Before I ever left Mississippi, books taught me how to love traveling. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the kind of voracious reader who consumes books like they’re nourishment. As a kid, I never traveled more than half a day’s drive from my home in rural Mississippi. I was 17 when I flew on a plane the first time, and that was a flight to Florida just two states away. Despite never leaving the Deep South during my childhood, reading transported me to places around the world that I would otherwise have never known existed. Reading ignited an urgent desire to travel that has only grown since.
Still today, it’s often through books that I learn about places I want to visit. Sometimes a book inspires me to visit a new place that I might not have sought out otherwise. Other times, I seek out books set in a place that I want to learn more about before visiting.
Here’s a list of just some of the contemporary books (classic books are a whole separate list) that played a role in inspiring my route on my 5-month backpacking trip. I read some of these books without my trip in mind, and they ended up inspiring me to visit places that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I selected some of these books deliberately so I could learn more about a place I was about to visit or had just visited. And I read some of these books so long ago that I had almost forgotten the impact they had on me until I sat down to make this list. Most of these books are fiction simply because that’s what I gravitate toward and love reading the most, but there are some nonfiction books, as well. Some are light-hearted YA books, and some are for adults and come with trigger warnings. Some are cute and fun, and some are heartbreaking. Some are considered “serious literature,” and some would make my MFA professors cringe. I love them all.
This is not an exhaustive list! I can name dozens and dozens of books that I might have included, so feel free to ask for more recommendations about a particular place. I narrowed the list to the books most directly related to my recent trip rather than books that have inspired travel in general.
In order of my trip route:
- Canada: Every Summer After by Carley Fortune
I read this book on the way to Montreal, and though I don’t think the story even mentions Montreal, it does take place in summer in Canada (in a small town north of Toronto), and it made me feel like summer in Canada is a whimsical place that my imagination should occupy more often. This is a story about childhood best friends who fall in love as teenagers before one decision breaks them apart. The chapters alternate between the past and the present where the two of them are brought back together as adults who have to grapple with their past mistakes. It’s sentimental and authentic and a beautiful portrayal of childhood friendship and forgiveness.
(Also read everything Emily St. John Mandel writes—several of her books are set or partly-set in Canada.)
- Scotland, The UK: Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy
This is a book about a biologist who moves to the Scotland to lead a team of scientists in reintroducing grey wolves to the Highlands, but it’s about so, so much more than that. It’s about love, mystery, psychology, the climate, fear, and a woman’s determination to protect those she loves. Reading a Charlotte McConaghy novel means stepping into a psychological journey that will ensnare you and rip your heart to pieces, but you will emerge desperate for more. I think she’s one of the best writers alive, and I’ll read everything she ever publishes. I don’t think I’d ever heard of Portree, a town on the Isle of Skye, before reading this, and it’s the main reason I added Inverness, Portree, and Skye to my itinerary.
(Also, I read David Nicholl’s novel One Day on the plane on my first-ever trip to Europe 12 years ago, and it’s still one of my favorite books set in Europe. It takes place in Edinburgh, London, and Paris.)
- Oxford and Cambridge, The UK: The Night Climbers by Ivo Stourton
I read this book back in high school, and it’s stuck with me ever since. When James arrives at Cambridge University looking for friendship and a place to belong, he ends up befriending a group of privileged and secretive classmates who call themselves the Tudor Night Climbers because they spend their nights searching for thrills by scaling the university’s towers and buildings. (This is based on a real legend—supposedly such climbing groups did exist at Cambridge and a book was written about it that developed something of a cult following.) But when the group-leader’s father cuts off his allowance, they convince James to participate in a crime that, if successful, will allow them to maintain their privileged lifestyle. This is a suspense novel about loyalty, secrets, the measures people will take to fit in, and what it’s like to live with the consequences. The book never became very popular, but the image it painted of Cambridge remains so clear in my mind. I didn’t get to visit Cambridge on my trip, but I visited Oxford, and this book was one of the first books that made me dream of visiting the UK’s oldest colleges one day.
(Percy Shelley, Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, Tolkien, CS Lewis, Philip Pullman, and a million other writers went to Oxford and were inspired by it, so this is really a book-lover’s dream destination.)
- London, The UK: Again, But Better by Christine Riccio
This is an adorable book about a college student who studies abroad in London and learns to fall in love with traveling. It’s a cute YA story that would also appeal to college students about realizing the freedom of being on your own for the first time and learning about culture shock. There’s a fun time-travel twist, a romance, and a few weekend trips highlighting other places in Europe. It’s light and cheerful and will remind you what it felt like to see cars driving on the “wrong” side of the road for the first time.
(Harry Potter will have an entire blog post of its own soon, so that’s why it’s not on the list. But I hope this one goes without saying.)
- Paris, France: Time Was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare & Co. by Jeremy Mercer
This is a nonfiction account of a down-on-his-luck reporter who visits the famous Shakespeare & Company Bookstore in Paris one day, gets invited back for tea, and suddenly finds himself living and working in the shop amid a fascinating and absurd cast of characters. For years, I’ve dreamed of being one of the “tumbleweeds” who live in Shakespeare & Company in exchange for working a few hours in the store each day, and I found this memoir describing the experience before I visited Paris. The book describes a “hidden bohemia” that existed in Paris 20 years ago, and though I’m not sure such a Paris exists today, it’s still a beautiful glimpse at the Paris every artist dreams of. As of last year, the tumbleweed program was still on pause because of the pandemic, but I visited Shakespeare & Co. and imagined what it might be like to live there.
- WWII destinations Poland and Germany: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
If you haven’t read The Book Thief already, you need to set down your phone/close your laptop, go immediately to your nearest bookstore, purchase this book, and not return to your electronics until you finish reading. This is important. I read The Book Thief when it was first published 2006, and though I’d studied the Holocaust and read many other books about it before that, Zusak’s writing transported me in a way that made the story feel present and immediate. This is the story of a young girl sent to live with a foster family outside of Munich in 1939. As the war progresses around her, her family begins hiding a Jewish man named Max. It’s a book about words, death, love, enduring, and the importance of literature. There are many books that I’d call required reading before visiting WWII sites in Germany or Poland, but this one is high on the list. I visited Auschwitz and Birkenau outside of Krakow during my trip, and I was able to better-understand the scope and magnitude of what I was seeing because of having read books like this one.
- Serbia: The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht
The book never explicitly states that it takes place in Serbia, but it undoubtedly takes place in Serbia. This is a story about a young doctor who is called to travel across her war-torn Balkan country to help an orphanage in need. Once she arrives, she is confronted with superstitions and family secrets that threaten to consume her. She returns to the stories and legends that her recently-deceased grandfather told her as a child for answers to the mysteries. This is a deft and weaving story that borders on magical realism and doesn’t lend itself easily to summary, but I read it shortly after visiting Serbia, and it made me think harder about a place that felt inaccessible to me at first glance.
- Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
I read this when I visited Bosnia and Herzegovina for the second time on my trip. I’d visited Sarajevo a month and a half prior and learned about the Yugoslav Wars and the Siege of Sarajevo, then I searched for books to help me learn as much as possible. This novel is set during the early 1990s during the siege and tells the story of 4 people living in Sarajevo and trying to survive. One day, a shell lands in the bread line at the farmer’s market and kills 22 people, and a local cello player witnesses it happen through his window. Afterward, he vows to sit at the site where the mortar shell fell and play Albinoni’s Adagio every day for 22 days—one for each of the victims. Meanwhile we follow a man trying to get water for his family, a man trying to get a meal, and a female sniper who has been asked to protect the cello player from the enemy who will undoubtedly target him. This is an extraordinary novel that tells a story far too many of us have overlooked.
- Montenegro: Under an Amber Sky by Rose Alexander
I searched for a novel set in Montenegro before leaving on my trip, and I was delighted to find this one. When Sophie’s life begins falling apart, she goes to Montenegro for a break and to begin piecing it back together. She ends up falling in love with the place and buying an old house by the bay. She finds a pile of old letters written between a couple in the 1940s and becomes obsessed with their story. We meet the eclectic lodgers who stay in her house and learn the local history through the letters as she has them translated. It’s a light and feel-good story that paints a beautiful image of the Bay of Kotor.
- Greece: A Thing of Beauty: Travels in Mythical and Modern Greece by Peter Fiennes
I saw this book on a shelf in a little bookstore in Florida the month before I left on my trip, and I knew I needed it right away. This is a nonfiction book about a traveler’s journey to visit the modern sites of ancient Greek myths. The book is interesting because he made this journey after the pandemic had already started, so it’s a glimpse at a quiet Greece nearly devoid of visitors. His descriptions of Greece are beautiful, and the locals he meets on the way help bring it to life.
- Romania: I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys
Ruta Sepetys writes historical fiction books for young adults, but they’re just as relevant to adults. She consistently does a fantastic job of writing about very difficult topics in history through engaging and hopeful characters. This book is about a 17-year-old boy who lives in communist Romania in 1989 and is blackmailed into becoming an informer. He has to choose between betraying everyone he loves or risking his life to expose the world to what’s happening in his country. It’s a story about loyalty, family, and the cost of freedom, and it made me imagine what it must be like to live as a young person in Romania right before the revolution. I saved this book to read a few days before visiting Romania, and it gave me a bigger appreciation for the history I learned while I was there.
- Croatia: Girl at War by Sara Nović
I read this book for the first time a few years ago before I started planning my trip. It takes place in Croatia, and all I really knew about Croatia at the time was what I’d seen in Game of Thrones and photos of the picturesque Dalmatian Coast. This book was one of the first to spark my interest in the Balkans and former Yugoslavia. The story jumps back and forth in time following the main character, Ana, who was 10 years old and living in Zagreb when the war broke out in 1991. Her life dissolved into one of constant danger and fear, and her family risked everything to protect her and her sister. In the present day, Ana is a college student in New York City. She returns to her former home for the first time, now Croatia instead of Yugoslavia, in search of answers about her past and hoping to make peace with the trauma from her childhood. It’s a story about how we can never entirely escape the history that shapes us. I read it again while I was visiting Croatia, and it was even more powerful than when I read it the first time. This is a story that will emotionally destroy you and make you want to read everything Sara Novic ever writes.
- The Italian Riviera, Italy: In the Shade of Olive Trees by Kate Laack
I’ve read a lot of books set in Italy, but I’d never read one set in Porto Venere until this one. I’d never heard of Porto Venere until I spent 3 nights staying in La Spezia last summer, and the hostel owners encouraged me to visit. Despite being frequently overlooked by the neighboring Cinque Terre, I found Porto Venere to be a magical and hidden gem. Shortly after visiting, I was gifted an E-copy of this book to review, and I was so delighted that it takes place in Porto Venere, La Spezia, Cinque Terre, and Florence. This is a novel about Julia who is supposed to be going on her honeymoon to Italy. But when her husband leaves her at the altar, she decides to go without him. She finds herself changing her original itinerary and staying at a retreat for widowed women in Porto Venere. It’s a delightful book about heartbreak, friendship, forgiveness, and healing. But my favorite parts of the story were the descriptions of the Italian Riviera. She paints the details of the region so beautifully, and reading it made me wish I were there again.
- Italy: The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
This has been one of my favorite books for over a decade. One of my favorite professors in college told me that he considered this book to be one of the greatest published in our lifetime, and I wholeheartedly agree. This one is older than the others on my list, but I still consider it a contemporary book—one that will certainly become a classic. This story takes place in an Italian villa that’s nearly been destroyed by bombs during WWII. The book follows four characters, each affected by the war in a different way—a nurse, a badly burned man she takes care of (the English patient), a thief, and a bomb diffuser. Michael Ondaatje is a wizard who can do impossible things with words, and his descriptions of war-torn Italy and the countryside gave me a different understanding of this complicated country when all I’d ever seen before were shiny tourist photos.
(Everything Italo Calvino ever wrote belongs on this list.)
- Rome, Italy: Six Days in Rome by Francesca Giacco
I love this book so much that I read it twice last year—right after it was published and then again a few months later when I visited Rome in November. It’s the story of a woman who visits Rome alone after separating from her boyfriend who was supposed to go on the trip with her. It’s a simple plot, but the writing is extraordinary. This book is an exploration of heartbreak, art, memory, freedom, and connections, and it is the truest depiction of Rome I’ve ever read before. Ever. Since visiting Rome the first time 12 years ago, I’ve searched for a book that made me feel the way that visiting Rome made me feel, and I’ve finally found it in this book. The author gets every color, every taste, every miniscule detail exactly right. It’s a love letter to the city in novel form, and you shouldn’t visit Rome without reading it.
