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Adventure Travel

Books to Read for the Adventure Traveller

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Do you need to feed your spirit of adventure? If armchair mountaineering isn’t for you,  there are also many other good adventure travel books we’ve read that give you great insight into travel and diverse countries:

  • Life-Changing Adventure – Emma Huffam and Trevor Builder. Written by us! Be daring, be inspired. Adventure is waiting for you.
  • The Art of Travel  – Alain de Botton. Provides an insight into everything from holiday romance to hotel mini-bars, airports to sight-seeing. This book suggests how we might be happier on our journeys.
  • Walking – One Step At A Time – Erling Kagge. A book about the love of exploration, the delight of discovery and the equilibrium that can be found in this most simple of activities.
  • Adventurous Spirit – Heather Hawkins. Sometimes life takes us to places we never planned to go.
  • Facing Fear – Lisa Blair. The first woman to sail solo around Antarctica.
  • Adventure Revolution – Belinda Kirk. The life-changing power of choosing challenge.

Asia

  • India: Holy Cow – Sarah MacDonald. A rollercoaster ride through a land of chaos and contradiction with a woman on a mission to save her soul, her love life – and her sanity.
  • India: Shantaram – Gregory David Roberts. A compelling tale of a hunted man who had lost everything – his home, his family, and his soul – and came to find his humanity while living at the wildest edge of experience
  • Pakistan: A Blonde in the Bazaar – Jill Worrell. Offering a unique insight into Pakistan’s cultures, superb scenery, fascinating history and hospitable and passionate people.
  • Afghanistan: A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush – Eric Newby. A classic journey from Mayfair, London to the wild mountains of the Hindu Kush, north-east of Kabul. This is one of the most spectacularly beautiful wildernesses on earth.
  • Tibet (China): Last Seen in Lhasa – Claire Scobie. The story of an extraordinary friendship in modern Tibet, China.
  • Siberia/Mongolia/Himalayas: The Long Walk – Slavomir Rawicz. The true story of a trek to freedom.

Europe

  • France: Almost French – Sarah Turnbull. A Sydney journalist recounts her unexpected move to Paris. Here, she fell in love and came to cherish the city’s charm, fashion, food, paradoxes, and dinner parties.
  • France: A Piano in the Pyrenees – Tony Hawks. Inspired by breathtaking views and romantic dreams of finding love in the mountains, Tony Hawks impulsively buys a house in the French Pyrenees. Here, he plans to finally fulfil his childhood fantasy of mastering the piano, untroubled by the problems of the world.
  • Italy: Girl by Sea – Penelope Green. Across kitchen tables, in bustling cafés, and over long lunches under vine-covered pergolas, Penny learns the art of Italian cooking, builds friendships, and discovers the rhythms and secrets of island life.

Central and South America

  • Brazil: Chasing Bohemia – Carmen Michael. A story about living for the day – and the surprising little truths about yourself you can discover through being immersed in poverty, isolation, and a culture that is not your own.
  • Cuba: Enduring Cuba – Zoe Bran. Intrigued by Cuba, Zoe Bran visits this country of contradictions. Interweaving history and current events, personal and wider viewpoints, she paints a vivid and compelling picture of contemporary Cuba.

Japan: A country never lost in translation

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Flying from Australia to Tokyo, Japan is an easy destination to get to. Flying directly into Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport enabled a very quick 40 minute ride into Tokyo city direct to our hotel using the Skybus. Haneda International Airport is newer and preferable compared with Narita. It’s closer to Tokyo city and more streamlined.

Shinkansen

Our Japan Rail Pass (JRP), which we purchased before we left Australia, enabled us to move around Japan with ease utilising the Shinkansen (Bullet Train). Travelling at some 240kmh and more, distances and time between destinations was never too far away. Now if only Australia had the same notion for rail travel like the Japanese.

Traditional Costumes in Nikko
Gala

As we only had 10 days in Japan, we managed to pack in day trips to Nikko and Gala from Tokyo and Hiroshima from Kyoto. In fact, Kyoto is a great base if you want to also take a day trip to Osaka (and Disneyland), around 2 hours away. 

Historic remains of the atomic blast in Hiroshima

Hiroshima

Now a greatly transformed city from the time of dropping of an atom bomb during the throes of World War 2, Hiroshima’s culinary delights (Okonomiyaki Pancake) and trams are a sight to behold. We visited the famed Hiroshima memorial and museum, dedicated to the victims of that horrible day. This was a sobering reminder to us all about the devastating effect that war has on such a grand scale.

Cherry Blossom

Being mid March, we were blessed with warm weather and the famous cherry blossoms which had started to bloom around Kyoto. By the time we headed back to Tokyo, the cherry blossoms were in full bloom there as well. 

Following the devastating 2011 earthquake, Tokyo wanted to entice tourists to return. As a result, all the street maps leading to the exits of each subway are marked up in both Japanese and English so getting lost was never an option.

Onwards and upwards!

Trevor

Japanese Garden
Japanese Garden

Insights

  • When people are polite to you, which is most of the time in Japan, you tend to reciprocate
  • Dispose of your rubbish as the streets are always clean
Temple in Nikko
  • Japan is not representative of your typical Asia. Rather, it has its own culture and is so steeped in history – equal to Europe
  • Try and fly into Haneda International Airport. It’s only a 20 minute train ride into central Tokyo, compared to Narita which takes around 75 minutes
Tsukiji Fish Market
  • A trip to the famed Tsukiji Fish Markets is a must. Every conceivable shape and size of fish is displayed and cut up before your very eyes. Plan to get there early and be extra careful of those crazy forklift drivers
Shibuya Station
  • Shinjuku, is the world’s busiest railway station, with some 1.2 billion passengers a year passing through its turnstiles
  • Look out for the train guards on the Shinkansen – they all wear white gloves
Kyoto street scene
  • Hire a bicycle to get around Kyoto – it’s very flat and easy to navigate around
Imperial Palace in Tokyo
  • Places that are central to stay in Tokyo are Akasaka, Roppongi (very upmarket) or Shimbashi
  • From the above locations, it’s a close walk to both TOEI and Metro line stations as well as Shimbashi station. You can also easily walk to the Imperial Palace gardens or Grand Central station – only 20-30min walk
  • You can only purchase your Japan Rail Pass in your country of origin before you arrive in Japan. After a few journeys, you would have well and truly received your money’s worth
Display food
Bento Box on the Bullet Train
  • Eat like the locals do
Robot Cabaret Show
Robot Cabaret Show
  • In Tokyo (Shinjuku), ensure you check out the not to be missed robot show