Travel Narratives

Before 400 A.D.:

Luke/Acts as travel narrative
Egeria's Travels

Medieval Period:

Jerusalem
by F.E. Peters

Memoirs of the Crusades (1309)
by Geoffrey of Villehardouin

Memoirs
by Jean De Joinville

Travels
Sir John Mandeville (1322)

Travels
Marco Polo

The Journal of Friar Odoric

Ibn Battuta:
Ibn Battuta's Travels in Asia and Africa
translated and selected by H.A.R. Gibb
A Virtual Ibn Battuta Tour
Ibn Battuta video, part 1, part 2, part 3

Columbus' Log from his first voyage

1700's:

A New Voyage to Carolina
by John Lawson (d. 1711)

The Persian Letters
by Montesquieu

Letters (1716-1718)
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Letters of a Russian Traveler
by N.M. Karamzin

Tour Through the Eastern Counties of England (1722)
by Daniel Defoe

Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon (1755)
by Henry Fielding

Travels Through France and Italy (1766)
by Tobias Smollett

A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768)
by Laurence Sterne

A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775)
by Samuel Johnson

Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)
by James Boswell

Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (1796)
by Mary Wollstonecraft

1800's:

The Journals of Lewis and Clark (1804-1806)

Travels in Nubia (1822)
by John Lewis Burckhardt

A Journey through Persia, Armenia and Asia Minor to Constantinople (1808-1809)
A Second Journey through Persia to Constantinople (1810-1816)
by Justinian Morier

The Alhambra (1832)
by Washington Irving

Eothen (1834)
byA.W. Kinglake

The Voyage of the Beagle (1839)
by Charles Darwin

The Bible in Spain (1842)
by George Borrow

American Notes (1842)
Pictures From Italy (1846)
by Charles Dickens

The Logbook of the Captain's Clerk: Adventures in the China Seas
by John S. Sewell (1850)

English Traits (1856)
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Missionary Travels (1857)
Zambesi Expedition (1865)
by David Livingstone

Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey
by Lillian Schlissel (1841-1867)

Innnocents Abroad (1869)
by Mark Twain

An Inland Voyage (1876);
Travels With a Donkey (1878);
The Amateur Emigrant (1879)
by R.L. Stevenson

A Little Tour in France (1882)
by Henry James

Around the World on a Bicycle (1887)
volume 1
volume 2
by Thomas Stevens

Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888)
volume 1, abridged
volume 2, abridged
by Charles M. Doughty

American Notes
by Rudyard Kipling (1891)

Across the Plains (1892);
The Silverado Squatters (1892?)
by R.L. Stevenson

Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon
by Samuel White Baker (d. 1893)

Among the Tibetans (1894)
by Isabella L. Bird

A Tuscan Shrine (1895)
by Edith Wharton

The Country of the Painted Firs (1896)
by Sarah Orne Jewett

Following the Equator (1897)
by Mark Twain

The White Nile (1850-1900)
by Alan Moorehead

Travels in West Africa (1897)
by Mary Kingsley

1900's:

The Sea and the Jungle (1909-1910)
by H.M. Tomlinson

Cruise of the Snark (1911)
by Jack London

Fighting France (1915)
by Edith Wharton

Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1916)
by T.E. Lawrence

The Endurance (1914-1916)
by Caroline Alexander

South From Granada: A Sojourn in Southern Spain (1920-1934)
by Gerald Brenan

The Royal Road to Romance (1925)
by Richard Halliburton


The Man-Eaters of Tsavo and Other East-African Adventures (1925)
by J.H. Patterson

The Glorious Adventure (1927)
by Richard Halliburton (retracing Ulysses' voyage)

When the Going Was Good (1929-1935)
by Evelyn Waugh

In the Steps of the Master (early 1930's)
by H.V. Morton

Journey Without Maps (1936)
by Graham Greene

The Road to Oxiana (1937)
by Robert Byron

Out of Africa (1937)
by Isak Dinesen

The Road to Wigan Pier (1937)
by George Orwell

Complete Book of Marvels (1937-1938)
by Richard Halliburton

The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1941)
by John Steinbeck

Man-Eaters of Kumaon (1944)
by Jim Corbett

The Road Back to Paris (1944)
by A.J. Liebling

Kon-Tiki,; Across the Pacific by Raft (1950)
by Thor Heyerdahl

Beyond the High Himalayas (1952)
by William O. Douglas

Bitter Lemons (1953-1956)
by Lawrence Durrell

Normandy Revisited (1958)
by A.J. Liebling

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush (1958)
by Eric Newby

Travels With Charley (1961)
by John Steinbeck

Gipsy Moth Circles the World (1967)
by Sir Francis Chichester

Notes From the Century Before: A Journal From British Columbia (1969)
by Edward Hoagland

The Longest Mile: A vivid chronicle of life in an Appalachian hollow (1969)
by Rena Gazaway

The Ra Expeditions (1970)
by Thor Heyerdahl

The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia (1975)
by Paul Theroux

Behind the Wall (1976)
by Colin Thubron

In Patagonia (1977)
by Bruce Chatwin

The Brendan Voyage: A Leather Boat Tracks the Discovery of America by the Irish Sailor Saints (1978)
by Tim Severin

The Snow Leopard (1978)
by Peter Matthiessen

Travel writings
by Kathleen Ann Goonan (1980's)

Blue Highways: A Journey Into America (1982)
by William Least Heat Moon

The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around Great Britain (1983)
by Paul Theroux

A Year in Provence (1989)
by Peter Mayle

Down the Volga: A Journey Through Mother Russia in a Time of Troubles (1991)
by Marq de Villiers

PrairyErth (1991)
by William Least Heat Moon

Following the Brush (1993)
by John Elder

Falling off the Map: Some Lonely Places of the World (1993)
by Pico Iyer

Ramblings of Wo Gege: a China Travel Narrative (1994)

Notes From a Small Island (1995)
by Bill Bryson

No Mercy: A Journey To the Heart of the Congo (1996)
by Redmond O'Hanlon

Badland (1996)
by Jonathan Raban

Into Thin Air (1996)
by Jon Krakauer

Thomas Cook Travel Book Award (1980-2004)

86 Greatest Travel Books of All Time by Longitude.com (a bookseller, but still)