5 Truly Inspirational Books for solo travelers

Why should solo travelers read these books?

Books are called man’s best friend because they can be great resources for ideas and inspiration. They take you on adventures and let you feel the different emotions. You can learn about new places and ideas through stories.

Books also help your imagination grow. They can teach you things and help you become smarter. When you feel alone or confused, reading a good book can make you feel better. In short, books make life more interesting and fun.

So today, I want to share with you 5 travel books that are truly inspirational, very interesting, very motivating, and very engaging books that can help you and that can inspire you to start travelling.

Here is the list of 5 truly inspirational books for solo travelers

1. The Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russel Wallace

Alfred Russel Wallace was a law graduate who had a career in civil engineering for a while. He worked as a teacher teaching drawing. He was a surveyor; he used to take surveys. He started cataloguing insects.

He read about some travelling naturalists. That piqued his curiosity to travel the world as a naturalist, as a travelling naturalist. This book is about his travels in the Malay Archipelago, which is current Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesian islands, that area.

He travelled there for 8 years with a curiosity to know about the natural world, flora, and fauna of this place. The book is full of his stories interacting with the local community, the culture, the traditions, and different geographical population diversity in the region. He travelled for 14,000 miles. 

This book is written in the 1800s, somewhere around the 1850s or 1840s. And he went as an explorer and he returned as a scientist. He catalogued and discovered more than 125,000 different species, most of them insects but also reptiles, birds, fishes, and animals, and became an authority in the flora and fauna.

His travels are an example of travelling with a curiosity to explore the place, to go deeper, to discover some things that interest you. This book was very well received by the media and by the scientific community, and to date, it is a reference for many scientific publications for that region, for the flora and fauna of that region.

Many travellers still use this book as a reference when they go out. Many non-fiction works have been inspired by this book. The beauty of this book is how he gets involved in the place and the effort he puts in to discover and bring out the natural world so beautifully to the entire world. Beautifully written book, so highly recommended.

2. Travels in West Africa by Mary Kingsley

Mary Kingsley was a London girl. The book is written in the 1840s. It is about her travels in West Africa. She came from a family of explorers. Her father was a writer, a traveller, and a physician, and she always wanted to travel but she could not because her parents were sick. Unfortunately, she lost both her parents in a very short span of time, almost in a year.

Then she goes to West Africa, and she travels. She starts in Sierra Leone, the Canary Islands. Then from there, she spends a few years travelling in West Africa. This book is a classy example of travelling just to travel.

Your theme is to just travel and let everything come to you. There is no agenda, there is no pre-planning. You just go and then you merge with the place. Imagine, just think for a bit that she travelled in the 1840s as a white woman in Africa

 There are stories in the book where people are surprised. A lot of women are asking her where is her husband? How is she travelling alone? She goes to these dangerous places alone. She learns about survival skills in the wilderness.

Later, she also gets involved in the natural world. She discovers many new species of fish. In fact, three species of fish are named after Mary Kingsley.

One of the remarkable things about this book is that her work has changed perceptions. It was very influential. In fact, it changed the perception of European people about the African cultures and traditions at that time and about their situation during British imperialism.

This is a very important aspect of travelling: how when a person goes to a different country, he can inspire others. He can change perceptions and bridge that gap between two cultures. She talks a lot about traditions and the way of life.

It helps the entire world to understand that. That’s really big. The world doesn’t know. At that time, there was no internet. There was no telephone. So, a work which could change the perception and which could give a true account of a place, an unbiased account, especially during the time of imperialism. There was a lot of suffering. That’s a very remarkable achievement.

Travelling can do that. Many travellers have left a legacy about bringing out the true culture, the true essence of a place, which is generally lost by the media. The media is always showing bad things.

This book is very amazing. Her encounters with the local people. Her own journey as a woman. A very inspiring book for any woman who wants to travel.

3. Incidents of Travel in Yucatan by John L. Stephens

This book is written by John Lloyd Stephens. He was an American writer, explorer who read about other explorers from Mesoamerica. That intrigued his interest to go and learn more about the Mesoamerican region.

Mesoamerican region is the region in the south of Mexico and north of Central America where many deep and interesting cultures and traditions flourished. The Mayan culture flourished in Mesoamerica.

He goes there to learn more about that culture. Entire Latin America is very unique. Latin America had a lot of traditional cultures, ways of living, cuisines, and languages, which literally vanished after the Spanish came in.

These civilisations, like the Incas, the Mayas, the Olmecs, the Toltecs, and Aztecs, there is very little known about them. Mayans were a supreme civilization. So he goes to this region to discover. And in six years, he stays there.

He explores this entire region. He discovers a lot of Mayan sites. So Chichen Itza, one of the seven wonders of the world, is a Mayan site. And all these sites, they were huge cities. So he has worked with the local people, the indigenous people. 

He found them and then he found the sites which were buried under the tree, deep in the forest. And then he takes the help of all these local guys to excavate these sites. I think he did that with 50 to 60 such sites, which are very popular.

And many amazing stories. Like one of the popular sites, Copan, in Honduras. He bought it for $50. A beautifully written book. He spends a lot of time with the local people. So he also talks about the current way of living and the customs. When I say current, I mean in the 1840s when the book was written. 

So he participates in gambles and cockfights. He encounters with the traditional doctors, and the food. Very, very interesting book. And if someone is interested in history, if that’s what you like, going to historical sites, this book will blow your mind away, without a doubt.

And one of the most remarkable things about this book is that how he really tries to throw light on this incredible culture or great civilization which flourished before the Columbia in America, and their architecture, their food, and their ways of living. 

And this civilization is huge. It’s spread out in big cities. Still, very little is known about them. So beautifully written book. Highly recommended to read, especially if you are a historical traveler. And like history, you want to explore that part when you’re traveling. And this book really shows how your curiosity about knowing a culture can actually inspire others to know about that culture. So a very interesting book to read.

4. The Ends of the Earth by Robert D. Kaplan

Robert D. Kaplan is an American journalist, political journalist, and a very unique travel writer. He has written many books. And most of his books are a mix of the history of the place and his own travel experiences there, talking to people, and his own adventures.

He throws a lot of light on the socioeconomic and the political scene of that place to understand where that country is, how those people are, why they are the way they are, and what does it means to the entire world.

He’s an authority in international affairs. He’s a consultant to some governments, I think the United Nations also. He consulted them on international politics. And this book is about his travels from West Africa to Southeast Asia.

So he starts in Sierra Leone and passes through the Middle East, and then he ends in Vietnam or Cambodia in Southeast Asia. And he writes about the nationalities, the ethnic background of the place, the food, the culture, a lot of interactions with people, the political identities, and language.

Very beautifully written book, through shanty towns, his interactions with revolutionaries in the Middle East, refugees, border guards, intellectuals from those countries, other journalists, political figures, and business figures. So he gives an incredible view of the entire region.

And this book is very meditative, I would say. It’s really and truly an observer’s perspective, without any attachment, without any bias. So a very, very inspiring book. And it may come out that it’s a political book, but trust me, it’s not at all a political book.

The books he has written, all the books, and Ends of Earth, incredible book, very engaging, very gripping, very moving, very interesting, and very fun to read. So highly recommended.

5. On The Trail of Genghis Khan by Tim Cope

Tim Cope is an Australian adventurer. And this book is an example of tribute travelling, where a traveller gets intrigued and inspired by another traveller, and he tries to relive his experience by going through the same journey.

So Tim Cope travels from Mongolia to Hungary on the same route that Genghis Khan took on horses, to just relive that experience, to see how that route is. And no one has done that after Genghis Khan.

For this he learns, first of all, horse riding, how to manage horses, then he arranges for horses in Mongolia, and then he starts, he crosses the border with horses, so you can imagine, in so many countries, Ukraine, Hungary, and Crimea, Russia.

One of the most interesting things about this book is that it has explored the origin of the nomadic traditions, which have played a huge role in the history of humanity, and the relationship and the importance of horses with man.

Genghis Khan was a nomad, who belonged to a nomadic tribe, a small tribe, and then he went on to become one of the most popular, famous, and impactful rulers in the history of humanity.

And in this book, when Tim Cope is following that journey, he explores how these nomadic cultures lived, how they flourished, what is the essence of these cultures, and the current geographical environments, and the way of living, stories of encounters with wolves, trying horse meat, and traditions where horses were worshipped, or eaten for living, for survival

So, very, very interesting book. He also talks a lot about the recent history of the places he goes through, and how the Stalin industrialization, and the post-Soviet era, how it has impacted these great nomadic cultures.

So, very interesting book. It’s one of the best books on tribute travelling, because Genghis Khan could be considered as an elite traveller, he was an explorer who went about conquering places, and he went into unknown places. So, fantastic book.