but you don't know what travel book to read.

Don't worry. You're in the right place.

Whether you're back home and in need of inspiration,

curious about a destination, or

just have a really long flight ahead of you,

this video will help you find the travel read for your travel need.

I'm Alex. I'm Marko, and yo are watching Vagabrothers,

your go-to guide for travel tips, vlogs, and inspiration here on YouTube.

We travel a lot; we read a lot.

In this video we're going to be sharing with you

the books we feel every traveller should read.

There're links to all the books we mention in the info box.

If you find this video useful, give it a big thumbs-up,

share it with your travel buddies,

subscribe to Vagabrothers,

and turn on notifications, if you have not already.

Without any further ado, you're watching Vagabrothers,

and these are the best travel books of all-time.

Let's begin with the most classic travel book of all time:

The Odyssey

Written in the eight century B.C,

it is the sequel to the oldest work of western literature:

The Illiad

and it recounts hero Odysses' return from the Trojan War,

which was supposed to be a short trip back to his homeland of Ithaca,

turns into an epic ten year adventure.

It is a classic, and it will make you think twice about complaining next time your flight's delayed ten minutes...

because it could be ten years!

Next up: a book that inspired this channel

Vagabonding by Rolf Potts.

This book showed us a new approach to travel,

something that did not have to be postponed until you

might be too old to enjoy it,

but something that could be done right now

for a lot cheaper than you think.

This book is both practical, inspirational,

and highly recommended by us....

required reading for any Vagabuddy.

But the granddaddy of America Vagabonds

has to be Henry David Thoreau

who graduated from Harvard about two hundred years

ago -and rejected society's expectations-

to go live in a cabin in the Massachusett's woods

that he built with his own two hands.

#cabinporn.

Thoreau worked just a couple weeks a year

in order to buy the essentials that he needed

in order to spend the rest of the year walking, writing,

and thinking deeply on the meaning of life.

His writings on frugality are required reading

for anyone who wants to work less and live more.

Wild is the true story of Cheryl Strayed who

attempts to recover from the death of her mother

and a divorce by walking a thousand miles

along the Pacific Crest Trail,

from California's Mohave Desert to

the border of Canada.

Cheryl did it completely alone with

no training and comes uncomfortably close to some

very dangerous encounters along the way.

Her story of perseverance became an instant best seller,

and was turned into a feature film staring Reese Witherspoon in 2014.

I haven't seen too many movies from Reese Witherspoon lately,

so maybe she decided to pack it up

and hike the P.C.T. by herself.

A nice contrast to Wild is A Walk in the Woods.

Bill Bryson's hilarious account of his two thousand mile

back country journey from Maine to Georgia

along the Appellation Trail.

Bryrson is a great travel companion.

He is a reluctant adventurer with a very rye sense of humor

complemented with his descriptions of the history

and ecology of the places he's passing,

not to mention his unforgettable characterizations

of the people he meets along the way.

Few writers have achieved the legendary status

of Jack Kerouac, the restless vagabond novelist

who broke free from the confining shackles of 1950s America

to found The Beat Generation,

the counter-culture predecessors to The Hippy Movement.

My favorite of Kerouac's novels is the Dharma Bums

about his search for Zen Enlightenment in California's Sierra Nevadas Mountains.

But his most popular book is On The Road,

a slightly fictionalized version of his travels

across post war America, looking for weed, wine, women, and jazz.

Kerouac's tales of hitchhiking, rough camping and truth seeking

redefine what it means to be young, free, and full of soul.

Marco Polo is perhaps the most famous traveler of all-time.

Marco Polo was born in Venice, Italy in 1254.

The son of a merchant, he left Italy to travel

across all of Asia overland, eventually

becoming the guest of the Mongol emperor of China, Kublai Khan,

and returning to Europe 24 years later

to tell the story to Europeans who knew virtually

nothing of the outside world.

Marco Polo's books sparked Europe's interest in China and India,

and on the upside, gave me my nickname.

This book is interesting because these days

there's no shortage of Chinese tourist in Venice or

Italians on the Great Wall of China.

It was an historic encounter, but if you cannot

get into the original text, check out the

two-part series on Netflix.

It's dramatized, can be boring at times, but it puts

this historic encounter of east and west into some colorful perspective.

Not long after Marco Polo comes a similar story from the other side of the Mediterranean.

Ibn Battuta, a 21 year old legal student from Morocco

goes on Pilgrimage to Mecca and returns 24 years later.

His travels take him all across North Africa,

Egypt, the Middle East, the Caspean Sea

India, China, and South East Asia.

The Travels of Ibn Battuta is a fascinating insight into the medieval Muslim world

from a perspective that we very, very rarely hear in the west.

The Alchemist is like a fictionalized inspirational version of the real life story of Ibn Battuta.

It tells the story of Santiago, a boy from Southern Spain,

who one night dreams about the pyramids in Egypt

and sets off on a journey across North Africa to see them.

It is fictional, but the lessons about how life is a journey

will resonate with anybody seeking a deeper purpose in life.

Pico Iyer bursts into the ranks of travel writing history

with his 1989 travel log:

Video Night in Kathmandu.

Iyer was born in Britain to Indian parents and raised in California.

And his third culture upbringing lends his travel essays

incisive insight into foreign cultures.

This book is a post-modern classic tale

of his journeys from Bali to Burma

and all the backpacker dives in between.

To get a better taste of Iyer, check out his Ted Talk,

Where Is Home? Really insightful.

Another classic on backpacker culture in Asia is

Holy Cow by Sarah MacDonald.

A journalist who follows her lover to New Delhi

and goes through all the stages of culture shock

so you don't have to.

But the definitive travel book about India has to be

the one thousand page Shantaram,

an epic story based on the true life of author Gregory David Roberts,

a former criminal who escaped from maximum security prison in Australia

to hide in the slums of Mumbai

eventually joining the Indian underground mafia

and smuggling guns to rebels in Afghanistan.

To learn more about this book and how it changed my life, personally,

go check out the review I did on my second channel, the Marko Book Club.

There's a link in the info box.

But arguable the most talented and prolific travel writer of the last century

must be Paul Theroux

whose most well known book, The Great Railway Bizarre

is a travel log about the most epic train journey of all time.

From London to Tokyo via the Trans-Siberian, the Kyber Pass Local, and the Orient Express.

Theroux has a unique style that blends astute

observations with wordy dialogue and a misanthropic world view

that makes him the doer traveler that you hate to love

Next up we have Eat Pray love, one woman's search for everything across

Italy, India, and Indonesia.

Eat Pray Love is the true story of how author

Elizabeth Gilbert dealt with a midlife crisis

divorce and depression by selling all her possessions,

quitting her job and hitting the road for a year of solo travel.

As the story progresses, Elizabeth finds herself by eating in Italy,

studying with a guru in India,

and eventually finding love and balance in Bali.

You've already heard all the jokes about it, but

now it's time for you to read the book.

Not all tales have a happy ending.

Into The Wild is a true story of Chris Mccandless,

a young American who abandoned the life of privilege

in order to hitchhike across the country in search of freedom,

only to be discovered dead in the wilderness of Alaska a few years later.

Written by adventure journalist Jon Krakauer and adapted into a major motion picture by Sean Penn,

this book is powerful, sad, and also not one to get your mom before your next solo trip.

Trust me.

Far more funny is Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain's

hilarious dispatches from a steam ship trip to Europe

and The Holy Land shortly after The American Civil War.

Twain lapoons his countymen's provincialism in a way

that many modern readers read as racist.

But the book's ultimate conclusion is Twain's most famous quote:

that travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrowmindedness.

Innocents Abroad is Twain at his funniest

and is a guaranteed laugh even 150 years later.

Another funny read is Winterdance,

the story of what happens when a total rookie

attempts the world's toughest endurance race the Iditarod,

1150 mile winter dog sled race across the frozen tundra of Alaska.

Our dad read this story to us when we were kids, and we are still joking about it today.

Definitely worth the read.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

is the fictional story of a fervent Baptist missionary family from Georgia

who moves to to the Belgian Congo in the 1950s.

Three decades abroad challenge their faith, their unity, and their preconceptions

about Africa and America's role abroad.

Hopefully, It will challenge yours, too.

Also set in Africa, but very, very real is

the Angry Wind, my favorite travel log from one of my favorite travel writers,

Jeffrey Tayler.

Jeff is a polyglot, an intellectual giant and a

talented journalist who has canoed down the Congo,

rafted through Siberia, and in this book traveled across

the Muslim nations of the Sahara by camel

shortly after 911.

Jeff blends current events, history, and adventure like non other.

Read any of his books and you're guaranteed to learn something about our planet.

In the same vein is Four Corners, by Kira Salak,

the amazing story of the first woman to solo travel across the entire length of Papua New Guinea.

She does it on foot and in canoe,

and that alone is an incredible feat.

But to be done by a 24 year old solo female traveler

makes it that much more amazing.

Next up we have Jupiter's Travels by Ted Simon.

Jupiter's Travels is widely regarded as one of the best motorcycle

travel books of all time.

Jupiter's Travels tells the true story of Ted Simon's

four year 126,000 K journey through

forty five countries on a 1970's Triumph Tiger.

He starts in Europe and makes his way all the way back

via the Hippy Trail in Afghanistan and the wilds of Kenya.

If you are in the mood for a two wheel travel log,

this is the book for you.

But we can't forget the Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto Che Guervara

The collective journals of Che's infamous journeys from

Buenos Aires to Florida on a 1939 Norton motorcycle.

The book traces the experiences that transformed him

from a 23 year old medical student in Argentina to

an armed revolutionary in Cuba willing to fight for the poor

and die for a unified Latin America.

Barbarian Days is a new book by surfer, journalist and war reporter, William Finnegan.

The book chronicles William Finnegan's experiences as a

first generation surf explorer.

He grew up in the 1960s in Hawaii