Explore our curated collection of travel & adventure book reviews and recommendations.
Susanna Janssen's memoir recounts her 1979 solo leap into South America — trading her Sacramento apartment and part-time jobs for an unscripted continental adventure with a fellow young woman traveler, long before GPS, smartphones, or the internet could cushion the fall. Blending near-disaster, cultural immersion, and humor, the book has drawn praise from Midwest Book Review and a chorus of fellow authors for going well beyond travelogue territory.
Jul 14, 2026
Birkenstocks in the Cordillera: A Journey Home Through the Philippines' Northern Highlands is a self-published travel memoir by LJ Baqutoy, released in April 2026 as the opening entry in the Travel Memoir of Shared Discoveries series. The book chronicles Baqutoy's personal journey through the Cordillera region of the northern Philippines, framing travel as a form of homecoming and cultural discovery. This review is based on the book's content as described by the publisher and its published record; it does not reflect hands-on use or a firsthand read.
Jul 8, 2026
Three Sticks is a self-published coming-of-age fantasy novel — the first in a planned three-book series — written by David R Anderson, illustrated by Tim Cleary, and edited by Steve Anderson. Told through the eyes of Sten, a self-conscious seventeen-year-old half-elf navigating a childhood injury, village life, and an unexpected journey into the Wild, the book draws on Anderson's decades of love for the genre, rooted in his Dungeons & Dragons-playing teenage years in small-town Minnesota. Reader reactions on Amazon point to an entertaining cast, a well-paced plot, and a tone that balances heroic adventure with humor and heart.
Jul 15, 2026
K. Lang-Slattery's Wherever the Road Leads chronicles the two-year, 39,000-mile journey she and her then-husband Tom undertook in a Volkswagen microbus across four continents between 1971 and 1973 — a genuine adventure in marriage, endurance, and discovery, brought to life with personal photographs, maps, and the author's own illustrative drawings.
Jul 15, 2026
Be Ready When the Luck Happens is a #1 New York Times bestseller in which Ina Garten — the Barefoot Contessa, author of thirteen bestselling cookbooks, and beloved Food Network personality — charts her remarkable journey from a difficult childhood through her unexpected rise as a culinary icon. Named a Best Book of the Year by critical coverage, Time, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Town & Country, the memoir reveals that the effortlessness Garten projects on screen was hard-won through decades of courage, tenacity, and well-timed risk. Available as an unabridged audiobook narrated by Garten herself, with a release date of October 1, 2024 from Random House Audio, it runs 8 hours and 47 minutes.
Jul 7, 2026
Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life is a self-help and wellness guide by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles that draws on interviews with centenarians in Okinawa — one of the world's recognized Blue Zones — to explore the Japanese concept of ikigai, or "reason for being," as a framework for a longer, more meaningful life. A multimillion-copy international bestseller published by Penguin Life, the book synthesizes lessons on diet, movement, community, work, and purpose into an accessible format praised by Publishers Weekly for its use of lists, charts, and illustrations. This review is based on the book's contents as described by published sources, not hands-on application.
Jul 15, 2026
Sophie Matterson's The Crossing is a memoir about a thirteen-month solo journey undertaken in 2020, during which the Brisbane-based adventurer walked 4,750 kilometres across Australia with five wild camels — Jude, Delilah, Charlie, Clayton, and Mac — from Shark Bay in Western Australia to Byron Bay in New South Wales. Published by Allen & Unwin, it is a candid account of endurance, self-discovery, and unexpected love, and it earned Matterson the 2022 Australian Geographic Spirit of Adventure Award.
Jul 14, 2026
Steinbeck's travelogue recounts his 1960 road trip across the United States in the company of his standard poodle, Charley — a journey driven by the Nobel laureate's conviction that a writer who earns his living depicting America ought to know it firsthand. This review is based on the book's published record and critical reception, not hands-on use or reading.
Jul 7, 2026
Mike Nixon's memoir, published by Palmetto Publishing in October 2022, traces his journey from a nineteen-year-old introvert working at a Comfort Inn motel in Hampton Roads, Virginia, dreaming of a bigger life, to a man who spent fourteen years traveling more than thirty countries. The book is equal parts travel narrative and coming-of-age story, grounded in Nixon's real-world stops — studying in the Dominican Republic, volunteering with the Peace Corps in Paraguay, working for an NGO in Nicaragua, and serving as a U.S. Navy sailor stationed in Japan. Reviewers at Independent Book Review describe the storytelling as conversational and unembellished, and the memoir's throughline — that human connection makes life worthwhile — gives it genuine emotional weight alongside its sense of adventure.
Jun 28, 2026
Paul Mckee's Kentucky Bucket List Adventure Guide is a travel reference guide published by Bridge Press (October 2021) that catalogs more than 100 offbeat destinations across Kentucky, pairing each entry with practical logistics—driving instructions, GPS coordinates, best visit times, weather notes, and estimated expenses—to help readers plan real trips rather than simply daydream about them. This review is based on the book's documented contents and available published information, not hands-on use in the field.
Jun 26, 2026
Kate Harris's debut travelogue Lands of Lost Borders is a richly layered account of a nearly yearlong bicycle journey along the ancient Silk Road, winner of the 2019 RBC Taylor Prize, and praised by travel writer Pico Iyer as "a modern classic." Published by Dey Street Books, it fuses adventure narrative, natural history, and meditation on borders — geographic, political, and personal — into a work that stands as one of the more ambitious debut memoirs of its era.
Jun 25, 2026
Rachel Friedman's memoir chronicles how a self-described "good girl" — a college graduate with no post-graduation plan and a lifelong habit of playing it safe — impulsively bought a ticket to Ireland and ended up on a two-year, three-continent journey that reshaped her understanding of herself and the world. Published by Bantam in 2011, the book traces her arc from Galway to Sydney to South America alongside her free-spirited Australian friend Carly, delivering an honest account of what it costs — and yields — to abandon the perfect plan.
Jun 23, 2026Search
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