Summer books of 2019: Travel

Elsewhere: One Woman, One Rucksack, One Lifetime of Travel, by Rosita Boland, Doubleday Ireland, RRP£14.99

A vivid memoir based on 30 years of travelling by an award-winning Irish journalist. Boland has some classic travellers’ tales — a near-death experience on a bus in the Karakoram, an attack by a pack of dogs in Kathmandu — and a lucid, authentic and engaging style.

All Together Now? One Man’s Walk in Search of His Father and A Lost England, by Mike Carter, Guardian Faber, RRP£14.99

A corrective to the stately home version of England usually seen in travelogues. Carter takes us on a walk from Liverpool to London, retracing the route of the 1981 People’s March for Jobs and taking the pulse of pre-Brexit Britain. He finds poverty and anger but also forgotten towns and areas of natural beauty way off the tourist trail.

My Midsummer Morning: Rediscovering a Life of Adventure, by Alastair Humphreys, William Collins, RRP£14.99/$15.99

A life-long adventurer, Humphreys has cycled around the world, rowed the Atlantic and walked across the Empty Quarter. His latest mission — busking across Spain in the footsteps of Laurie Lee — might seem more modest were it not for the fact that a) his sole means of supporting himself is the violin he is carrying and b) he can barely play it. The month-long journey proves terrifying and humiliating but also the happiest of the author’s life.

Around the World in 80 Trains: A 45,000-mile Adventure, by Monisha Rajesh, Bloomsbury, RRP£20

Now that everyone despises cramped, stressy, carbon-spewing aeroplanes, the glamour of travel seems to be returning to rail. For train lovers, Rajesh’s journey is the stuff of fantasy — a seven-month odyssey that includes the Trans-Mongolian across Asia, the Canadian through the Rockies, the Shinkansen of Japan and the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express. They prove a gift to the travel writer, offering not just a constantly changing panorama but a cast of fellow passengers willing to tell their stories, meals and insights.

Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth, by Dan Richards, Canongate, RRP£16.99

Social media has, perhaps ironically, led to a growing fetishisation of wild, remote and unplugged places. Richards sets off to visit 10 of them — from a fire-lookout in Washington State to a refuge in the Icelandic mountains, a Shinto shrine in Japan and a bothy in Scotland — in a book that meanders in places but is fascinating and funny.

Tom Robbins is the FT’s travel editor

For a look at the best summer books across genres, go to ft.com/summerbooks2019

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