9 travel books to add to your radar, from memoirs to coffee table tomes

Travel memoirs. Coffee table books with photos of sweeping mountain vistas and beachy oases. Nonfiction texts about the fascinating history of a town you didn’t know you needed to know. There’s no shortage of amazing travel books out there, especially now.

To help you pick your next great read, we turned to travel experts to share their favorite recent book recommendations. Read on for their favorite travel books to spark your wanderlust for 2023 and beyond.

Originally published in 1977 and re-released in 2021, this book proves how travel can expand our worldview. “Tété-Michel Kpomassie was the first African to visit and live for an extended period of time with the Greenlandic Inuit in the 1960s,” says Lolá Ákínmádé, a visual storyteller, travel photographer, and international bestselling author of In Every Mirror She's Black. “Tété has subsequently visited several times over the last 60 years, and inspired a new generation of travelers and storytellers of African descent, including myself, to explore more remote regions of our world.”

Lauren Dutton-Breen, director of communications and public relations for Four Seasons Resort Los Cabos at Costa Palmas, says the best travel book to come out of 2022 is Jessica Nabongo’s debut work. Nabongo is the first Black woman on record to have traveled to all 195 countries in the world and Dutton-Breen calls her book “a must-read for all the travel junkies out there.” She adds, “How many of us ask our well-traveled friends and family—where is your favorite place you’ve ever traveled? Imagine being able to ask someone who has literally been everywhere. It is like buying a passport that unlocks the world’s best-kept travel secrets.”

A deep dive into the weird and wonderful world of Icelandic museums, this quirky book is a favorite of Sebastian Modak, editor-at-large for Lonely Planet (he also spent 2019 circumnavigating the globe as the 52 Places Traveler for The New York Times). “By focusing on this one aspect of Icelandic culture, Greene reveals so much about the place, its people, and its history,” says Modak. “But, like the best travelogues, there are more universal truths revealed as well: about the human instinct to collect and preserve. It’s one of those rare reads that is as fun as it is thought-provoking.”

Writer, podcaster, and author Rachel Schwartzmann was deeply moved by Suleika Jaouad's memoir, Between Two Kingdoms, which came out in February 2021 and chronicles her battle with leukemia and subsequent road trip across the United States. “Jaouad's story reminds us that travel is vital to our humanity, and her honesty and wisdom are present on every page,” says Schwartzmann. “As she writes in the book: ‘I want to be in motion—to figure out a way to unmoor myself, to thrust myself into the greater expanses of the world. Not because I have a particular hankering to explore, but precisely because I've grown afraid of the world and my ability to navigate it alone. I want to expect nothing. To ask for nothing. To depend on no one. To find out what lies on the other side of the in-between place. To start living again.’”

This cookbook just came out in November 2022 but has already earned the number one spot on Amazon’s bestseller list in the “Chinese Cooking, Food, and Wine” category, thanks in part to fans like Hawaii-based food and travel writer Rachel Ng. Reading more like a travelogue than a traditional cookbook, the work highlights the diaspora of Chinese cuisine from China to Taiwan, as well as the suburbs of New York and New Jersey, says Ng. “The Leung family—Bill, Judy, and their daughters Sarah and Kaitlin—takes readers on a journey through food—grilled lamb skewers from a street vendor in Flushing, Queens; farmhouse pork stir-fry from a rural village near Beijing; and classic scallion pancakes from Shanghai.”

“I always love a good mystery, so when I came across The Fire Thief I couldn’t wait to dive in, especially after seeing it was the first of a series based in Maui,” says Lori Michimoto, a travel public relations consultant who resides in Honolulu. “The author showed a deep understanding of Native Hawaiian and local culture, and seamlessly wove it into the story.” If you get sucked into this book, the other two in the series—The Bone Field and The Lava Witch—are already out as well.

This 2021 book is a must-read for rail-travel enthusiasts like Todd Powell, CEO and co-founder of Vacations By Rail. “If someone is looking for a place to start their adventure of ‘collecting’ the world's most fabulous rail experiences, this is a perfect starter list,” he says. Plus, it makes a great companion book to Rajesh's 2020 release, Around the World in 80 Trains: A 45,000-Mile Adventure.

This list wouldn’t be complete without one of 2021’s hottest works of fiction. “Set in 1954, [the book follows] four boys on a road trip that turns into a surprising tale of adventure, friendship, and mischief,” says Sophia Lin, Google Search’s general manager of food. “I couldn't put it down—it's an instantly immersive read with rich storytelling, whimsical dialogue, and utter suspense. The ending left me speechless.”

In this book, released in the spring of 2020, Lonely Planet’s “nomadic experts” reveal their insights on living and working from anywhere. “With the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more people have begun the transition to remote work, and combine leisure travel with business travel,” says Alex Miller, founder and CEO of UpgradedPoints.com. “It’s no secret that this lifestyle is here to stay, and this book really serves as the guide for how to work and travel remotely successfully.”