The Tao of Travel is a compilation of portions from some of the best travel writing in the world, including his own. It’s put into sections with the excerpts under the specific sections. It was an easy read and it was great to read quotes, and there were tidbits of wisdom from specific travel writers.
The book is broken down into 27 parts:
- Travel in Brief
- The Naval of the World
- The Pleasures of Railways
- Murphy’s Rules of Travel
- Travelers on Their Own Books
- How Long Did the Traveler Spend Traveling?
- The Things That They Carried
- Fears, Neuroses and Other Conditions
- Travelers Who Never Went Alone
- Travel as an Ordeal
- English Travelers on Escaping England
- When You’re Strange
- It is Solved by Walking
- Travel Feats
- Staying Home
- Imaginary Journeys
- Everything is Edible Somehwere
- Rosenblum’s Rules or Reporting
- Perverse Pleasures of an Inhospitable
- Imaginary People
- Writers and the Places They Never Visited
- Travelers’ Bliss
- Classics of a Sense of Place
- Evocative Name, Disappointing Place
- Dangerous, Happy, Alluring
- Five Travel Epiphanies
- The Essential Tao of Travel
My favorite section was 13 It is Solved by Walking. This section has inspire me to do a walking trip, hopefully in the near future, but more on that later. I have acquired a ton of quotes to use on here, and I am filled with inspiration. I’m going to leave you with 5 quotes to inspire you as well!
“Homesickness is a feeling that many know and suffer from; I on the other hand feel a pain less known, and its name is ‘Outsickness.’ When the snow melts, the stork arrives, and the first steamships race off, the I feel then painful travel unrest.”
-Hans Christian Andersen-
“No one has ever described the place where I have just arrived: this is the emotion that makes me want to travel. It is one of the greatest reasons to go anywhere.”
-Paul Theroux-
“Travel holds the magical possibility of reinvention: that you might find a place you love, to begin a new life and never go home.”
-Paul Theroux-
“Travel means living among strangers, their characteristic stinks and sour perfumes, eating their food, listening to their dramas, enduring their opinions, often with no language in common, being always on the move toward an uncertain destination, creating an itinerary that is continually shifting, sleeping alone, improvising the trip.”
-Paul Theroux-
“All places, no matter where, no matter what, are worth visiting. But seldom-visited places where people were still living settled traditional lives seemed to me the most worthwhile, because they were the most coherent- they were readable and nearly always I felt uplifted by them.”
-Paul Theroux-
Have any of you guys read this book? If so what was your favorite section? What did you find most inspiring about it?
10 Comments
liz
September 12, 2012 at 12:37 ami dont have it, but i neeeeeeed it. 🙂
ashleypaige4
September 12, 2012 at 12:38 amLiz, you would love this! It’s FULL of inspiration!
TBM
September 12, 2012 at 4:50 amI think I need to pick up a copy. Thanks for the tip!
ashleypaige4
September 12, 2012 at 4:52 amNo problem! If you read it be sure to let me know what you think of it!
bani.amor
September 12, 2012 at 4:31 pmlove theroux, but don’t have this one. #broke
ashleypaige4
September 12, 2012 at 6:38 pmI feel ya with the broke, thing. I really enjoyed this. It’s really different because it is just excerpts from other travel writing, but they way it’s compiled is really cool.
Stacey Hoehne
September 13, 2012 at 10:28 pmI need to borrow this!!
ashleypaige4
September 13, 2012 at 11:24 pmI can arrange that! Plus, it’s an extra excuse to come see you! 🙂
dakota85
September 17, 2012 at 4:48 pmThanks for reveiwing this book, Theroux is one of those writers you just can’t pass up…haven’t read this book yet, but I am keen to now : )
ashleypaige4
September 17, 2012 at 5:06 pmTheroux is amazing, and this is interesting because of the way he complies other writers and you get to see who inspired him! Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think of it, if you get the chance to read it!