Holiday Travel Anxiety: 17 Classic Travel Books To Take Your Mind Off Your Worries (PHOTOS)

Travel anxiety: it ranges from being uptight about missing the plane, to being terrified of flying, from being annoyed by security checks to abhorring the wait for a late flight. And on the busiest travel day of the year, with most people headed home for the holidays, there's the sheer dread of seeing the family. So, to keep yourself occupied and entertained, here are 17 books for the armchair traveler--or airport gate lounger. And yes, before anyone complains that it's missing, we did include "Eat Pray Love," because we knew you'd push us to.

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Gulliver's Travels

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Comments

[Steamboater]

03:17 PM on 11/29/2010

1. One of the best travel writers is Jan Morris. Try "Fiifty Years of Europe". Beautifully written and just a grand tour overall.
 
 
2. Rebecca West's, "Black Lamb, Grey Falcon", published in 1941 and a tour of Balkan history and the region. At 1,100 pages it's quite a tour but the opening pagesalone  with West on a train in a compartment with people symbolic of the times, selfish and tragically at a loss etc will keep you riveted to the book. Almost cinematic, I couldn't put th book down.
 
 
3. Isabella Bird was a 19th century traveler who wrote a series of books and one, "Unbeaten Tracks In Japan" is a fine one with travels into the interior of Japan.

[robin360]

02:25 PM on 12/15/2010

Thank you. Only two mentions of female writers and one is Gilbert. Sheesh.

[JackiChan]

11:56 AM on 11/24/2010

Read 1984... And enjoy your love pats!

[David Keith]

11:33 AM on 11/24/2010

Nice list, but you missed one of the 20th Century's best writers, Graham Greene and his book, "Travels with my Aunt".

[EmmaFrost]

07:30 PM on 11/28/2010

I loved this book. Good choice!

[Jolimont]

02:51 AM on 11/24/2010

The blue gloves are going to become synonymous with invasion of privacy.

[Chuck Douglas]

01:08 AM on 11/24/2010

how about 1984...

[MTmom2]

09:49 PM on 11/23/2010

If you think your trip is bad, try one of these trips from this book:

Last Breath: The Limits of Adventure by Peter Stark

[Howard53545]

09:18 PM on 11/23/2010

We are waiting to pat you done

[banker67]

08:27 PM on 11/23/2010

I'm sorry no one cared about gross violations of privacy at airports until it became blindingly obvious that people hesitate to fly because of 'security' searches. Duh.
Never mind the Constitution or fundamental decency, groping children was never a problem for Homeland Security until it came down to money.
Incredibly, thousands of Americans don't want to be treated as criminals or to watch as their children get a cavity search by a total stranger.
Does anyone with an IQ above 60 really think this humiliating process worries terrorists?
Let's see, last time I looked at mid-level airports, people parked at the end of runways and ooo'd and awwwh'd as landing jets skimmed 100 feet overhead. It was a standard Saturday-night date.
I don't want to tip off Al Quaida, North Koreans or Fidel, but some high school kids think it's pretty easy to chuck a cherry bomb through a sun roof with a slingshot to cause consternation in the cockpit.
I know a life-long GOP codger who lived near the end of a military runway. Annoyed by the noise, one day he sunk a tennis-ball can in his yard, dropped a lit a cherry bomb in and a tennis ball on top of that, and managed to hit the wing of a transport. He was annoyed and wanted to mess with military minds.,
So with millions of oil dollars, terrorists can't do even that?
Shhhh, don't tell the CIA.

[Schweik]

09:09 PM on 11/23/2010

IQ?!!!
Banker67 IQ seems to below freezing mark. Celsius,
It is obvious he hasn't read a single book lately, or ever.
Dismissed.

[banker67]

08:08 PM on 11/24/2010

Don't understand your comment. Please clarify. Thanks

[bmermaid]

06:45 PM on 11/23/2010

My favorite traveling book is "Accidental Tourist" by Ann Tyler. It's about man that hates traveling so much, and is so neurotic about it, that he writes books about how to travel & feel like you never left home.

[EmmaFrost]

07:31 PM on 11/28/2010

A classic. Tyler is an amazing author.

[NRdrummer89]

01:11 PM on 11/23/2010

I've read the majority of books listed here, and I couldn't agree more. Particularly "Hitchhiker's Guide." It is such a good read!
I would also recommend "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole

[Schweik]

06:31 PM on 11/23/2010

Confederacy is great. I developed a month-long craving for hot dogs after reading it.
As far as escapist literature, entire Douglas Adams output is outstanding.
I would also recommend cyberpunk classics like Neuromancer and The Difference Engine.

[orbro]

01:02 PM on 11/23/2010

No Paul Theroux? "The Great Railway Bazaar" is a classic.

[EmmaFrost]

07:33 PM on 11/28/2010

Anything by Paul Theoreoux! The Old Patagonian Express and Picture Palace are two of my favorites.

[Steamboater]

04:04 PM on 11/29/2010

Yikes! How could anyone forget Paul The=eroux? How could I? He's just a terrific writer and "The Great Railway Bazaar" is simply wonderful. He wrote a sequel titled, "Ghost Train To The Eastern Star: On The Tracks Of The Great Railway Bazaar", and thrity years later, this trip is worth the ride too. He tends to get a little cynical but still, his books are always fascinating.

[robin360]

02:32 PM on 12/15/2010

Another goodie by Theroux is "Dark Star Safari". You're right, he is a bit cynical, lumping all NPOs together as the people in the white SUVs, but it's wonderful.

[naschkatze]

12:38 PM on 11/23/2010

I've always linked On the Road and Lolita in my mind by their criss-crossing of the American continent but have been panned for doing so right here on this very page. Both novels are, in part let me stress, a love affair with America in the middle of the last century.

[naschkatze]

12:35 PM on 11/23/2010

Siberia and the Exile System by George Kennan.

[Schweik]

12:24 PM on 11/23/2010

The first two-Gulliver and Odyssey are a terrible suggestion, given how many travel-related disasters the main characters suffer.
Lucky us, the person who put this list together didn't include "Robinson Crusoe" or "Candide."
Something more relaxing along the line of Agatha Christie, but the :"Murda' on the Orient Express"...lol

[David Keith]

11:35 AM on 11/24/2010

In my book, it's impossible to make a list of books of any kind from the last 100 years without mentioning Agatha Christie. She's a true giant. Murder on the Orient Express is a classic.

[Jack Conway4t]

10:24 AM on 11/23/2010

nice obvious list.

how about Roughing It by Mark Twain or Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet.

[naschkatze]

12:34 PM on 11/23/2010

I haven't seen mention of The Alexandria Quartet for years. It's due for a revival.