combination enriches your storytelling and engages your audience.

Writing Techniques

When writing a travel memoir, it is important to create a unique voice , use vivid descriptions , and weave in humor and emotion to draw readers into your journey.

Finding Your Voice

Finding your voice is crucial in making your memoir stand out.

Your voice reflects your personality and experiences, making your story authentic and relatable.

• Start by writing as you speak to help maintain a natural tone.
• Pay attention to your word choices and sentence structure to ensure they reflect your true self.
• Consider what makes your perspective unique.

Are you humorous, reflective, or adventurous? Emphasize these traits to create a consistent voice throughout your memoir.

Readers connect with genuine, heartfelt writing, so be sure to remain honest and true to who you are.

Show, Don’t Tell

“ Show, don’t tell ” is a fundamental writing technique.

Instead of telling readers what happened, show them through detailed descriptions and actions.

For example, instead of saying, “I was scared,” describe the physical sensations and reactions: “My heart raced, and my palms were sweaty as I stepped onto the rickety bridge.”

• Use sensory details to bring scenes to life.
• Describe the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes you encountered.

This approach helps readers vividly experience your travels alongside you, making your memoir more engaging and immersive.

Using Humor and Emotion

Incorporating humor and emotion can make your memoir more compelling.

Humor adds a light-hearted and entertaining touch to your story. It can break up intense moments and make your experiences more relatable.

Share funny anecdotes or amusing observations to keep readers smiling.

Emotion adds depth and resonance to your story.

Whether it’s joy, sadness, or awe, conveying your feelings allows readers to connect with you on a personal level.

Be honest about your emotional responses to different situations.

This openness invites readers to share in your experiences, fostering a deeper connection with your memoir.

Revolutionizing Your Draft

Improving your travel memoir draft involves rigorous self-editing and engaging with feedback to refine your narrative .

Both stages require courage and honesty to convey your message and guide readers through your journey of self-discovery.

Self-Editing Strategies

Self-editing is crucial to transforming your rough draft into a polished story .

• Start by reading your work aloud; this helps you catch errors and awkward phrasing.
• Look for consistency in tone and tense. Are you maintaining the same point of view throughout?
• Check for clarity in your narrative. Does each paragraph flow logically to the next?
• Remove unnecessary details that don’t contribute to the main story or message.
• Ensure each scene adds value to your self-discovery journey.

Next, focus on grammar and punctuation. Simple errors can distract readers from your story. Use tools

Navigating the Publishing World

Understanding the publishing world is key to getting your travel memoir out there. You need to know the market, find the right publisher or agent, and market your book effectively.

Understanding the Market

Before you publish, understand the market for travel memoirs.

Research which types of journeys and themes resonate with readers. Look at current bestsellers and note what makes them successful.

Travel memoirs that offer unique perspectives or explore new destinations often find a stronger connection with readers.

Reviews and reader feedback on existing travel books can provide valuable insights into what works and what doesn’t.

Knowing the market helps you tailor your memoir to fit current trends without losing your unique voice. This increases your chances of finding a publisher and reaching a broad audience .

Finding a Publisher or Agent

Securing a publisher or agent is a major step.

First, identify publishers and agents who specialize in travel writing. Check their submission guidelines and tailor your proposal to fit their requirements.

Platforms like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing can be useful if you decide to self-publish.

Traditional publishing offers more support with marketing and distribution, but self-publishing provides more control over your work.

Attend writing conferences and join writing groups to network.

Connecting with other writers and industry professionals can open up opportunities and offer advice on finding the right publisher or agent for your memoir.

Marketing Your Travel Memoir

Marketing is crucial once your memoir is ready.

• Start by building an online presence through a website and social media. Engage with readers and fellow travel enthusiasts to create a community around your book.
• Consider reaching out to travel bloggers and influencers who can review your book.

Positive reviews and word-of-mouth can significantly boost your book’s visibility.

Additionally, organize book readings, signings, and other events to promote your memoir.

A well-executed marketing strategy can create buzz and drive sales, helping your memoir reach a wider audience and achieve success in the market.

Digital and Alternative Publishing

In today’s world, there are many ways to share your travel memoir with a broader audience. From e-publishing and audio formats to using social media, you have many options to explore.

E-publishing

E-publishing has made it easier to get your travel memoir to readers without traditional publishing hurdles.

Platforms like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and Smashwords allow you to publish ebooks quickly.

You have control over your content, how it looks, and how it is priced.

Additionally, you can update your memoir any time to fix errors or add new content.

E-publishing is cost-effective. You save on printing and distribution.

This method can help you reach a global audience who prefer reading on digital devices.

Audio Formats and Podcasting

Another growing trend is publishing your travel memoir in audio formats.

Services like Audible allow you to turn your book into an audiobook . This can attract listeners who enjoy hearing stories while commuting or doing chores.

Podcasting is also a great way to share your travel experiences .

You can create a series where you narrate different parts of your journey, discuss specific themes, or interview other travelers.

This format offers flexibility and can help build a personal connection with your audience.

Blogging and Social Media

Blogging is a popular way to share your travel memoir digitally.

Sites like WordPress and Blogger let you post your stories and photos. You can engage with readers through comments and grow your audience base.

Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are useful for promoting your memoir.

You can share snippets, photos, and updates to keep your readers engaged.

Using hashtags related to travel writing can help your posts reach a wider audience.

Social media also allows for real-time interaction, making your travel memoir more dynamic and interactive.

Connecting with Your Audience

Connecting with your audience is essential when writing a travel memoir. You can ensure your memoir resonates well by relating to the reader, maintaining an authentic narrative, and creating meaningful engagement.

Relating to the Reader

To make your travel memoir relatable , focus on universal emotions and experiences .

Sharing personal challenges and victories helps readers see themselves in your journey.

• Discuss emotions like joy, frustration, and love encountered during your travels.
• When you describe a place , highlight its beauty and culture in a way that evokes familiar feelings.
• Ensure your writing is inclusive, inviting readers from diverse backgrounds to connect with your story.
• Simple language and clear descriptions make your experiences more accessible.

By weaving in shared human experiences, you help readers feel a connection to your story and life lessons.

Maintaining an Authentic Narrative

Authenticity is key in a travel memoir.

Be honest about your experiences, the good and the bad. According to adventurousnerd.com , telling the truth, even when uncomfortable, builds trust with your audience.

Avoid embellishing events just to make your story more dramatic.

Instead, focus on how real experiences shaped your personal journey .

Did a challenging situation teach you a valuable lesson? How did a surprising encounter change your perspective?

By staying true to your experiences, you make your narrative compelling and believable.

Creating Meaningful Engagement

Creating meaningful engagement with your audience involves more than just telling your story.

Invite readers to reflect on their own lives through your experiences.

Pose questions or provide insights that encourage them to think deeply about their own journeys.

Incorporate vivid descriptions and sensory details to help readers immerse themselves in your experiences.

For example, describing the aroma of street food or the sound of a bustling market can transport readers to those places.

As suggested by NY Book Editors, this technique creates a strong emotional connection and makes your story memorable.

Expanding Your Reach

To broaden your audience for a travel memoir, leverage social platforms, engage through readings and events , and form valuable collaborations and networking connections. These actions can significantly amplify your memoir’s impact and visibility.

Using Social Platforms

Social platforms are key for sharing your travel memoir with a wider audience.

Start by creating accounts on popular sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Share engaging content such as photos, short travel stories, and excerpts from your memoir. Posting regularly helps keep your audience engaged.

Engage with your followers by responding to comments and messages.

Join travel writing groups and communities. Here, you can share your experiences and get valuable feedback .

Consider running targeted ads to reach people interested in travel, memoirs, or both.

Engagements through Readings and Events

Hosting and participating in readings and events is another effective way to connect with your audience.

Set up readings at local bookstores, libraries, or community centers.

Share personal anecdotes and discuss the journey that inspired your memoir. Engaging with the audience makes your story more relatable.

Consider attending literary festivals and travel expos. These events attract a large number of people interested in travel writing.

Don’t forget to bring copies of your book for sale and signing. Offering a personal touch can create a lasting impression on readers.

Collaborations and Networking

Collaborating with other writers and influencers can expand your reach significantly.

• Reach out to travel bloggers, travel memoir authors, and influencers in the travel industry.
• Propose guest posts, joint social media events, or even co-hosted readings.
• Networking with others in your field helps you tap into new audiences.
• Attend writing workshops, travel seminars, and related events. These venues are perfect for making professional connections.

Networking can also open up opportunities for guest appearances on podcasts, interviews, or articles on travel blogs.

These activities can help build credibility and broaden your audience base even further.

Matador Original Series

The best travel memoirs to read while you're stuck inside.

S o the only view you have right now is the one outside your bedroom window. It’s easy to feel cramped, your longing for travel stifled by your equally strong urge to protect public health. There is a way to travel while you’re stuck indoors though. All you need is the right book. These travel memoirs, part personal journey, part travelogue to new and uncharted territories, will lead your imagination on wild adventures to places far beyond the confines of your couch. Dog sled across the arctic tundra with Blair Braverman in Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube , explore France’s culinary treasures with Julia Child by your side in My Life in France , or bicycle across continents with Dervla Murphy in Full Tilt . If you’re feeling claustrophobic escape into these stories which offer a much needed change in scenery.

1. In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin

Photo: Penguin Random House

Bruce Chatwin’s memoir of his travels through Patagonia — a rural region shared by southern Chile and Argentina — is a love letter to a wild country. He imbues strange and unfamiliar lands with a thrilling electricity. Chatwin tracks down the places where Welsh immigrants once settled and bandits roamed, his passion for adventure and history propelling his journey forward. Among the many characters Chatwin encounters are an unlikley incarnation of Butch Cassidy, a guacho posse, and a touring piano player. Credited with infusing the travel writing genre with renewed energy, as well as interest in Patagonia as a travel destination, one might feel compelled to follow in his footsteps, backpack in hand, before even turning the last page of the book.

2. My Life in France by Julia Child

In 1948, Julia Child moved to France with her husband Paul, an officer at the US Information Service at the US Embassy. She knew nothing about French cuisine — not even how to make beurre blanc . Not one to sit around feeling useless, Child enrolled at the Cordon Bleu and discovered a remarkable talent for cooking. Today, we know her as the woman who introduced French cuisine to American housewives, but this memoir tracks her beginnings. Child’s travels through France as she discovers the recipes and ingredients that would become the second greatest love of her life (Paul being the first) is a lively, vibrant tour of the Parisian palate. But it’s Child herself who makes this book sparkle: Gregarious and warm, but full of barbed opinions, she is a refreshingly honest and friendly narrator you will wish you could have dinner with the moment you close the book.

3. Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube by Blair Braverman

Photo: Harper Collins

At just 19, Blair Braverman left her home in California and moved to Norway to learn how to drive sled dogs. Quite the extreme career move. Arctic life suits Braverman, and eventually, she lands in Alaska, where she becomes a tour guide, before settling in Wisconsin with her partner (dogs in tow of course). Traversing the icy tundra with her pack of dogs at the helm is dangerous and exhausting (she finds herself stuck in caves and blizzards), but Braverman is a fearless adventurer, carving out a place for herself in a profession dominated by men. Interspersed with action-movie-esque sequences, Braverman’s memoir takes readers on a tour of a perilous yet utterly intriguing landscape.

4. Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck

Considered a classic of the genre, this memoir follows Steinbeck on a 1960 road trip across the US, accompanied by his standard poodle, Charley. Steinbeck said that after devoting his writing career to the landscape and outlook of the American people, he wanted to see the country for himself, but his son Thom claims that he actually took the trip as a sort of last hurrah, as he knew his heart was failing. Steinbeck visits Long Island, the Pacific Northwest, the Badlands of North Dakota, Maine, and the Salinas Valley in California — his birthplace — on his quest to find out “What are Americans like today.” But Steinbeck was a novelist by trade, a predilection that may have influenced his so-called memoir. Recent scholarly work has pointed out that Steinbeck may have fabricated some of the conversations in the book, and new editions contain a note warning readers that it would be a “mistake to take this travelogue too literally.”

5. The Voices of Marrakesh by Elias Canetti

Photo: Barnes and Noble

Nobel-prize winning author Elias Canetti is best known for his memoirs of childhood in pre-Nazi Vienna, but he also wrote a slim volume recording a weeks-long visit to Marrakesh in the 1950s. This vibrant recollection of his time in Marrakech is a series of snapshots: He encounters camels, buys bread, drinks at French bars — small moments that add up to an intimate, loving portrait of a city full of character. This mosaic narrative brings together the city’s Arab, European, and Jewish residents, all of whom Canetti treats with dignity and compassion. His account is full of sensory details too — how the city smells, how it’s organized, and the way its people move and congregate — resulting in a memorable (though perhaps slightly outdated) portrait of the city.

6. The Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller

In 1939, Henry Miller traveled to Greece with his friend Lawrence Durrell, a naturalist, to escape the looming Nazi occupation. Miller intended to seek out poet George Katsimbalis, the “colossus” of the book’s title. On its surface, this book pretends to be a portrait of Katsimbalis (who Miller does meet) but it’s also a travelogue. The author hops between Athens, Crete, Corfu, Poros, Hydra, and Delphi in the nine months he spent in Greece, before moving to the United States at the outbreak of World War II. Miller felt something beyond love for Greece — the place where he became “free and whole.” Poor, but full of the spirit of an adventurer, Miller sunbathes naked on a beach, visits a village with just one stove for all its residents, and marvels at the country where he wrote “God’s magic is still at work.”

7. Epic Continent by Nicholas Jubber

Photo: Nicholas Brealey Publishing

There are stories that stick with us now, and then there are stories that have stuck with humanity for centuries. We learn about them in school and we study them in college — think titles like The Odyssey , Beowulf , and The Song of Roland . Nicholas Jubber, an award-winning travel writer and author, visited the real-world locations of these and other classics (at least as close to the original location as can be determined) to see how those stories hold up today. He meets activists who tell him about how the Nibelungenlied shaped Nazi, and later neo-Nazi, rhetoric in Germany, and how The Song of Roland has influenced the way people perceive honor across northern Europe. In the Balkans, he sees the lasting impact — both positive and negative — of the lessons behind the Kosovo Cycle . Everywhere he goes, he learns a little more about himself, the stories we tell ourselves, and how stories are used to build a national cultural identity. — Nickolaus Hines

8. Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams’ quirkiness and humor is legendary, but pair it with a side of travel and you’ve got one of most joyful, fulfilling, and touching adventure memoirs out there. In Last Chance to See , Adams joins his friend, zoologist Mark Carwardine, on a trip around the world to see the last specimens of some of the most amazing and most endangered creatures on the planet, and learn what is being done to save them. Together, they travel to China to see river dolphins; to Indonesia to observe Komodo dragons; to New Zealand to see a vibrantly colored and flightless parrot; and more. Last Chance to See is hilarious, heartbreaking at times, and decidedly uplifting, and if there’s one thing we could all use right now, it’s wit, fun, escapism, and adorable animals. Note that if you can’t procure yourself the 1990 book at this time, there is an excellent 20th-anniversary version of the expedition available on Netflix featuring Mark Carwardine and Stephen Fry, which is also a great mood lifter.

9. The Consolations of the Forest by Sylvain Tesson

Photo: Rizzoli

Sylvain Tesson is a hardcore adventurer. He’s gone just about everywhere and roughed it every time. At 21, in 1993, he biked around the world with his best friend Alexandre Poussin; In 1997, he and his same friend crossed the Himalayas on foot; in 2001, he traveled around Central Asia on horseback; in 2003 and 2004, he walked from Siberia to Calcutta, India; and more. But he is no Bear Grylls — he’s not out there to prove his manliness or his ability to survive in the most extreme conditions. Instead, he travels to feel and learn the things he knows he can’t access by staying home in Paris. His most popular expedition, his living in an extremely remote cabin in Siberia for six months, is not a story of wandering adventures and significant encounters, but one of the beauty of isolation in nature in a world where solitude and wilderness are harder and harder to come by. The short novel that recounts this trip, Consolations of the Forest , is filled with sadness and fear, but it’s also punctuated by moments of intense, simple happiness. A reflection on the power of nature and self-contemplation, Consolations of the Forest is the travel memoir that will highlight the positive aspects of this time of isolation, but will also make you crave for the great outdoors for when the time that we can all get out there again comes.

10. Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle by Dervla Murphy

Photo: Eland Books

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Writing from Near and Far

Transform Your Travels Into Meaningful Memoir

How to Come Up With A Good Title For Your Travel Memoir Story

If you’re like most writers, coming up with a title can be a challenge. I try to convince myself that it  should be the fun part, the creative icing on the cake of a story well-told. But that’s often not the case.

When I’m about to submit a travel essay for publication and type the title into the cover letter, I often cringe, and then frantically try to come up with a better one. I wrote a travel memoir story about an experience I had in Morocco with an old boyfriend. We were talking to an older man also staying at our riad, and he told us his last name was Heinman. To my shock, my boyfriend said, “I’m Heinman.” His name certainly was not Heinman. I wondered why he would trick this man and say such a thing. The whole story hinges on this phrase, and so I titled it “I’m Heinman.” This makes sense, once you’ve read the story. But that’s not how titles work. They’re the words you read first, not after. It turned out that title wasn’t very appealing. Without any context, ‘I’m Heinman’ is not very evocative. It doesn’t really make the reader curious about this phrase and want to know more. Once I changed the title to “A Good Swiss Name” the essay was accepted for publication. For the change, I decided to still focus on the naming aspect of my story, but be more mysterious and evocative about it.

Here are some other tips for creating a good title:

Pick up on some key phrase or dialogue within your story, and see if that would work as an evocative title. I’ve done this with the title of a travel memoir story about to come out in The Manifest-Station . I called it ‘I Never Want to Leave Here.’ That’s a line of dialogue from the story that I felt represented the main emotional thrust and motivation of my character.

Read your favourite poet and see if you can rework a line of one of their poems that best represents the theme of your story. I used this technique for the title of  my failed novel , ‘Hungry for the World and Its Glow.’ I reworked this phrase from Freya Stark’s book The Lycian Shore . In it, she wrote “ … there was a poet who was hungry to see the world and its wonders, and fed himself with their remembered glow.” Freya Stark’s legacy featured in this book, so I thought it was fitting to be inspired by her writing for my own title.

Think of titles you love, and try to model yours after it. I did this for the title of my travel memoir. I’d heard of a book titled Zaatar Days, Henna Nights. I really liked the dual structure, the way the title such a compartmentalised experience. I finally landed on Abu Dhabi Days, Dubai Nights . This worked really well for my story because I spend the first half of the book in Abu Dhabi, and the second in Dubai. Plus, my experiences in Abu Dhabi were more innocent and fresh, and Dubai was a bit seedy and filled with nightlife.

Here are some of my favorite titles for travel memoirs and why I like them:

The Men in My Country . I like this because it’s evocative. It makes you wonder, and want to find out: who are these men? And what country is it? Why does the author feel it is hers? The first chapter of the book is titled ‘It Starts as a Name’, which is also evocative. What exactly starts as a name? And if it starts as this name, what happens next?

You could try borrowing these structures for your own titles:

The Love in These Trees The Hope in Those Stars The Pain in Those Smiles It Starts As _______ (a Wish) (a Promise) (a Kiss) It Starts with the Call to Prayer

You could try a title that describe an action, such as ‘Killing Chickens,’ which is a personal essay by Meredith Hall .

Taming Pigeons Taming Pigeons in Calcutta Counting Sand Counting Sand in Morocco

You could also try a season and a location:

A Winter in Hanoi That Spring in Prague Autumn in Mozambique

Remember, titles are easy to change. Think of evocative titles already attached to published works and try to break them down (Article, Adjective, Place Name) etc. Plug in the words that best evoke the essence of your story, and see if anything sticks. Best of luck with it!

Do you have a story about coming up with a great, or not so great, title? Please share it on the Facebook group .

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100 short memoir examples - narrative personal essays, scars by david owen, these precious days by ann patchett, the same river twice by david quammen, 50 more great articles about life, after life by joan didion, now we are five by david sedaris, feet in smoke by john jeremiah sullivan, when things go missing by kathryn schulz, 25 more great articles about death.

Love and Relationships

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Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

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Patient by Rachel Riederer

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The Unspeakable Things Between Our Bellies by Lidia Yuknavitch

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Book-Length Memoirs

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About The Electric Typewriter We search the net to bring you the best nonfiction, articles, essays and journalism

18 Essay-Length Short Memoirs to Read Online on Your Lunch Break

We scoured collections, magazines, and online journals to bring you the 18 best short memoir examples you can read over your lunch break.

Emily Polson

Emily Polson is a freelance writer and publishing assistant at Simon & Schuster. Originally from central Iowa, she studied English and creative writing at Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi, before moving to a small Basque village to teach English to trilingual teenagers. Now living in Brooklyn, she can often be found meandering through Prospect Park listening to a good audiobook. Twitter: @emilycpolson | https://emilycpolson.wordpress.com/

View All posts by Emily Polson

I love memoirs and essays, so the genre of essay-length short memoirs is one of my favorites. I love delving into the details of other people’s lives. The length allows me to read broadly on a whim with minimal commitment. In roughly 5–30 minutes, I can consume a complete morsel of literature, which always leaves me happier than the same amount of time spent doom-scrolling through my various social news feeds.

What are short memoirs? 

What exactly are short memoirs? I define them as essay-length works that weave together life experiences around a central theme. You see examples of short memoirs all the time on sites like Buzzfeed and The New York Times . Others are stand-alone pieces published in essay collections.

Memoir essays were my gateway into reading full-length memoirs. It was not until I took a college class on creative nonfiction that I realized memoirs were not just autobiographies of people with exciting lives. Anyone with any amount of life experience can write a memoir—no dramatic childhood or odd-defying life accomplishments required. A short memoir might be an account of a single, life-changing event, or it may be reflection on a period of growth or transition.

Of course, when a young adult tells people she likes writing creative nonfiction—not journalism or technical writing—she hears a lot of, “You’re too young to write a memoir!” and “What could someone your age possibly have to write about?!” As Flannery O’Connor put it, however, “The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. If you can’t make something out of a little experience, you probably won’t be able to make it out of a lot. The writer’s business is to contemplate experience, not to be merged in it.”

Memoir essay examples

As the lit magazine Creative Nonfiction puts it, personal essays are just “True stories, well told.” And everyone has life stories worth telling.

Here are a few of my favorite memoir examples that are essay length.

SHORT MEMOIRS ABOUT GROWING UP

Scaachi koul, “there’s no recipe for growing up”.

In this delightful essay, Koul talks about trying to learn the secrets of her mother’s Kashmiri cooking after growing up a first-generation American. The story is full of vivid descriptions and anecdotal details that capture something so specific it transcends to the realm of universal. It’s smart, it’s funny, and it’ll break your heart a little as Koul describes “trying to find my mom at the bottom of a 20-quart pot.”

ASHLEY C. FORD, “THE YEAR I GREW WILDLY WHILE MEN LOOKED ON”

This memoir essay is for all the girls who went through puberty early in a world that sexualizes children’s bodies. Ford weaves together her experiences of feeling at odds with her body, of being seen as a “distraction” to adult men, of being Black and fatherless and hungry for love. She writes, “It was evident that who I was inside, who I wanted to be, didn’t match the intentions of my body. Outside, there was no little girl to be loved innocently. My body was a barrier.”

Kaveh Akbar, “How I Found Poetry in Childhood Prayer”

Akbar writes intense, searing poetry, but this personal essay contextualizes one of his sweetest poems, “Learning to Pray,” which is cradled in the middle of it. He describes how he fell in love with the movement, the language, and the ceremony of his Muslim family’s nightly prayers. Even though he didn’t (and doesn’t) speak Arabic, Akbar points to the musicality of these phonetically-learned hymns as “the bedrock upon which I’ve built my understanding of poetry as a craft and as a meditative practice.” Reading this essay made me want to reread his debut poetry collection, Calling a Wolf a Wolf , all over again.

JIA TOLENTINO, “LOSING RELIGION AND FINDING ECSTASY IN HOUSTON”

New Yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino grew up attending a Houston megachurch she referred to as “the Repentagon.” In this personal essay, she describes vivid childhood memories of her time there, discussing how some of the very things she learned from the church contributed to her growing ambivalence toward it and its often hypocritical congregants. “Christianity formed my deepest instincts,” she writes, “and I have been walking away from it for half my life.” As the essay title suggests, this walking away coincided with her early experiences taking MDMA, which offered an uncanny similarity to her experience of religious devotion.

funny short memoirs

Patricia lockwood, “insane after coronavirus”.

Author Patricia Lockwood caught COVID-19 in early March 2020. In addition to her physical symptoms, she chronicled the bizarre delusions she experienced while society also collectively operated under the delusion that this whole thing would blow over quickly. Lockwood has a preternatural ability to inject humor into any situation, even the dire ones, by highlighting choice absurdities. This is a rare piece of pandemic writing that will make you laugh instead of cry–unless it makes you cry from laughing.

Harrison Scott Key,  “My Dad Tried to Kill Me with an Alligator”

This personal essay is a tongue-in-cheek story about the author’s run-in with an alligator on the Pearl River in Mississippi. Looking back on the event as an adult, Key considers his father’s tendencies in light of his own, now that he himself is a dad. He explores this relationship further in his book-length memoir, The World’s Largest Man , but this humorous essay stands on its own. (I also had the pleasure of hearing him read this aloud during my school’s homecoming weekend, as Key is an alumnus of my alma mater.)

David Sedaris, “Me Talk Pretty One Day”

Sedaris’s humor is in a league of its own, and he’s at his best in the title essay from Me Talk Pretty One Day . In it, he manages to capture the linguistic hilarities that ensue when you combine a sarcastic, middle-aged French student with a snarky French teacher.

SAMANTHA IRBY, “THE WORST FRIEND DATE I EVER HAD”

Samantha Irby is one of my favorite humorists writing today, and this short memoir essay about the difficulty of making friends as an adult is a great introduction to her. Be prepared for secondhand cringe when you reach the infamous moment she asks a waiter, “Are you familiar with my work?” After reading this essay, you’ll want to be, so check out Wow, No Thank You . next.

Bill Bryson, “Coming Home”

Bryson has the sly, subtle humor that only comes from Americans who have spent considerable time living among dry-humored Brits. In “Coming Home,” he talks about the strange sensation of returning to America after spending his first twenty years of adulthood in England. This personal essay is the first in a book-length work called I’m a Stranger Here Myself , in which Bryson revisits American things that feel like novelties to outsiders and the odd former expat like himself.

Thought-provoking Short memoirs

Tommy orange, “how native american is native american enough”.

Many people claim some percentage of Indigenous ancestry, but how much is enough to “count”? Novelist Tommy Orange–author of There There –deconstructs this concept, discussing his relationship to his Native father, his Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood, and his son, who will not be considered “Native enough” to join him as an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. “ How come math isn’t taught with stakes?” he asks in this short memoir full of lingering questions that will challenge the way you think about heritage. 

Christine Hyung-Oak Lee, “I Had a Stroke at 33”

Lee’s story is interesting not just because she had a stroke at such a young age, but because of how she recounts an experience that was characterized by forgetting. She says that after her stroke, “For a month, every moment of the day was like the moment upon wakening before you figure out where you are, what time it is.” With this personal essay, she draws readers into that fragmented headspace, then weaves something coherent and beautiful from it.

Kyoko Mori, “A Difficult Balance: Am I a Writer or a Teacher?”

In this refreshing essay, Mori discusses balancing “the double calling” of being a writer and a teacher. She admits that teaching felt antithetical to her sense of self when she started out in a classroom of apathetic college freshmen. When she found her way into teaching an MFA program, however, she discovered that fostering a sanctuary for others’ words and ideas felt closer to a “calling.” While in some ways this makes the balance of shifting personas easier, she says it creates a different kind of dread: “Teaching, if it becomes more than a job, might swallow me whole and leave nothing for my life as a writer.” This memoir essay is honest, well-structured, and layered with plenty of anecdotal details to draw in the reader.

Alex Tizon, “My Family’s Slave”

In this heartbreaking essay, Tizon pays tribute to the memory of Lola, the domestic slave who raised him and his siblings. His family brought her with them when they emigrated to America from the Philippines. He talks about the circumstances that led to Lola’s enslavement, the injustice she endured throughout her life, and his own horror at realizing the truth about her role in his family as he grew up. While the story is sad enough to make you cry, there are small moments of hope and redemption. Alex discusses what he tried to do for Lola as an adult and how, upon her death, he traveled to her family’s village to return her ashes.

Classic short memoirs

James baldwin, “notes of a native son”.

This memoir essay comes from Baldwin’s collection of the same name. In it, he focuses on his relationship with his father, who died when Baldwin was 19. He also wrestles with growing up black in a time of segregation, touching on the historical treatment of black soldiers and the Harlem Riot of 1943. His vivid descriptions and honest narration draw you into his transition between frustration, hatred, confusion, despair, and resilience.

JOAN DIDION,  “GOODBYE TO ALL THAT”

Didion is one of the foremost literary memoirists of the twentieth century, combining journalistic precision with self-aware introspection. In “Goodbye to All That,” Didion recounts moving to New York as a naïve 20-year-old and leaving as a disillusioned 28-year-old. She captures the mystical awe with which outsiders view the Big Apple, reflecting on her youthful perspective that life was still limitless, “that something extraordinary would happen any minute, any day, any month.”  This essay concludes her masterful collection,   Slouching Towards Bethlehem .

Tim O’Brien, “The Things They Carried”

This is the title essay from O’Brien’s collection, The Things They Carried . It’s technically labeled a work of fiction, but because the themes and anecdotes are pulled from O’Brien’s own experience in the Vietnam War, it blurs the lines between fact and fiction enough to be included here. (I’m admittedly predisposed to this classification because a college writing professor of mine included it on our creative nonfiction syllabus.) The essay paints an intimate portrait of a group of soldiers by listing the things they each carry with them, both physical and metaphorical. It contains one of my favorite lines in all of literature: “They all carried ghosts.”

Multi-Media Short Memoirs

Allie brosh, “richard”.

In this blog post/webcomic, Allie Brosh tells the hilarious story about the time as a child that she, 1) realized neighbors exist, and 2) repeatedly snuck into her neighbor’s house, took his things, and ultimately kidnapped his cat. Her signature comic style drives home the humor in a way that will split your sides. The essay is an excerpt from Brosh’s second book, Solutions and Other Problems , but the web version includes bonus photos and backstory. For even more Allie classics, check out “Adventures in Depression” and “Depression Part Two.”

George Watsky, “Ask Me What I’m Doing Tonight”

Watsky is a rapper and spoken word poet who built his following on YouTube. Before he made it big, however, he spent five years performing for groups of college students across the Midwest. “Ask Me What I’m Doing Tonight!” traces that soul-crushing monotony while telling a compelling story about trying to connect with people despite such transience. It’s the most interesting essay about boredom you’ll ever read, or in this case watch—he filmed a short film version of the essay for his YouTube channel. Like his music, Watsky’s personal essays are vulnerable, honest, and crude, and the whole collection, How to Ruin Everything , is worth reading.

If you’re looking for even more short memoirs, keep an eye on these pages from Literary Hub , Buzzfeed , and Creative Nonfiction . You can also delve into these 25 nonfiction essays you can read online and these 100 must-read essay collections . Also be sure to check out the “Our Reading Lives” tag right here on Book Riot, where you’ll find short memoirs like “Searching for Little Free Libraries as a Way to Say Goodbye” and “How I Overcame My Fear of Reading Contemporary Poets.”

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Memoir Revolution

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Is a Travel Memoir Really a Memoir?

by Jerry Waxler

When I started studying memoirs, my original focus were the conventional ones like Frank McCourt’s “Angela’s Ashes” or Jeanette Walls’ “Glass Castle.” At first, I didn’t understand why some travel books were sold as memoirs. Travel books weren’t about the author’s childhood, and they included a lot of journalistic descriptions of the places they were traveling through. And yet I realized they were first person accounts that let me get inside the author’s point of view and see the world.

To understand more about what goes into a travel memoir. I read a few like Doreen Orion’s travel memoir, “Queen of the Road,” and Mark Richardson’s “Zen and Now.” I’ve also dabbled in others like Tom Coyne’s walk around Ireland recounted in “A Course Called Ireland” and Rosemary Mahoney’s solo trip in Egypt, “Down the Nile Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff.”

Based on my research, I decided travel books indeed could be considered as a sort of memoir. In fact, in my perfect world, the book store would have a whole bank of memoirs and autobiographies, including sub-sections for Coming of Age, Overcoming Hardship, and Travel memoirs, to name a few. Here are a few of the features of travel memoirs you might consider when reading your next one, or planning your own.

On the road alone means inside your mind

Travel provides the fascinating unfolding, as places appear in the distance, come closer, and then whiz by, fading into the past. From this perpetual flow of locations, comes a variety of outer experience.

And while the miles disappear under the tire, hull, or shoe, the protagonist’s main activity is… nothing. With nothing to do but move your body from A to B, traveling is a sort of meditation in its own right, providing the protagonist ample time to reflect. That’s what Bob Pirsig did in his classic “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” and when Mark Richardson road his motorcycle along the same path, he too reflected about life in “Zen and Now.”

Since Doreen Orion is traveling with her husband in an RV she has other options. She can read, or banter with her husband. Considering she is a psychiatrist, I wonder if her absence of introspection is a sort of subterranean irony, a feature I have noticed throughout Orion’s entertaining approach to her material.

Wrestling with your Stuff

Traveling raises all sorts of issues about stuff. First you have make a list of what to take, buy what you need, and then pack your luggage. You have to store it somewhere and lug it along. Sometimes you can’t fit much. On his motorcycle ride, Mark Richardson could only bring a couple of pairs of underwear. When he stopped in a motel, he methodically unpacked his saddlebags, including motorcycle repair tools. Then the next morning, he packed them up again. At the other extreme, Doreen Orion packed her luxury RV with all sorts of amenities, such dozens of pairs of shoes. But even she had limits. One day she jumped in the tagalong SUV and went shopping, and when she tried to put the purchases away, she realized she had run out of room for her stuff.

Describe the people you meet

During travel, you meet people, and these meetings add character to the journey. Richardson tells about the small town girl working in the motel, and the Russian couple who own it. He describes other bikers he meets at stops, and he looks up some of the same people who had met with Pirsig during the original ride. He even stops in a town and speculates about which tree Pirsig and his son might have sat under, and asks some of the locals to help him figure it out, while Orion chats up the other campers at the RV parks – neighbors for a night.

Focus on your vehicle (boat, feet, RV, motorcycle)

In “Zen and Now” Mark Richardson focuses in detail on his motorcycle. This is a neat trick that emulates Robert Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” Both motorcyclists do an excellent job of showing how their world has collapsed down to their vehicle and the stretch of road they are on right now. By describing the motorcycle they let you feel intimately connected with their contracted world. Doreen Orion also showed us her small world by bringing inside the cab of her luxury RV in “Queen of the Road.”

Journalistic accounts of the world

In the musical “Sound of Music,” Julie Andrews walks along a country road with the kids, and suddenly they all burst into song. It’s entertaining, albeit a little out of place. Something similar takes place in a travel memoir, when the author decides to insert a little background description about something they are seeing. My quirkiest example is in Doreen Orion’s “Queen of the Road.” In a night club she visited with her husband, a girl performed a clog dance. Orion included a brief history of clog dancing. Not your typical memoir material, but it worked as a lovely way to pass the time in her company. Of course, the scenery, the towns, and the people are all fodder for the writer’s research, should they choose to add a few details about the world they are moving through.

Getting there and back is a perfect container for a story

The whole purpose of a good story is to portray a sort of journey, that takes the protagonist as well as the reader from the beginning of the book to the end. Travel memoirs turn this into a literal journey from one geographical location to another. When you insert your experience into travel, you allow your reader to go along with you as you prepare, pack, and go forth from your home. Leaving your familiar world behind, you enter a new world with different rules and make progress through obstacles. This allows for the curiosity and adventure of discovery, as well as the contrast with the familiar. At the end, you complete the journey, providing the appropriate metaphorical as well as circumstantial ending.

By breaking the protagonist out of the daily grind, travel memoirs still provide plenty of room for an inner journey, too. Under the stress of confusing situations, or the tedium of the passing miles, or the curiosity of new observations, travelers discover new things about themselves. As the outer miles go by, the inner journey is also underway, making the travel memoir an excellent framework for writing about life.

For discussion about some of the classic memoirs, see my essay, “ Why so many memoirs about dysfunctional childhood? ”

More memoir writing resources

To see brief descriptions and links to all the essays on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

19 thoughts on “ Is a Travel Memoir Really a Memoir? ”

Try reading John Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charly”. This is the story of his trip all around America in a camper with his dog Charly. Excellent writing and quite funny.

Very interesting. I agree. Many of people’s travels are less about the places and more about their personal experience with the place. That’s very memoir!

– Chas http://chas.willowrise.com

Thanks for the comments, Steve and Chas.

Yes, I read Travels with Charlie years ago, and I can still remember his warm relationship with his dog, and some really good laughs. I ought to read this again someday, and see how it fits in with the current wave of memoir writing.

One of the most fascinating observations I have seen in travel memoir comes from Dayton Duncan’s Out West, which follows the path west that Lewis and Clark had traveled 200 years earlier. Once he gets to the Pacific, he remembers he has to go back home, and his personal, physical trip becomes a metaphor for life generally and for the progress of America itself. He sees for the first time that “we [as Americans] are still trying to come to grips with the realization that the journey out gets us only halfway to a final destination.”

After talking about American initiative and knowhow, Duncan makes this sobering observation: “We have pushed forward relentlessly, with great things to accomplish and in a rush to get there and do them. Our national Road Rule has been to proceed on, to keep moving and never stop unless there was no alternative. . . . Then we hit the coast, the frontier closed. We had to turn back, and turning back is a new and different national experience. Success and progress have been defined by moving on; turning back was failure. ”

The amazing thing about all travel literature is that in moving from point A to point B the writer can carry us from mental point A to mental point B and give us the tools for our own progression through life.

Thanks Gene. I love that Dayton Duncan’s memoir follows Lewis and Clark, analogous to the way Mark Richardson followed Robert Pirsig. It sounds like a terrific technique for a memoir writer. And for a memoir reader provides all kinds of multi-dimensional tools to get insights through a series of historical reflections. Now let’s see. Whose journey should I follow when I write my memoir…

I am the author of the newly released “Travel Absurdities” which is full of recollections of my travels from the age of nine to now, at 60. It is a memoir about humorous mishaps that happened to me along the way. Through my writing I try to tell others about the small world we live in, for instance; my daughter found something that belonged to me when I lived in Washington State and she discovered it in Turkey. I share the oddities of bathrooms around the world, how our food appears to others and much more. Hopefully my book will spark a little “Nomadity” in others or just let them, as armchair travelers, experience some of the world.

Thanks for letting me share my view of why we write travel memoirs as well as discriptions. I think when you talk travel you have to discribe somethings in detail.

Jerry, according to my Random House Webster’s College Dictionary, “A memoir is a record of events based on the writer’s personal observation.” That’s exactly what I did in my travel/memoir book “Memoirs of an American Housewife in Japan.” I write about my experience living in rural Japan, 75 miles northwest of Tokyo, the people, their homes, their educational system, their social customs, my humorous faux pas committed due to my ignorance, my travels inside Japan and other fascinating Far Eastern countries such as Malaysia, Southern China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand. I write in detail about my personal experience in these countries. I leave the lodging and food to Fodor’s travel books. Thanks for letting me set the record straight, at least in my view.

Thanks, Pauline. This sounds fascinating.

My memoir is about my travels through South America as a fresh-faced 19 year old in the early 70’s. Thanks for this article; it’s so true and very helpful. And waves at Jerry Waxler!

Thanks for the waves, Sharon. I’m glad you find the site useful. It sounds like your travels coincided with your coming of age, which also coincided with crazy times in our culture. I can’t wait to read it.

I’ve been reading more of your blog, and I find there are several parallels in our lives; I too dropped out and, after a trip to India, back in again! People tend to think of India as th eplace where people totally let go of reality; for me it was the opposite.

Thanks, again, for reading the blog, Sharon. That’s what it’s here for. Over the three years since I started, I have lost track of how much about myself I’ve written, since my emphasis is on helping readers write their own. So I’m actually fascinated to learn that you know I went to India, naturally a prominent feature in my memoir-in-progress. Well, your comment gets to the heart of the sixties – the whole 60’s idea of dropping out was so darn impractical, and yet, there were many lessons that were learned during those attempts at reinventing reality. I just heard an interview on television yesterday (chairman of Xerox Corp.) about how the boomers were often seen as self-involved, but maybe over the next couple of decades we’ll find ways of giving back. Certainly telling our stories is one way to do that. Jerry

Very interesting. Thanks for the essay. I was wondering when the term “travel memoir” was coined. Who used it first to describe/review which book?

Andrew, After receiving comments, I often go to check out their authors. I enjoyed discovering your website, and Amazon reviews, and as a result am ordering one of your memoirs. I am also fascinated by your earlier acclaimed memoir, Catfish and Mandala about your bicycle trip through Vietnam, and hope (wish) to have time to read that too. Vietnam played an important role in my life, since I tried to hurl myself against the machine that was creating the war. Now, in my passion for memoirs, I have hurled myself with equal vigor into the search for wisdom. Books about those periods, written from other people’s points of view, are giving me a more complete understanding than I ever dreamed I would be able to achieve. If you are interested, check out my other travel related essays. Click here for one about a bicycle ride through Vietnam by a group of war veterans in this essay. Jerry

P.S. In answer to your question about travel memoirs in general, I suppose they started from the beginning. Any time someone wrote about their travels, for example Herodotus or Marco Polo, it became a travelogue. Perhaps the thing that differentiates a travelogue from a memoir is that during a memoir, the character learns and grows. The protagonist in a memoir has a character arc. Click here to see my essays on Japan took the JAP out of me by Lisa Steinberg-Cook. It’s a great example of such a memoir .

Thank you for sharing your experiences, Jerry. I enjoyed reading about that ride by those vets.

And thank you for your kind words, Jerry, and for addressing the question. I’ll put it to my students. We’ve been debating the term “travel memoir” for some time.

Andrew X. Pham

I found this blog while trying to clarify ‘memoir’ and whether my travel musings fit – i found my answer! Thank you.

Thanks for stopping by Helena. I’m glad I was able to help! I stopped by your blog. Nice work.

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