There’s travel, and then there’s travel. It's the kind that smells like fish markets at dawn, tastes like broth spiked with spices you can’t name, and leaves you sunburnt, blissed out, and slightly existential.

If you've seen the "me after a year of backpacking" trend on TikTok, you might know what I mean. After some good travel time, you come back different.

“If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel — as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to.”

—Anthony Bourdain

Below are 10 books that capture that feeling. These are not your typical guidebooks or traditional travelogues, but rather explorations that will inspire you to live life to the fullest.

As Anthony Bourdain said, “Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you — it should change you.”

1. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

You can’t talk about raw, intoxicating travel-meets-food storytelling without Bourdain’s OG memoir. Bourdain’s voice in the book is brilliant and brutally honest, and he takes you from the hellfire of NYC kitchens to the back alleys of Tokyo noodle shops.

2. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

This is a travel memoir that’s more about spiritual hunger than sightseeing. Gilbert’s journey through Italy, India, and Indonesia will resonate if you are currently in your "what am I doing with my life?" era.

3. The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton

De Botton dives into the why of travel, from why we dream of distant places, and why they never quite match our expectations.

4. In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin

Chatwin’s journey through Patagonia is less about geography and more about myth. This will leave you with a craving for the unfamiliar.

5. Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain

Bourdain’s follow-up to Kitchen Confidential has the same sharp honesty, but this time with more reflection. He’s seen more of the world now, and it shows.

6. On the Road by Jack Kerouac

As in… the one book every indie-cosplaying guy that listens to jazz and tries to take Polaroids has. This one’s been memed to death, but don’t let that stop you. Kerouac captures that uniquely American ache to escape, to be seen, and to feel something.

7. Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr

Doerr moves to Rome with infant twins and turns jet lag and wonder into poetry.

Per Amazon’s description: “Exquisitely observed, Four Seasons in Rome describes Doerr's varied adventures in one of the most enchanting cities in the world. He reads Pliny, Dante, and Keats—the chroniclers of Rome who came before him—and visits the piazzas, temples, and ancient cisterns they describe. He attends the vigil of a dying Pope John Paul II and takes his twins to the Pantheon in December to wait for snow to fall through the oculus. He and his family are embraced by the butchers, grocers, and bakers of the neighborhood, whose clamor of stories and idiosyncratic child-rearing advice is as compelling as the city itself.”

8. A Cook’s Tour by Anthony Bourdain

This book chronicles Bourdain’s first global food tour with stops in Cambodia, Vietnam, Russia, and more. It’s hungry, raw, and full of moments that are equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking.

9. The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell

When Helen moves to rural Denmark, she dives into what makes Danes some of the happiest people on Earth. It’s part personal experiment and part anthropological adventure.

10. Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson

In this book, Bryson traipses across Europe with dry wit. You’ll find yourself laughing at his travel tropes.

Final Thoughts

Got a favorite that should be on this list? Drop it in the comments!