a blog about travel literature
Why does too much often mean too little?
In the early 1990s, Nadine Hudson from Switzerland is struggling with mental health issues, most notably an eating disorder. She decides to embark on a backpacking trip through Asia…
If this guy writes so well and goes to so many cool places, then just why is this book he wrote so bad?
in the early 2000s, Xiaopeng is a young Chinese white-collar worker who decides to see the world. He travels around China, then ends up as an exchange student in the Netherlands. From there, he sets out to do the Grand Tour of Europe…
What happens when a fashion-conscious European woman visits China at the height of socialism?
in 1966, Colette Modiano is working as a travel coordinator in France when she decides to assemble a group of wealthy Europeans and take them on a trip to China. This is a rare opportunity, as the country is pretty much sealed off from the outside world at the time…
The weight.
Wolfgang Büscher is a German journalist who has a thing for walking. So naturally in 2001 he decides to venture into Eastern Europe on foot…
The papal spy.
In the mid-13th century, a few years after the Mongol attacks on Eastern Europe, Italian cleric Giovanni da Pian del Carpine gets a mission from the Pope…
For the king.
In the middle of the 13th century, a Franciscan monk called William of Rubruck gets dispatched to Mongolia by his king, Louis IX of France…
Not just a tough cookie.
In the late 1990s, Karl Bushby, a former paratrooper from Britain, sets out to do something extraordinary…
The real Baudolino.
In the 14th century, English knight Jean de Mandeville claims to have traveled around much of the known (and unknown) world…
The guy with the boot.
In 1893, at the height of the Great Game between Tsarist Russia and the British Empire, Swedish explorer Sven Hedin decides to follow in the footsteps of Ferdinand von Richthofen (who coined the term “Silk Road”) and Nikolai Przhevalsky and explore the Chinese Northwest…
A wagging finger.
In 1325, young Moroccan scholar Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta embarks on his hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. But he doesn’t stop there…
Racist explorer.
In 1870s, at a time when Imperial Russia is rapidly expanding into Central Asia, geologist Nikolai Przhevalsky gladly accepts a mission from the government: to explore and map the Mongolian and Tibetan regions of China…
A (medieval) average Joe.
In 1394, Johann Schiltberger is still a teenager when he embarks on what historians have later dubbed the “Last Crusade”. He gets captured in the Battle of Nicopolis and serves as a slave to the Ottomans for six years…
The ultimate travelogue is a bit slow.
In the 13th century, Marco Polo, a merchant’s son from Venice, accompanies his dad and his uncle on a decades-long trip to China and back…