Are you looking for some travel inspiration? Do you enjoy reading about travel more than leaving home? Do you daydream about moving to another country? The best travel books, shows, and movies are a great way to escape the monotony of everyday life and explore other cultures from the comfort of home.
10 Best Travel Books, Shows and Movies
Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy (2021–2022)
Searching for Italy Courtesy of CNN
Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy is a six-part CNN Original Series that uncovers the tastes and smells of Italy’s most popular dishes. From Rome to Sardinia, Tucci talks to locals about their family recipes and why they are so important to the region’s culture. This show is sure to inspire a trip to Italy or at least a visit to your favorite Italian restaurant.
Lonely Planet’s Guide to Train Travel in Europe (2022)
Lonely Planet’s Guide to Train Travel in Europe is the perfect book for those who want to learn more about the show travel movement. The guide provides detailed descriptions and itineraries to help plan a trip across Europe on rails. This hassle-free mode of transport is also eco-friendly, which makes it a win-win. Buy Now
The Trip (2010)
The Trip, 2010
Michael Winterbottom’s The Trip is a British show starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as fictionalized versions of themselves on a restaurant tour of the Lake District in northwest England. Also made into a feature-length film, The Trip captures plenty of improvised performances, including Coogan and Brydon’s celebrity impersonations of Michael Cain, Anthony Hopkins and Dustin Hoffman, among others. In addition to the restaurant tour, the film follows the two men as they walk in the footsteps of some of the great Romantic poets of the early nineteenth century. If you’re a fan, don’t miss The Trip to Italy (2014), The Trip to Spain (2016) and The Trip to Greece (2020).
Great Cities Through Travellers’ Eyes (2019)
Great Cities Through Travellers’ Eyes by Peter Furtado is a must-read book for any armchair traveler. It offers fascinating observations made by travelers, writers and historical figures who have visited some of the world’s most dynamic cities, such as Alexandria, Beijing, Venice and Rio de Janeiro. Chapters feature a compilation of straightforward travel descriptions that read like diary entries written over centuries. Buy Now
36 Hours: World (2015)
36 Hours: World is the perfect coffee table book that includes the crème de la crème from the New York Times travel series. Editor Barbara Ireland curates 150 bite-sized itineraries into an A–Z showcase of the world’s most captivating cities, from Barcelona to Bogotá, New Delhi to New Orleans. The latest version features 26 new stories, including Amman and Nairobi. Contributors act as armchair guides, foreign correspondents, travel writers, food writers and photojournalists. The book brings together insider knowledge and in-depth research, which provides fresh insight into even the most popular destinations. Buy Now
La Dolce Vita (1960)
La Dolca Vita, 1960
Federico Fellini’s masterful film, La Dolce Vita, features a celebrity cast and an adoring yet critical eye toward Rome in the 1960s. Set over seven decadent days, the film follows Marcello Mastroianni’s character as a philandering journalist who is pursuing happiness that is always just out of reach. The iconic Trevi Fountain scene is as effective today as it was 60 years ago.
Frederico Fellini talking to Costanzo Costantini in Fellini on Fellini (Faber and Faber, 1994):
Costantini: [Actress Anita] Ekberg immersed herself in the Trevi Fountain without difficulty?
Fellini: Ekberg came from the North, she was young and as proud of her good health as a lioness. She was no trouble at all. She remained immersed in the basin for ages, motionless, impassive, as if the water didn’t cover her nor the cold affect her, even though it was March and the nights made one shiver. For Mastronianni it was a rather different story. He had to get undressed, put on a frogman’s suit and get dressed again. To combat the cold he polished off a bottle of vodka and when we shot the scene he was completely pissed.
Constantini: How long did you take to shoot that scene?
Fellini: It took eight or nine nights. Some of the owners of the surrounding houses would rent out their balconies and windows to the curious. At the end of each take the crowd would cheer. A show within a show. Every time I look at the picture of Ekberg in the Trevi Fountain, I have the sensation of reliving those magic moments, those sleepless nights, surrounded by the miaowing of cats and the crowd that gathered from every corner of the city.
Darjeeling Limited (2007)
Darjeeling Limited, 2007
Darjeeling Limited is a comedy-drama directed by Wes Anderson. The film tells the story of three brothers, played by Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman, as they attempt to reconnect their family bonds while traveling by train through India. With much of the film shot in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, the distinct Indian landscape is expertly captured on film in Anderson’s signature style.
A Year in Provence (1989)
A Year in Provence is a best-selling memoir by Peter Mayle (1939–2018) about his first year living in France. Mayle and his wife bought a two hundred-year-old farmhouse in the Lubéron Valley, and the book chronicles their forays into local gastronomy, regional customs and rural life. From mastering the local accent to discovering the finer points of boules, Provençal charm is captured with great ease in this accessible story about moving abroad. Buy Now
Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown (2013–2018)
Parts Unknown, Courtesy of CNN
When talking about the 10 best travel books, TV shows and movies, the list would not be complete without mentioning Parts Unknown. The CNN original series Parts Unknown follows Anthony Bourdain (1956–2018), world-renowned chef and bestselling author, as he travels the globe to uncover the little-known and seemingly-familiar parts of the world in a celebration of their diverse foods and culture. Known for his curiosity, candor, wit and cultural references, Bourdain takes viewers off the beaten path of tourist destinations – including some war-torn parts of the world – and meets with a variety of local citizens to offer a window into their lifestyles. He also makes a point to meet up with internationally lauded chefs along his journeys. Highlights from the twelve seasons include Bourdain eating noodles with President Obama in Hanoi, traveling by riverboat on the Congo and food tasting with legendary chef and restaurateur Daniel Boulud in Lyon.
Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
Motorcycle Diaries, 2004
Motorcycle Diaries is a biopic about 23-year-old Ernesto Guevara, who later become known as the Marxist guerrilla leader and revolutionary Che Guevara, and his friend Alberto Granado. The film recounts Guevara’s 1952 journey through Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela. Directed by Walter Salles, this coming-of-age story is the ultimate road trip film. The views of South America are sure to satisfy any armchair traveler.
The Innocents Abroad, or the New Pilgrims’ Progress (1869)
“We bid it good-bye, now – possibly for all time. How surely, in some future day, when the memory of it shall have lost its vividness, shall we half believe we have seen it in a wonderful dream, but never with waking eyes!” – Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad
The Innocents Abroad is a travel book that chronicles Mark Twain’s pleasure cruise on board the chartered vessel ‘Quaker City’ through Europe and the Holy Land with a group of religious pilgrims. Twain makes constant criticisms of various aspects of culture and society he meets while on his journey, some more serious than others, which gradually turn from witty and comedic to biting and bitter as he progresses closer to the Holy Land. Buy Now
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