Read on to discover the must-read travel books that will inspire you to become an eco-conscious explorer.
Books have this incredible faculty to transport us and change how we see the world – and ourselves. They enhance our imagination and knowledge and immerse us in a world of creativity, providing us with the tools to better understand our surroundings. And this especially applies to travel books.
I love reading books when travelling. And what could be better than relaxing at the beach with a thrilling novel or enjoying a long train journey with a travel memoir?
Beyond expanding our imagination, travel books also have the ability to educate us and make us more responsible travellers. They give us cultural awareness and a more in-depth overview of diverse destinations through inspiring stories and insightful facts.
So, before embarking on your next adventures, check out these 15 novels and non-fiction books that will undoubtedly fuel your desire for slow and responsible travel across the globe.
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Overview: Must-Read Books for Responsible Travel
NON-FICTION BOOKS:
- Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World
- The Art of Slow Travel: See the World and Savor the Journey On a Budget
- Go Lightly: How to travel without hurting the planet
- Sustainable Travel: The essential guide to positive impact adventures
- The Sustainable Travel Handbook
- The Flightless Traveller: 50 modern adventures by land, river and sea
- Going Local: Experiences and Encounters on the Road
- Zero Altitude: How I Learned to Fly Less and Travel More
- Ecotourism: The Top Sustainable Destinations to Travel Green
- The Geography of Bliss
- Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road
- The Art of Travel
- Adventure Revolution: The life-changing power of choosing challenge
NOVELS:
15 Books to Uplift The Eco-Traveller in You
Here is a round-up of the 15 best travel books to enlighten your next sustainable adventure.
Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World
Author: Anu Taranath
Published in: 2019
Beyond Guilt Trips is an accessible and friendly guide to learning how to sit with discomfort and experience cultural differences constructively.
Whilst travelling abroad can provide an enlightening perspective, it can also be confusing and uncomfortable. You may find yourself uncertain about how to think or talk about the racial or cultural disparities you encounter, even though those differences might have fueled your desire to travel in the first place.
Full of wisdom and valuable advice, this book provides the tools for a deeper understanding of unfamiliar cultures and individuals. It not only offers the context and motivation to do better but gives examples and ideas on how to do it.
Through personal travel stories and inspirational questions about the ethics and politics of our travels, Beyond Guilt Trips demonstrates ways to fight our discomfort and navigate differences through accountability and connection to return home with an enhanced view of our world.
This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to travel abroad with intention and open-mindedness.
Remember, sustainable travel is not only about the environment but also about local communities, culture and heritage.
Kindle edition & used books available.
The Art of Slow Travel: See the World and Savor the Journey On a Budget
Author: Bhavana Gesota
Published in: 2021
The Art of Slow Travel is a step-by-step guide to slow exploration – the idea that less is more. From packing to finding accommodation, it gives you all the information you need to break away from the rat race, travel slowly and truly see the world at your own pace.
Beyond planning, this travel companion encourages a new way of thinking and an inspiring perspective of responsible travel, discovery and personal growth. It offers unique avenues to connect more deeply with local communities and practical tips for an enriched experience.
Filled with insightful references, The Art of Slow Travel is an invaluable guide to getting the most out of your adventures whilst giving back to the society you encounter.
This inspiring book is a must-have for the eco-conscious traveller, whether you are a solo traveller, travelling with people or an aspiring one.
Kindle edition available.
Go Lightly: How to travel without hurting the planet
Author: Nina Karnikowski
Published in: 2021
Go Lightly gives you all the tools and ideas you need to travel responsibly.
This sustainable travel handbook inspires you to explore our beautiful planet without causing harm. The ten chapters help you travel light, including how to choose the least impactful methods of transport, how best to protect wildlife, how to pack with more consideration and how to implement mindful practices into each travel day.
Go Lightly gives you a tool kit of fresh ideas for travelling more consciously. The book also offers eco-friendly activities, including biking, boating and camping, and introduces you to some of the world’s most inspiring eco-adventure pioneers.
Full of precious tips and advice, this eco-travel guide is easy to read and a perfect addition to your book collection. Go back to it whenever you need new ideas or inspiration before your adventure.
Audiobook & used books available.
Sustainable Travel: The essential guide to positive impact adventures
Author: Holly Tuppen
Published in: 2021
Sustainable Travel offers practical and achievable advice for making a difference in how you experience the world.
After travelling the world without flying, sustainability expert Holly Tuppen shares her experience with low-carbon and positive-impact adventures and what she has learnt from more than a decade of responsible travel.
Sustainable Travel helps you explore positively with information on how to ask tour operators and accommodations the right questions, reduce your carbon footprint, embrace slow adventure, pack responsibly and benefit the people, cultures and places you visit.
If you want to travel in a better way but are unsure how or where to start, this comprehensive guide reveals everything you need to know. It is a must-read for anyone looking to harness the climate crisis and support nature and people on their travels.
Kindle edition & used books available.
The Sustainable Travel Handbook
Author: Lonely Planet
Published in: 2020
If you want to make it your mission to travel green, the Sustainable Travel Handbook will help you discover, plan and book a range of eco-conscious adventures around the globe.
This practical and inspiring guide motivates you to take a responsible approach to the impact of your travels. Whether you want to reduce your carbon emissions, enjoy a better wildlife-watching experience or appreciate an eco-friendly city break, this guide has everything you need.
Packed with easy recommendations compiled by a sustainable travel expert, the Sustainable Travel Handbook introduces you to diverse destinations offering culture, wildlife, adventure, wellness and more. It also covers topics such as developing electric transportation, reducing plastic waste, and the best ways to visit respectfully sacred indigenous cultures.
It is a must-have for any eco-conscious traveller wanting to reassess their travel habits and preserve local culture and the environment.
Used books available.
The Flightless Traveller: 50 modern adventures by land, river and sea
Author: Emma Gregg
Published in: 2020
Discover how to explore our beautiful world sustainably and responsibly with this flightless adventure guide.
Seeking enjoyable options that are kind to the planet, The Flightless Traveller shows you how to organise a flight-free vacation. It features 50 inspiring trip ideas for flying less, including eco-friendly city breaks and coastal retreats, bike rides and sailing voyages, short excursions on vintage railways and incredible intercontinental journeys.
This fantastic guide highlights wonderful and well-known places and experiences you might have never considered before. Best of all, it makes the journey an essential part of the adventure.
With The Flightless Traveller, get ready to rediscover the authentic spirit of exploration when planning your next trip by land, river or sea.
Kindle edition & used books available.
Going Local: Experiences and Encounters on the Road
Author: Nicholas Kontis
Published in: 2016
Going Local is a travel book detailing how to implement a focal point we should all have when travelling – that of learning from local cultures.
This in-depth guide features practical information and inspiring stories to encourage you to break down barriers as you travel and find more profound ways of getting to know the places you visit and the people you meet.
Going Local dives into the rise in peer-to-peer exploration and shows you how to share meals, use apps to meet local communities, get out of your comfort zone and volunteer. You will learn why responsible travel matters and enjoy case studies with keynote speeches from visionaries, icons and experts.
It is an indispensable book for anyone who wants to get the most out of their travel experience and immerse themselves in local cultures.
Kindle edition & used books available.
Zero Altitude: How I Learned to Fly Less and Travel More
Author: Helen Coffey
Published in: 2022
Zero Altitude takes you on a flight-free journey to show you how no-flight expeditions can save the planet and change how you see the world.
Now is the perfect time to pause and reflect on our toxic relationship with flying. Part climate change investigation, part travel memoir, Zero Altitude follows author Helen Coffey as she journeys as far as she can in her work as a travel journalist – all without taking a single flight.
Between trips by train, car, boat and bike, she meets climate experts and activists at the forefront of the burgeoning flightless movement. And as she travels, she discovers that keeping both feet on the ground is not only possible, but it can be a compelling opportunity for adventure.
This fantastic book full of tips and ideas is an essential guide for swapping the middle seat with slow exploration on the open road.
Kindle edition & used books available.
Ecotourism: The Top Sustainable Destinations to Travel Green
Author: Maddalena Stendardi
Published in: 2020
Ecotourism is the perfect guide for learning how to be an eco-tourist and finding new ways to explore a destination with care for the places visited and the well-being of the people who live there.
The book provides the tools you need to travel without harming our planet, from eco-sustainable transport such as kayaks or horses to eco-conscious accommodation facilities keen on recycling, using renewable energy sources and meeting the criteria of a green building.
Each chapter will offer helpful travel routes, schematic maps, step-by-step information and tips for travelling sustainably (from equipment to contacts of ecological facilities). Stunning images will also accompany you in the discovery of the most beautiful scenarios of the world: from forests and mountains to historic roads, small villages, peaks and deserts.
Ecotourism is a must-have to enhance your sustainable adventures across the globe.
Used books available.
The Geography of Bliss
Author: Eric Weiner
Published in: 2008
After years of living in the least happy countries across the globe, Eric Weiner, a veteran foreign correspondent, decided to travel and record the different meanings of happiness in each place and find out which nation seemed the happiest.
What makes a nation happy? Is one country’s sense of happiness the same as another? The Geographic of Bliss attempts to answer these questions for you as an invitation to break down boundaries and discover a new sense of connectedness.
In his quest to find the happiest places in the world, the author transports you from destination to destination with entertainingly shared facts and opinions.
Full of inspirational moments, The Geography of Bliss accomplishes a few travel books dare to achieve: to make you happier.
Kindle edition & used books available.
Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road
Author: Kate Harris
Published in: 2018
Lands of Lost Borders is a fascinating book exploring the nature of boundaries and the wildness of the self.
This travelogue and memoir follow the author’s journey as she bicycles along the Silk Road. As she pedalled mile after mile through some of the most remote places on earth, she realised that an explorer, at all times, is the kind of person who refuses to live between the lines.
Lands of Lost Borders is a quest on the importance of breaking the boundaries we set for ourselves and a meditation on the existential need to explore. The farther she travelled, the closer she came to a world as wild as she felt inside.
Weaving adventure and philosophy with the history of science and exploration, Lands of Lost Borders celebrates our connection as humans to the natural world and ultimately to each other — a belonging that surpasses any barriers or stories that may divide us.
It is a captivating travel book that will inspire you to question your self-imposed limits and map out new adventures.
Kindle edition & used books available.
The Art of Travel
Author: Alain de Botton
Published in: 2002
The Art of Travel will revolutionise your approach to exploration, opening your eyes to your surroundings and putting you in touch with your environment.
This compelling book takes you on a reflective journey through the meaning of travelling and the sense of happiness it seems to give us. With the help of a selection of writers, artists and thinkers – including Flaubert, Edward Hopper, Wordsworth and Van Gogh – author Alain de Botton provides invaluable insights into everything from holiday romance to hotel minibars and airports to sightseeing.
Although advice on where to travel constantly floods us, we rarely ask ourselves why we are going there in the first place and how we could become more fulfilled by doing so.
The Art of Travel is the perfect antidote to these queries and tries to explain why we went there, to begin with – and helpfully suggest how we might be happier on our journeys.
Kindle edition & used books available.
Adventure Revolution: The life-changing power of choosing challenge
Author: Belinda Kirk
Published in: 2021
Adventure Revolution is a must-read book that provides a thoughtful explanation of why adventure is essential to modern society and how it can change your life.
For the past twenty-five years, the professional life of author Belinda Kirk has revolved around adventure. And she has seen it change people first-hand: turning the shy into confident, the addicted into recovery, and the lost into intentional wandering. As a force for change, it shows us that adventure is a state of mind and can be powerful in many ways.
Filled with thrilling and moving stories, Adventure Revolution uncovers the transformative power of adventure and explores why it is fundamental to our well-being. From managing anxiety and overcoming fear to finding self-worth and building deeper connections, this inspiring book draws lessons from more than two decades of experience leading groups into the wilderness around the globe.
Enlightened by Belinda’s narrative, her research with modern hunter-gatherers, and the latest discoveries in neuroscience and behaviour, Adventure Revolution makes a compelling case for giving up the living room in favour of a longer, happier, and more adventurous life.
Kindle edition & used books available.
The Beach
Author: Alex Garland
Published in: 1996
The Beach is a must-read and exhilarating adventure novel mixing thrill and darkness.
It is a book you might have heard about or watched the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio – the classic story of paradise found and lost.
The novel follows the adventures of Richard through East Asia in search of an earthly utopia. Once in Thailand, he is handed a map promising an unknown island, a secluded beach – and a new way of life. What Richard will discover is breathtaking: more extraordinary yet frightening than his wildest dreams.
But how long can paradise survive on earth? And how far will Richard go to save it?
Kindle edition & used books available.
The Alchemist
Author: Paulo Coelho
Published in: 1988
The Alchemist is a beautiful fable about learning to listen to your heart, read the warnings spread along the path of life and, above all, follow your dreams.
The novel follows the adventures of Santiago, a young shepherd living in the hills of Andalucia, feeling that there is more to life than his humble home and flock.
One day, he finds the courage to pursue his dreams in foreign lands, each step stimulated by the certainty that he is following the right path: his own. The people he meets along the way, the things he sees, and the wisdom he learns will forever change his life.
With a visionary blend of spirituality, magical realism and mythology, The Alchemist is a story that has the power to inspire nations and change the lives of many.
Kindle edition & used books available.
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What Does Sustainable Travel Mean?
Sustainable travel means exploring the world whilst being aware of your surroundings and having a positive social, environmental and economic impact on the places you visit.
It could be by adopting more sustainable methods of transportation, staying in more environmentally friendly accommodations, eating local and seasonal foods, or avoiding harmful activities to flora and fauna.
Ultimately, the primary goal of sustainable travel is to create a better and more viable long-term future for tourism.
As a result and in response to climate change and the negative impacts of travelling on our planet, ecotourism was born and continues to expand.
According to The International Ecotourism Society (TIES), you can define ecotourism as “responsible travel to natural areas that conserve the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people and involves interpretation and education”.
In other words, ecotourism means providing positive experiences to visitors and hosts whilst developing a culture of environmental respect and having a favourable social and economic impact.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
- The Complete Guide to Sustainable Travel
- 10 Best Zero-Waste & Reef-Safe Sunscreens
- Carbon Offset your Flights: What, Why & How
- Best Ecotourism Activities Around the World
- 8 Best Filtered Water Bottles for Travel & Hiking
Download your FREE sustainable travel checklist ↓
Shop the printable travel diary
Record your memories and share your best eco-adventures across the globe.
And you, what are your favourite books for eco-travel?
Let me know in the comments below!
With love ♡
Lucie
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