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Associated Press

Despite travel bans and self-isolating, there is still a way to feed our wanderlust and explore the world beyond our living room.
We’re talking about travelogues, books that transcend time and place and bring the experience of travelling to the reader.
Tag-along with fellow travellers or spend time with ex-pats chronicling their own experiences visiting and living in popular tourist destinations as well as out-of-the-way places.
We have rounded up a selection of travel books to transport you to another world, from the safety of your home.

1. Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar, by Paul Theroux
This travel writer’s works have spanned the globe and decades.
Don’t let coronavirus get you down: plan your next holiday now
In this book, Theroux recreates his 25,000-mile journey, stopping in some of the places he originally chronicled in his classic, The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia, including Turkey, Sri Lanka, China, Japan and Siberia.
Other travel books by Theroux include travelling around China in Riding the Iron Rooster, through the Americas in The Old Patagonian Express and Africa in Dark Star Safari.
You will not regret going on these magical journeys with him.

2. The Places in Between, by Rory Stewart
A British diplomat and politician, Stewart chronicles his almost-solo walk across north-central Afghanistan in 2002. (He adopted a travelling companion, his dog, a retired fighting mastiff called Babur, along the way.)
Stewart also wrote the travelogue The Marches: A Borderland Journey Between England and Scotland, chronicling his walk along the borderlands of England and Scotland with his 89-year-old father.

3. In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson
In this travelogue, Bryson explores Australia via railway and car. Through conversations with Australians, the author goes beyond the beaten tourist path, writing on the culture and history of the country.
Other travel books by Bryson include his look at Great Britain in Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail and Bill Bryson’s African Diary.
4. Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time, by Mark Adams
The writer recounts his attempt to re-create the 1911 Peruvian expedition of American explorer Hiram Bingham III, who travelled into the Andes in search of the lost city of the Incas.
Adams also wrote Tip of the Iceberg: My 3,000-Mile Journey Around Wild Alaska, the Last Great American Frontier.

5. A Year in Provence, by Peter Mayle
The British author writes of his experience moving his wife and two large dogs into a 200-year-old stone farmhouse in Lubéron in Southern France. Readers are transported to a Provencal life that includes goat racing, regional cuisine and a slower pace.
Other travel books by Mayle include the food-centric French Lessons and Encore Provence: New Adventures in the South of France.

6. Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before, by Tony Horwitz
The late Pulitzer Prize-winning writer took to the seas to retrace the voyages of 18th-century British explorer Captain James Cook. Horwitz brings the travels of Cook to life by signing on as a working crewman aboard a replica of Cook’s vessel.
Other travel books by Horwitz include A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World and One for the Road: An Outback Adventure.

7. Eat Pray Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia, by Elizabeth Gilbert
A major life change led the 30-something author to go on this epic year-long quest that included a bit of continent-hopping. Gilbert’s memoir focused on the aspects of pleasure in Italy, devotion in India and a balance between the worldly and the divine in Bali.
While Gilbert is not known as a travel writer, her book Big Magic, a handbook to send readers on a creative journey, is equally adventurous.

8. Under the Tuscan Sun, by Frances Mayes
Food and travel writer Mayes takes readers along with her and her husband to Italy after they bought and restored an abandoned villa called Bramasole in the Tuscan countryside.
Other books by Mayes include A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveller, chronicling her travels to such places as Spain, Britain, Greece and North Africa, and See You in the Piazza: New Places to Discover in Italy.

9. In Xanadu: A Quest, by William Dalrymple
The historian traces the path taken by Marco Polo 700 years earlier from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem across Asia to Xanadu, the summer palace of Kublai Khan.
In addition to histories, Dalrymple also wrote the travel book City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi, which explores the city’s centuries-long history.

10. The Best American Travel Writing 2020 , by Jason Wilson and Robert Macfarlane
Series editor Wilson and guest editor Macfarlane compile a list of the best travel writing essays of 2019.
Other editions, which go back to the year 2000, have been guest-edited by such travel writing luminaries as Theroux, Bryson, Gilbert, Mayes, Anthony Bourdain, and Cheryl Strayed.


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Coronavirus: 10 travel books for home quarantine or lockdown – be transported to world’s most fascinating places

Beat coronavirus quarantine by checking out these 10 travel books that will let you explore the world from your sofa. Photo: Getty Images

âEat Pray Love- One Womanâs Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia,âby Elizabeth Gilbert.Photo: HANDOUT[FEATURES 2020]

âBlue Latitudes- Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before,â by Tony Horwitz.Photo: HANDOUT[FEATURES 2020]

âIn a Sunburned Country,â by Bill Bryson.Photo: HANDOUT[FEATURES 2020]

âA Year in Provence,â by Peter Mayle.Photo: HANDOUT[FEATURES 2020]

âUnder the Tuscan Sun,â by Frances Mayes.Photo: HANDOUT[FEATURES 2020]

Ghost Train to the Eastern Star- On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar,â by Paul Theroux.Photo: HANDOUT[FEATURES 2020]

âThe Places in Between,â by Rory Stewart.Photo: HANDOUT[FEATURES 2020]

âIn Xanadu- A Quest,âby William Dalrymple.Photo: HANDOUT[FEATURES 2020]

âThe Best American Travel Writing 2020,âby Jason Wilson and Robert Macfarlane.Photo: HANDOUT[FEATURES 2020]

Thai health minister blames ‘dirty’ Western tourists for country’s coronavirus cases

Tourists wearing face masks sanitise their hands at Wat Pho, in Bangkok, Thailand, on March 13. Photo: EPA

FILE - In this Friday, April 10, 2015, file photo, a porter carries crates containing oxygen tanks, with Mt Lingtren seen behind left, and Mt. Khumbutse, right, on his way towards Everest Base Camp, at Lobuche, Nepal. China shut down the northern route through Tibet due to the COVID-19 pandemic on March 12. A day later, expeditions to the Nepal side were closed, too. The closure of Mount Everest will have significant financial ramifications for the local Sherpas, cooks, porters and other personnel who make their living during the short climbing window. (AP Photo/Tashi Sherpa, File)

Signage advertising Visit Malaysia Year 2020 is seen as a mask-clad employee (background) staffing the Tourism Malaysia counter at the Penang International airport in Penang on March 17, 2020. - Malaysia banned its citizens from travelling overseas and foreigners from entering the country in drastic measures announced by the prime minister on March 16, aimed at curbing the spread of the deadly new coronavirus. (Photo by GOH CHAI HIN / AFP)

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An almost deserted Angkor Wat on March 5, 2020. Photo: Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP

Willem Niemeijer, CEO of YANNA Ventures and CEO and co-founder of Khiri Travel.

Carolyn Childs, CEO, strategist and futurist at Australia-based tourism research specialist, MyTravelResearch.

NAPLES, CAMPANIA, ITALY - 2020/03/12: (EDITORS NOTE: Image was created with a drone.) View of the street of Naples, empty after the Italian government has imposed unprecedented national restrictions on controlling the coronavirus COVID-19. (Photo by Salvatore Laporta/KONTROLAB/LightRocket via Getty Images)

A passenger wearing a respiratory mask speaks on her smartphone by the departures board on January 31, 2020 at Rome's Fiumicino airport, as a number of airlines halted or reduced flights to China as the country struggles to contain the spread of the deadly novel coronavirus. - The Italian government said on January 30, 2020 it was suspending all flights between Italy and China, adding it was the first EU government to do so. China has advised its citizens to postpone trips abroad and cancelled overseas group tours, while several countries have urged their citizens to avoid travel to China. (Photo by Tiziana FABI / AFP) (Photo by TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images)

HOI AN, QUANG NAM PROVINCE, VIETNAM - 2018/03/30: Tourists on the Thu Bon River in Hoi An's old quarter during the Lantern Festival. A trading port from the 15th to the 19th century, then known as Faifoo, the well preserved old town has World Heritage status. The Lantern Festival occurs each full moon. (Photo by Leisa Tyler/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Angkor Wat in 2018. Today the crowds are gone, but they will return after the pandemic has passed. Photo: AFP via Getty Images

Don’t let the coronavirus pandemic spoil your film night or book club: how to have a virtual night in with your friends

Stay in touch with your friends and hang out online while keeping your social distance. Photo: Getty Images

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From riding the railways of Asia with Paul Theroux to Bill Bryson taking you on a guided tour of Australia, you can explore the world from your sofa
Theirs are among our pick of 10 travel books to sate your wanderlust



Beat boredom if you’re in lockdown or quarantine with vicarious travel through the pages of these books. Track down Kublai Khan’s birthplace with William Dalrymple, explore the byways of Provence with Peter May, and more.


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