Best Travel Memoirs by Women: My Top Picks
Are you looking for the best travel memoirs by women? You’re in the right place!
The only thing I love as much as traveling is reading. My favorite genres may span from fantasy to thrillers to nonfiction, but it should come as no surprise that I also love reading about travel.
Travel memoirs allow you to travel vicariously through the author, read about amazing adventures, and learn about new destinations. You can travel the world just by turning the page. A lot of the most popular travel memoirs were written by men, but I put this list together to highlight travel memoirs by women.
I’ve read every book on this list, and I’ll briefly share my thoughts on each one below. I’m always adding to this list when I finish reading new travel memoirs, so this will be an ever-expanding guide.
If you’re looking for your next wanderlust-inducing read, look no further than these books.
Note: I have included Amazon affiliate links for each of the books mentioned below. If you make a purchase through one of my links, I will earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
If you’d like to support independent bookstores, you can also shop these recommendations on my Bookshop.org storefront. I will earn a small commission if you make a purchase through one of my links, but an additional 10% of each sale will also go to supporting independent bookstores.
1. Joy Ride by Kristen Jokinen
Joy Ride is a delightful story about an unforgettable adventure. The author Kristen and her husband decide to set off on an epic journey, cycling all the way from Alaska to Argentina over the course of two years. They do this on a shoestring budget, often camping and staying with locals as they go.
Along the way, they experience many trials and tribulations, but keep a positive attitude and experience the kindness of strangers in every destination they visit. Overall, this was a very entertaining and inspiring memoir. I loved living vicariously through the sort of adventure I’d never be able to handle myself!
2. Flirting with Disaster by Angie Orth
Flirting with Disaster is a fun and uplifting memoir from travel blogger Angie Orth. I first discovered her blog, Angie Away, years ago, from reading about her disastrous destination wedding in the Bahamas. This memoir chronicles her year of travel after quitting her PR job in New York to go on a big solo trip.
Along the way, she has plenty of adventures (and misadventures) as she travels around the globe on her own. I found this book to be quite funny and entertaining, while also being full of heart.
3. Finding Katya by Katie Aune
Finding Katya is another memoir written by a travel blogger, although I was not familiar with her blog at the time I picked this book up. However, I enjoyed this book so much that after I finished it, I went back and read the archives of the author’s blog from when she was writing about this journey in real time.
Former tax attorney Katie quit her job to go on an epic eighteen-month sabbatical, backpacking around the 15 countries that make up the former USSR. This book made me really intrigued about this part of the world, and I appreciated how honest the author was about the not-so-great parts of her trip.
4. Sovietistan by Erika Fatland
Sovietistan leans more heavily into nonfiction territory than some of the other books on this list, but it also contains memoir elements that I found to be very entertaining and fun to read. The author is an anthropologist from Norway, and she spends time in the five ‘Stans that were formerly part of the USSR.
I learned a lot about the history of Central Asia from this book. But my favorite parts were the experiences the author had as she traveled and interviewed many people she met along the way.
5. The Good Girl’s Guide to Getting Lost by Rachel Friedman
The Good Girl’s Guide to Getting Lost is a travel memoir about an American college student who meets a free-spirited Australian adventurer during a summer spent living and working in Ireland.
Good girl Rachel and her travel-loving friend Carly end up staying in touch, leading Rachel on a big post-college adventure abroad. She lives and works in Australia and eventually backpacks around South America in this fun coming-of-age travel memoir. I loved the focus on female friendship in this one.
6. Around the World in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh
If you enjoy train travel, Around the World in 80 Trains is a great travel memoir to pick up. The author is a journalist who embarks on a seven-month journey around the world with her fiancé, riding trains across Europe, Asia, and North America. This book contains her observations and experiences.
Sometimes I found her to be a little too judgmental, but aren’t we all? I enjoyed reading about the people she met and interviewed along the way, and my favorite sections to read were North Korea and China.
7. Wanderlust by Elisabeth Eaves
Wanderlust is a travel memoir spanning 15 years, following the author’s many adventures (and romances) around the world. If you’re looking for a juicy, unfiltered confession, this book is it.
From a year spent studying abroad in Cairo, Egypt, to living in Karachi, Pakistan and working for the US State Department, to backpacking around Australia and Papua New Guinea, I really enjoyed reading about the author’s travels and all of her many crazy experiences around the globe.
8. A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout
I feel a little weird including this on a list of best travel memoirs, because this is not a book about fun and exciting adventures abroad, but nonetheless, I wanted to recommend A House in the Sky. It’s a book that was difficult to read, but I was amazed at the courage and resilience of the author.
After a series of adventures around the world and a budding career as a journalist, the author found herself trapped in a nightmare. She and her photographer companion were kidnapped in Somalia and held hostage for 460 days, where Amanda suffered unspeakable atrocities. But despite it all, she survived.
9. Free Ride by Noraly Schoenmaker
Free Ride by Noraly Schoenmaker can be filed away in the category of “living vicariously through travel adventures I will probably never have.” Because as much as I love travel and adventures, I don’t see myself going on a solo motorcycle journey across India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia.
This book chronicled the author’s nine-month journey, which she embarked on after her relationship ended and she had to sell her home back in the Netherlands. It was an exciting, interesting story that I highly recommend. The author also has a popular YouTube channel where she films her travels.
10. The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell
What is it actually like to live in Denmark? The Year of Living Danishly is a delightful memoir that explores this question through the eyes of an expat living in the rural Jutland region of Denmark for one year and trying to adapt to her new life abroad. This was an entertaining, enlightening book!
Helen Russell is a freelance writer who relocated from England when her husband got a job at the LEGO headquarters in Denmark. This book is part memoir and part nonfiction book about Danish culture. Each chapter explores a different aspect of life in Denmark, a format that I enjoyed.
11. What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding by Kristin Newman
As the title suggests, What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding chronicles the author’s adventures around the globe as all her friends at home were getting married and having kids.
Kristin Newman, a TV comedy writer in Los Angeles, had a fear of commitment, so she spent her free time traveling the world and having various love affairs in foreign countries instead. I enjoyed this entertaining book well enough, but I did find that the author’s humor didn’t quite land for me at times.
12. Two O’Clock on a Tuesday at Trevi Fountain by Helene Sula
Two O’Clock on a Tuesday at Trevi Fountain is a memoir from travel blogger and influencer Helene Sula, better known as Helene in Between. I had been following Helene online for years, so I was interested to read her memoir, although this might not appeal quite as much if you haven’t heard of her before.
This book chronicles how the author and her husband fell in love with travel and planned a move to Germany, taking a leap of faith to go full-time on Helene’s business and uprooting their lives for adventure.
13. Call You When I Land by Nikki Vargas
Call You When I Land is a tell-all memoir from travel writer and editor Nikki Vargas. As the daughter of successful immigrant parents, she strikes out on her own by moving to New York City and chasing her dream career as a travel writer. But then she finds herself stuck in a life that isn’t what she truly wants.
She works at a job she doesn’t enjoy and is engaged to a man she doesn’t actually want to marry. She engages in some highly questionable behaviors, and while I appreciated her honesty, I didn’t feel like she demonstrated much character growth. Overall, though, this was an easy and entertaining read.
14. Open Mic Night in Moscow by Audrey Murray
I’m realizing I have a handful of memoirs set in the former USSR on this list, and Open Mic Night in Moscow is another one. The author is living and working in China when she decides to embark on a spontaneous solo adventure around many countries in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
She doesn’t do much planning, which always seems to get her into some sticky situations. This was an enjoyable read overall, but the author (who is a comedian) had a sense of humor I found grating at times. I also could have done without any of the boring ramblings about her ex-boyfriends.
15. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Eat, Pray, Love is an extremely popular travel memoir that became a hit movie starring Julia Roberts. I actually read this book when I was sixteen after finding a copy of it at the beach condo I was staying at in Florida. Needing something to read on the beach, I decided to give this book a try.
Although I couldn’t relate to the author’s experience of divorce and midlife crisis, I did enjoy reading about her travels through Italy, India, and Indonesia on her self-discovery journey. This is a book that gets a lot of criticism because the author comes off as privileged and pretentious, but nonetheless, I liked it.
16. All Over the Place by Geraldine DeRuiter
All Over the Place is a memoir from travel blogger Geraldine DeRuiter, whose writing I initially discovered after her hilarious review of a horrible Michelin-starred restaurant in Italy went viral.
While this memoir is less “adventurous” than some on the list (her travels are mainly limited to following her husband around the world on business trips), I still enjoyed this book overall. Especially the parts about using travel to understand her parents and grandparents (who were Italian immigrants) better.
17. Lands of Lost Borders by Kate Harris
Lands of Lost Borders is a memoir following an adventurous Oxford- and MIT-educated scientist, who embarks on an epic cycling journey along the ancient Silk Road with her equally adventurous best friend. I enjoy reading books about intense trips like this because it’s something I could never do myself.
While this was an interesting book to read, I did feel that the author went on too many long-winded tangents and philosophical musings, when I was more interested in the actual trip itself. I would have liked to hear more about the people she met and the places she went, rather than these random digressions.
18. How Not to Travel the World by Lauren Juliff
Another travel blogger memoir I enjoyed was How Not to Travel the World by Lauren Juliff. I used to really enjoy reading Lauren’s personal updates on her blog Never Ending Footsteps, so I was excited to finally pick up her memoir about her early days as a self-proclaimed disaster-prone backpacker.
I didn’t enjoy everything about this book (namely her much older boyfriend, who came off as rude and controlling at times) but overall it was fun to read about her early travel experiences in Southeast Asia.
19. Airplane Mode by Shahnaz Habib
Airplane Mode is a collection of essays that is part travel memoir and part history of travel. The author, a Muslim Indian woman living in the US, writes about travel through her perspective. Although travel writing is predominantly male, even when the writers are women, they are still predominantly white.
Although I enjoyed some of the essays a lot more than others, I liked this book overall. There were some particularly fascinating tidbits about travel history woven in that were very interesting.
20. Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Wild is a bestselling memoir following the author’s solo trek on the Pacific Crest Trail, a journey she undertook after the death of her mother. This is another travel memoir that became a popular movie, starring Reese Witherspoon. It follows her time on the trail and all her experiences along the way.
Hiking over 1,100 miles alone on a rugged trail is something I would never do, so I really enjoyed reading about someone else doing it instead. While I enjoyed the adventure aspect of this book best, it would also be a good book for anyone dealing with grief, since that’s a big aspect of what the author is going through.
21. Bringing Up Bébé by Pamela Druckerman
I randomly picked up a copy of Bringing Up Bébé at the Airbnb I was staying at in Copenhagen, where I was on a weekend trip while studying abroad in Paris. Despite being a twenty-year-old college student with no interest in children, I really enjoyed this book by an American woman living in Paris.
Part memoir and part parenting guide, the author reflects on the differences between American and French child-rearing tactics, while offering a larger cultural insight into life in France. Even if you aren’t a parent, it’s an interesting read, and for the parents out there, you might find it useful too.
22. Coffee First, Then the World by Jenny Graham
I’ve included a couple of other cycling stories on this list, but Coffee First, Then the World is probably the most intense. That’s because the author embarked on a round-the-world cycling trip to break a Guinness World Record, cycling more than 18,000 miles across four continents in just four months.
Traveling at this breakneck pace around the globe means that Jenny wasn’t able to do much (well, really any) sightseeing or have a typical “travel” experience. But it was inspiring to read about her endurance and commitment to this challenge, which took her through sixteen countries around the world.
23. A Trip of One’s Own by Kate Wills
A Trip of One’s Own combines memoir with travel history and bits of travel advice. I found the historical anecdotes about female solo travelers and adventurers through the ages to be the most interesting part of this book. Unfortunately, I didn’t find the actual memoir elements to be as engaging.
The author is a freelance travel writer and shares a lot of stories from press trips she took as part of her job, as well as ruminations on her divorce and love life. Each chapter also ends with several pages of travel tips, which ended up feeling a lot like filler. Overall, I liked this book, but I didn’t love it.
24. 12 Trips in 12 Months by Jen Ruiz
Another travel memoir I wanted to add to this list, even though I personally didn’t enjoy it as much as many of the others I’ve mentioned, is 12 Trips in 12 Months. The premise was interesting (the author sets a goal to take a trip every month in the year before she turns thirty), but the execution fell flat for me.
I think the author, who is also the founder of the travel website Jen on a Jet Plane, is actually a good writer, but her skills didn’t shine through in this book. A lot of the descriptions of her travels in this book seemed really surface-level and lacked interesting insights. I found this memoir to be just okay.
25. At Home in the World by Tsh Oxenreider
The majority of the books I’ve talked about focus on women traveling solo, or with just their partner or maybe friends. But if you’re looking for a memoir about traveling with kids, At Home in the World is an interesting one. This author and her husband traveled the world for a year with three young children.
A few things about this book irritated me (like the author mentioned numerous times that they were on a strict budget, but they chose a crazy continent-hopping itinerary instead of a more logical, slow travel), but overall, this was an interesting book about this family’s unconventional worldwide journey.
Best Travel Memoirs by Women
These are some of the best travel memoirs by women authors. I’ve personally read all of these books, and I would recommend any of them (although some I liked more than others, obviously!)
If you’re looking for stories about adventurous, brave, resilient, and curious women, these are all good picks. Many of them will have you laughing, crying, and/or daydreaming about your next destination
I’m always adding more travel memoirs to this list as I read new stories about women who have gone on incredible adventures, so I will continue to update this guide as I read more travel memoirs.
Happy reading!
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