The best travel novels for your summer holiday

To read is to dream, and there's no better inspiration for travel than delving into an experiential novel. Live vicariously through fiction, then book a trip to make it a fact.

An autobiographical tale of self-discovery, Elizabeth Gilbert's trek through Italy, India and Bali remains the go-to book for travel inspiration. Stretched over three continents, it's less 'perfect' than the 2010 film starring Julia Roberts, but all the more perfect for it. When life needs new direction, this provides all the signposts.

Both a true-crime murder story and twisted travelogue, this intriguing tale of a disparate bunch of Savannah residents brings the genteel Georgia city into steamy focus.

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The Big Apple, as seen through the eyes of several famous inhabitants, Megan Bradbury’s 'Everyone Is Watching' paints a vivid, pop-cultural picture of the city that never sleeps.

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Intense, dramatic. and brimful of real-life experience, 'City of God' is a sumptuous tour de force of a novel that brings to life the troubled favelas of Rio de Janeiro. This is the flip side to Ipanema, but no less exotic. Expect samba, gunfire, and the kind of seductive multi-ethnicity so redolent of Brazil.

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An intricate and beguiling story, 'Hot Milk' follows mother, Rose, and daughter, Sofia to a Spanish clinic on the coast of Almeria in search of a cure for Rose's paralysis. Levy explores the nature of womanhood through the generations, set against the cicadas and desert heat of Spain's driest region.

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Published in 1969, Fowles' revered saga is almost a pastiche of a historical Victorian novel. Romantic trysts and heightened melodrama are the order of the day, wonderfully set in the UK town of Lyme Regis on Dorset's dramatic Jurassic Coast.

More than a mere book, Paulo Coelho's 'The Alchemist' is a transformative experience that leaves an indelible imprint on all who fall under its spell. Insightful and thought-provoking, it follows Santiago, a young Andalucian shepherd, who travels to the pyramids of Egypt, overcoming obstacles from which he learns valuable life lessons.

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A nostalgic trip to a more solvent Europe, 'Barcelona Dreaming' explores themes of addiction, immigration, celebrity, and self-delusion through three linked novellas. This is a multi-layered view of the great Catalonian capital - the good, the bad, and the resolutely ugly.

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Penned in clean, direct prose, Brookner's 1984 novel won (with some controversy) that year's Booker Prize, and remains a stately, delicate read. The hotel in question sits at the edge of Lake Geneva, a quiet anachronism housing a handful of lost souls, each bearing troubles and regrets. Quiet, peaceful, and something of a tonic, this is a read for contemplative, destiny-changing moments.

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Brilliant, frenetic writing marked Garland's 1996 novel out as a zeitgest-tapping, standout read. Back-packing tourists discover an 'anti-tourist' island paradise in Thailand, only to have their dreams soured by a series of dramatic twists and turns. Take this book to the brach, but don't stray off the beaten track.

British author Louis de Bernières 1994 novel is set on the lemon-scented Greek island of Cephalonia during the German and Italian occupation of WWII. Evocative, romantic, and sharpened by social realism, this sun-bleached saga is the perfect holiday read.

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This poignant, elegantly written account of Lee's adventurous trip - from the Cotswolds in England to Spain's magnificent plains - is a masterclass in poetic wanderlust. Against the backdrop of impending civil war, the road from Vigo to Andalucia has never been better traveled.

Photo: Vidar Nordli-Mathisen / Unsplash

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