Identifying the Best Travel Books

Posted by Adam Williams Aug 13, 2008

Travel books have their list of classics like any other genre.

The same titles often roll off the tongues of travel enthusiast after travel enthusiast.

Often enough that's with fantastic reason: the writing, the adventure, the voice, the experience, the true-life fantasy is so gripping it deserves the high acclaim and readership.

But just because others have voted these books onto the various "Best Travel Books Ever" lists put out by magazines, travel guidebook publishers and Web zines, doesn't mean you will think it's the greatest ever.

After all, many of those lists don't even agree with each other. They overlap here and there, but they don't necessarily agree. So to get you started, I've worked through some of those disagreements for you, helping you straight to the fan-voted top of the pile.

I've taken five of the top list-making travel publications out there, cross-referenced their favorite book titles and come up with what the most frequently voted ones are. I've outlined them in two articles (a third one will be published next week): 10 Greatest Travel Books of All Time and Another Five Best Travel Book Classics.

After that, you're going to have to give the books you choose a look-over for yourself. If you agree or disagree with what the general travel reading population out there says, leave a comment here.

We can keep a running tally of Suite101 travel readers' favorites and least favorites -- and then dub that list the new bestest "Best Travel Books Ever" list.