Adventure travel books 2022: our top 10 tips

Adventure travel books 2022: our top 10 tips

We share the best adventure travel books of 2021 and explain why each should be on your reading list

From a cross-country road trip in a hostile America to boundless sand dunes in remote China, our 2021 crop of adventure travel books have one thing in common: their journeys are more than just physical.

There are daredevil stories, but beyond the thrill of adventure, there are stories of recovery, rebirth and the healing power of nature.

In Nepal, a man attempts Everest again after a deadly earthquake. In Britain another comes back from the brink of suicide, while in the US a woman emerges from a three-year battle with leukemia.

Ultimately, these are not only stories of exploration and adventure, but also of courage, curiosity, resilience and hope.

Adventure travel books 2021

Our top adventure travel books of 2021 are ranked by release date, along with links to Amazon and Goodreads.

Love is an ex-land

by Randa Jarrar2nd Feb Amazon | Goodreads

In this cross-country road trip memoir, author Randa Jarrar chronicles her journey from California to Connecticut as a queer, Muslim, Arab-American, proud, fat woman.

After experiencing domestic abuse as both a child and an adult, Jarrar reclaimed her autonomy and explored how to find joy in a hostile America. Along the way, she encounters a truck stop racist, destroys Confederate flags in the desert, and visits the Chicago neighborhood where her immigrant parents first lived.

A story of domestic violence, single motherhood, sexuality and resilience, Love Is an Ex-Country offers a look at America from a perspective rarely shared.

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

by Suleika Jaouad9th FebAmazon | Goodreads

The summer after graduating college, Suleika Jaouad moved from New York to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent—but life had other plans.

It started with an itch, first on her feet, then up her legs. Next came the exhaustion and the six-hour naps that only added to her exhaustion. Then a trip to the doctor and a few weeks before her 23rd birthday she was diagnosed: leukemia with a 35 percent chance of survival.

When Jaouad finally leaves the cancer ward – after three and a half years of chemotherapy, a clinical trial and a bone marrow transplant – she is “cured”. She and her new best friend Oscar, a scruffy terrier mutt, set out on a 100-day, 15,000-mile journey to find healing in a different way.

Winter Pasture: A Woman's Journey with China's Kazakh Shepherds

by Li Juan, Jack Hargreaves23. FebAmazon | Goodreads

Li Juan and her mother own a small grocery store in the Altai Mountains of northwest China. One day she decides to join a Kazakh shepherding family as they take their 30 rambunctious camels, 500 sheep and 100 cattle and horses to pasture for the winter in a remote region stretching from the Ulungur River to the Heavenly Mountains.

As she travels across the vast, seemingly endless sand dunes, she herds sheep, rides horses, chases camels, and builds an underground home with dung.

With humility and a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor, Li captures both the extraordinary hardships and everyday worries of the men and women fighting for survival in this desolate landscape.

A walk from the wild edge

by Jake Tyler18th MarAmazon | Goodreads

After coming shockingly close to suicide, Jake Tyler was determined to regain control of his life from the clutches of depression.

With just a pair of hiking boots and a backpack, he left his hometown of Maldon and began a 3,000-mile trek around mainland Britain. By documenting every step of his adventure, Tyler shares how his road to recovery was enhanced by the kindness of strangers who helped him better understand himself and the power of human connection.

This is the story of Tyler's tour of Britain and his journey to find peace with himself and the world around him.

The Bears Ears: A Human History of America's Most Endangered Wilderness

by David Roberts23. MarAmazon | Goodreads

Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, created by President Obama in 2016 and gutted by the Trump administration in 2017, contains more archaeological sites than any other region in the United States. It is also a spectacularly beautiful landscape with sandstone canyons and bold mesas and buttes.

Unfortunately, this wilderness is now threatened by oil and gas drilling, unrestricted grazing, and invasion by Jeeps and ATVs. In fact, it is said to be at the center of the largest environmental battle in America since the damming of the Colorado River to create Lake Powell in the 1950s.

Weaving personal memoirs with archival research, writer David Roberts takes readers on a tour of his favorite place on Earth and explains why it's so important to protect the Bear's Ears.

The Third Pole: Mystery, Obsession and Death on Mount Everest

by Mark Synnott13. AprAmazon | Goodreads

On June 8, 1924, George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine set out to reach the summit of Everest, where no man had ever stood before. A century later, we still don't know if they made it.

In 2019, mountaineer Mark Synnott climbed Everest himself in pursuit of the Kodak camera that Irvine was carrying.

Synnott's search took him from archives and museums in England to Kathmandu, the Tibetan plateau and up the mountain's infamous north face into a storm during a season described as the one that broke Everest. A terrible traffic jam of climbers at the summit resulted in tragic deaths. Sherpas revolted. Chinese government agents became adversaries. An Indian woman crawled to safety.

Synnott himself climbed out of the safety rope - had he slipped, no one would have been able to save him - desperate to solve the mystery. The third pole records his extraordinary journey.

Next Everest, The: Surviving the Mountain's Deadliest Day and Finding the Resilience to Climb Again

by Jim Davidson22. AprAmazon | Goodreads

On April 25, 2015, climber Jim Davidson was on Mount Everest when a magnitude 7.8 earthquake triggered avalanches around him and his team, destroying their only escape route and trapping them at about 6,000 m (20,000 ft).

It was the largest earthquake to hit Nepal in 81 years and killed nearly 8,900 people. That day became the deadliest in Everest's history as 18 people lost their lives on the mountain.

After two disturbing days on the mountain, Davidson's team was rescued by helicopter. The experience left him wondering if he would ever return after 33 years of climbing. Next, Everest chronicles the disaster and Davidson's return to the mountain despite the risk and uncertainty.

I belong here

by Anita Sethi29. AprAmazon | Goodreads

Anita Sethi was traveling through northern England when she was the victim of a racist verbal attack. After the event, panic attacks, anxiety, and a crushing feeling of claustrophobia left Sethi longing for wide, open spaces.

The Pennines, known as “the backbone of Britain”, called to her with magnetic force. Even though the racist told her to leave, Sethi was forced to continue exploring an area she considers home.

Sethi's journey through the natural landscapes of the north is one of reclamation; a way of saying that this is her country too and as a brown woman she belongs in Britain, just like a white man. Her journey transforms what began as an ugly experience into one full of hope and beauty.

Cycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey After the Monarch Migration

by Sara Dykman1. MayAmazon | Goodreads

In 2017, researcher Sara Dykman decided to do something no one had ever done before: cycle with monarch butterflies the entire length of their 10,201-mile migration journey. She rode alone on a self-made bicycle through Mexico, the USA and Canada.

In Bicycling with Butterflies, we follow her through a Midwestern thunderstorm, a field of zombie corn, and multiple trips across the border, meeting an interesting group of dedicated citizen scientists, skeptical bar patrons, farmers, and other cyclists.

Told with grace and humility, Bicycling with Butterflies deftly combines memoir, travel, and popular science to highlight the urgency of saving the monarchs. Although sobering, it is ultimately an uplifting story full of optimism, energy and hope.

Into the Deep: The Life of a Researcher

by Robert D. Ballard, Christopher Drew10. JunAmazon | Goodreads

Adventurer Robert Ballard is best known for finding the wreck of the Titanic, but has a life full of exciting stories. In 1977 he discovered new extremophile life forms that thrive in 400 °C (750 °F) hydrothermal vents and in 1989 he found the wreck of the Bismarck.

He is now captain of the E/V Nautilus, a scientific exploration vessel rigged for oceanography research. He leads a team of scientists who map the ocean floor, collect artifacts from ancient shipwrecks, and broadcast live adventures from remote-controlled submersibles revealing extraordinary marine life.

Now Ballard is getting personal for the first time. In Into the Deep, he reveals how he went from a dyslexic Midwestern kid to an internationally known ocean explorer.

Mission statement: Michaelspb/Shutterstock

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