High journey books to move you to faraway locations

Writing that reminds us simply how stunning and huge our world actually is

---

Freelance reporter

6 August 2025

---

During the pandemic, when the world shrank to the dimensions of my front room, I began to crave journey once more, as I did once I was youthful. Physically unable to journey, I discovered consolation in journey writing and books that transported me to distant locations, the place I wandered alongside the writer by way of vibrant markets and located quiet in distant mountain villages. 

Within these pages, I reawakened part of myself that yearns for discovery. The phrases jogged my memory of simply how stunning and huge our world actually is.

Here are 5 of my favorite journey reads that can transport you to a faraway place. Not all of those are typical journey vacation spot books, however they do supply insights into individuals and cultures.

Red Sands by Caroline Eden

Caroline Eden is without doubt one of the most inventive journey writers right now, combining reportage with recipes and exquisite pictures. Red Sands, the second of her colour trilogy, covers all 5 nations of central Asia: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. She transports readers to bustling markets, distant tearooms, Soviet-era canteens and the heat of on a regular basis kitchens, providing a wealthy tapestry of regional dishes and the human tales behind them.

Red Sands contains dispatches from a visit to a mare milk manufacturing facility in Karaganda, central Kazakhstan, a go to to a plov and shashlik cafe in Rishton with one in all Uzbekistan’s grasp ceramicists and a reunion along with her good friend Imenjon in Osh, the place they focus on Soviet mountaineering on a tapchan. Being from central Asia myself, I recognize that Eden avoids the same old exoticism that so usually colors portrayals of the area, and as an alternative uncovers genuine and charming tales.

In My Mother’s Footsteps: A Palestinian Refugee Returns Home by Mona Hajjar Halaby

The daughter of Palestinian refugees, Mona Hajjar Halaby grew up in Geneva and later settled in California, the place she labored as an educator. In My Mother’s Footsteps is the story of the 12 months she moved to the West Bank to show battle decision at an area college in Ramallah. Alongside vivid observations of her courses — the place she witnesses the trauma inflicted on these kids by the Israeli occupation — is Halaby’s personal journey into her Palestinian roots and the house her mom was pressured to go away.

Throughout the 12 months she spends in Ramallah, her mom writes her letters, woven into the e-book, wealthy with household historical past, recollections of affection and loss. The letters information Halaby, serving to her retrace the world her mom had left behind. In a ravishing conclusion, Halaby’s mom finally joins her in Palestine, however this time, it’s the daughter main the mom by way of the quickly altering panorama. 

Amid the continued genocide in Gaza and escalating violence within the West Bank, this e-book will transport you to the area by way of phrases, to find out about Palestinian historical past and life beneath Israeli occupation.

Minarets within the Mountains by Tharik Hussain

When Tharik Hussain first heard about indigenous Muslim communities in Europe, he determined to go on a journey by way of the western Balkans to study extra about them and in doing so, problem the parable that Islam is international to the continent.

Minarets in the Mountains is a seek for a Muslim Europe that has at all times existed. “This is what made the Muslims of the Balkans so important,” he writes. “They were not the result of immigration nor were they converts to Islam or been forged in and of Europe. It was an identity entrenched fully in local society. They were European as they were Muslim.”

Hussain units off together with his spouse and household to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro, following within the footsteps of the Ottoman explorer Evliya Çelebi. They go to historic mosques, tombs and mystical Islamic lodges, Unesco heritage websites, and meet native individuals who present them beneficiant hospitality. It’s fascinating how culturally numerous Muslim communities are on this area, a lot in order that the writer is stunned when a Muslim native in Albania provides him a beer. When Tharik explains he doesn’t drink beer, he’s provided one thing stronger.

While the travelogue leans closely on Ottoman historical past — generally greater than I might have most popular — it opened my eyes to the layers of battle and alter which have formed the Balkans right now, making me need to plan an analogous journey within the close to future.

Around the World in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh

Monisha Rajesh’s Around the World in 80 Trains is a witty and trustworthy memoir capturing seven months of practice journey along with her fiance, full with lengthy days spent confined to the identical carriage, meals that vary from uninspired to downright stale and the inevitable bouts of sickness that depart the couple stationary. Rajesh offers a vivid account of what it’s prefer to journey the world by practice, passing by way of Russia, Mongolia, North Korea and Vietnam alongside the way in which. 

Beyond the locations themselves, what I loved most was the glimpse into the chaotic and unpredictable rhythm of this sort of journey. From getting ripped off by laundromats and taxi drivers to experiencing moments of hospitality that go above and past, Rajesh’s tales paint a wealthy image of life on the rails. One factor turns into clear shortly: each cease feels too transient and each departure is tinged with bittersweet farewells, realizing that the general public you meet, you’ll by no means see once more.

Karachi Vice by Samira Shackle

Karachi Vice is a gripping portrait of a metropolis situated on the southern tip of Pakistan, alongside the Arabian Sea coast. Following the lives of Safdar, an ambulance driver, Parveen, an activist and road college instructor, Siraj, a neighborhood organiser, Jannat, a Sindhi village lady with kids and Zille, a criminal offense reporter, we study in regards to the metropolis inhabited by 20 million individuals, the place inequality is stark and violence a each day actuality. 

What impressed me most about Shackle’s writing was how she retells the main occasions which have formed Karachi by way of the eyes of the individuals we’re launched to, skillfully weaving their private tales and connecting them. From the outbreaks of gang warfare and terror assaults on Shia Muslims to improvement tasks that displace communities, and the federal government’s Karachi Operation aimed toward cracking down on crime and the town’s highly effective teams, we get an actual sense of how these forces depart their mark on every particular person and their ambitions.

Karachi Vice is a totally partaking, fast-paced work of narrative nonfiction that exposes how corruption and energy crush the desires of peculiar individuals. It paints an image of a metropolis that’s quickly altering and captures the gorgeous resilience of communities and those that dare to go in opposition to the grain. Even in probably the most troubled quarters, historical past and wonder stay, if you realize the place to look.