Rolf Potts

Troost's 2004 memoir of his expat stint on the Pacific island nation of Kiribati is about as good as travel-humor writing can get. Though not as scholarly as Bill Bryson or adventurous as Tim Cahill, Troost nonetheless creates a light, self-deprecating narrative tone that joyfully captures that exasperations and idiosyncrasies of life on an isolated equatorial island. Travel books don't often...

Set among backpack traveler cliques in Thailand, Garland's 1996 thriller was so gripping and cinematic that the 2000 movie adaptation (starring Leonard DiCaprio) seemed flat by comparison. And while The Beach is a tad too pulpy and pop-cultural to find a place in the literary pantheon, it is nonetheless a wicked satire that skewers the pretensions and self-delusions of "independent" travelers...

Iyer's 1988 literary debut is an answer to all those critics who claim that great travel writing died once the terra incognita was mapped. As this Asia-themed collection of essays shows, the final frontier of adventure isn't located on some distant mountain or impenetrable jungle, but in the intimate (and often comical) cross-cultural fascinations and discoveries that arise from an...

Dillard's evocation of a stretch of Virginia wilderness proves that travel need not be far-flung to be meaningful. Not only can the mindful experience of a single location yield a multitude of perspectives, such perspectives hint at a much richer spiritual realm latent anywhere one takes the time to seek it. "Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we sense them," Dillard writes. "The...

Abbey's 1968 memoir of his experience as a park ranger in the badlands of southern Utah mixes nature writing, storytelling, speculation, opinion, ecology, geology, and human history with satire and social commentary—but, at its heart, this book is a thoughtful treatise about life and man and nature. Full of iconoclasm (and light on pretension) this book is as much a philosophical journey of the...

As a work of literature, Kerouac's Benzedrine-fueled USA adventure is at times lacking in coherence, but it evokes the addictive energy of spontaneous travel in a way that few traditional travel narratives can. This is why, more than 50 years after it was first published, On the Road continues to inspire and capture the imaginations of young (and not so young) travelers worldwide.

All of Greene's books are a pleasure to read—not just for his nearly flawless prose, but also for his consistently accurate dramatization of such exotic lands as Liberia, Paraguay, Haiti, and Cuba. The Quiet American is remarkable on two levels: First, for its keen portrayal of the expatriate experience in Saigon, and second for its chillingly accurate prediction of America's eventual military...

Orwell is best known for fabulist classics like Animal Farm and 1984, but his realist work has been unfairly overlooked. Down and Out in Paris and London, for example, provides great narrative reportage about lower-working-class Europe, but what really stands out for me is Burmese Days, his fictional account of colonial life in Southeast Asia. Few books so dramatically capture the tenuousness...

Hemingway's 1927 novel may be best remembered for mythologizing the annual "Running of the Bulls" in Pamplona, but its entire story stands out as a remarkable piece of travel fiction. Set in France and Spain in the years after World War I, it evokes a sense of place and character (and language and activity) that feels as real and authentic as any nonfiction travel reportage.

This book deserves status as a travel classic, if for no reason other than "Song of the Open Road", an infectiously joyous ode to the wandering spirit. But beyond such explicit travel anthems, Whitman's masterpiece continually captures the attitude of curiosity and open-mindedness that comes with any engaged journey—be it a ferry ride from Brooklyn to Manhattan, or a sea-voyage to India.