The Ten Best Books About Travel of 2021 | Travel| Smithsonian Magazine

To put it mildly, the year 2021 has been an interesting one in terms of travel, thanks to the pandemic. While many countries are reopening their borders and inviting visitors back with open arms, others remain completely locked down to foreigners. Many travelers have seen this as a sign to keep their vacations closer to home, favoring road trips over intercontinental flights and cruises, while others prepare for long-awaited excursions they were forced to cancel due to Covid-19.

Fortunately, one thing the pandemic hasn’t changed is the ability to escape and experience new places through a book. here are ten 2021 travel book releases that have us excited to hit the road again.

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winter pastures: a woman’s journey with the kazakh herders of china, by li juan

After many years of running a convenience store with her mother in the Altai Mountains of China, author Li Juan decided she wanted to experience the country’s rugged, rugged landscape for herself and joined a family of Kazakh herders. to help them with the challenging task of moving their cattle from one grazing area to another. Faced with minus 20 degree temperatures and a herd of 30 camels, 500 sheep and over 100 head of cattle, Li experiences first-hand what herding life is like and recounts it in her memoir, Winter Pastures, translated into English by first time. Describing the inspiration for her book, she writes in an excerpt, “In the beginning, my ambitions were great. I wanted to spend the winter in a destination that was at least 250 miles away, which would mean more than a dozen days on horseback, so I could get a taste of the harsher and more unforgiving aspects of nomadic life.” however, she was concerned about traveling on horseback and enduring inclement weather, and she ultimately opted to spend only three days with the herdsmen. Slate writes, “people can figure out how to survive in the harshest of circumstances, and learning how these people do it, how they have done it for centuries, makes Pastures of Winter an unlikely but inspiring getaway read for the late pandemic.” “.

round trip: photos from the edge, by jimmy chin

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it is very likely that you have seen the work of jimmy chin. Not only have his adventure photographs appeared in National Geographic, but his film Free Solo, which follows professional climber Alex Honnold’s thrilling attempt to free climb El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, won an Oscar for Best Documentary in 2019. Now, the photographer-director-mountaineer is adding another dash to his name as the book’s author with the December 7 release of There and Back: Photographs from the Edge. Capturing some of Chin’s greatest (and most death-defying) adventures, from skiing Mount Everest to traversing Tibet’s high-altitude Chang Tang region without a support crew, the book contains more than 200 amazing photographs taken on all seven continents. Chin’s images are combined with profiles of some of the world’s most exceptional athletes and adventurers, including Honnold and Ski-Mountainer Kit Deslauriers. Fellow photographer Paul Nicklen has this to say about Chin’s work: “Jimmy’s photography takes you on a journey to places few have been. No one else can capture such beauty while dangling from a mighty rock face or skiing down the legendary slopes of Mount Everest. it is a pleasure to finally have all the most iconic images of him in one volume. I can’t wait for you to lose yourself in the poetry he has unearthed in the most extreme corners of our planet.”

An Indian Among the Indians: Memoirs of a Native Journey, by Ursula Pike

ursula pike, a member of the karuk tribe of northern california, joined the peace corps at age 20 hoping to build relationships with indigenous groups far from home. as he writes in his debut book, an indian among the indigenous, it was not lost on him that when he arrived in la paz, bolivia, to begin his volunteer stint, he “followed in the footsteps of western colonizers and missionaries who had also claimed that They were there to help.” Pike’s travel memoir addresses the lasting repercussions that colonization witnesses in South America, providing an honest, direct, and unwhitewashed perspective. “Sharply aware of the legacy of colonialism in his own town, pike examines his own potential complicity with candor and wit,” writes mrs. magazine.

bears’ ears: a human story of america’s most endangered wilderness, by david roberts

bears ears national monument in southeastern utah has been a hotly contested region in recent years. In December 2017, former President Donald Trump signed legislation that reduced the size of the monument by 85 percent in an effort to put the land up for auction for future development as a drilling and mining site, one of the largest land reductions ever. Protected by a president in history, only for the Biden administration to restore the territory to its original form this October. Now that the environmental battle is over, author David Roberts takes readers on a journey through this rugged 1.35 million-acre expanse, which he calls “his favorite place on earth.” In Bear’s Ears, Robert combines archival research with his own personal adventures exploring some of the Monument’s more than 100,000 archaeological sites, encompassing nearly 14,000 years of human history. “Most tribes feel like North America is still theirs, stolen from them by the government, by white people,” Mark Maryboy, a retired Navajo politician and activist, told Roberts in an op-ed for the New york times in february. “We still worship in those lands. the ears of the bears is our church, our cathedral”.

windswept: walking the paths of pioneering women, by annabel abbs

in her new book, english author annabel abbs adds weight to the famous quote, “well-behaved women seldom make history,” originally uttered by harvard professor laurel thatcher ulrich and often misattributed to eleanor roosevelt . Following the paths of notable artists, authors, musicians, and scholars, she embarks on an inspiring journey with the many women throughout history who refused to conform to gender norms and instead left their conventional domestic roles behind. to enter spheres historically populated by men. Describing her own childhood experiences of growing up without cars and relying on her own feet to get around, abbs “walks” alongside artist georgia o’keeffe in the isolated desert of new mexico, english author daphne du maurier, and the rhone river , and the French writer and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir in the midst of the wild forests and mountains of France. Throughout Windswept, Abbs poses this simple yet thought-provoking question: “How does a woman change once she becomes Windswept?”

postcards from the Baja california border: portraying urban landscape and place, 1900-1950, by daniel d. arreola

for many people, including daniel d. arreola, mailing a postcard to friends and loved ones back home is a necessary part of traveling. In Postcards from the Baja California Border, the cultural and historical geographer examines the history of some of the many Mexican border communities, particularly Tijuana, Mexicali, Tecate, and Algodones, training his focus specifically on the first half of the 20th century. The book is the final installment in a four-part series that includes postcards from the Rio Bravo, Sonora, and Chihuahua. “In each of these excursions, the objective has been the same: to understand how a popular means of communication, the postcard, is a window into the historical and geographical past of the Mexican border communities that were tourist destinations from the 1900s to the 1950s” , Arreola writes in the book’s introduction. many of the postcards are from arreola’s personal collection while others are from archives. By highlighting dozens of colorful postcards, Arreola shows what the borderlands look like from a visitor’s perspective and provides a time capsule of the many cabarets, curio shops, and other popular tourist haunts that have all but disappeared over time.

come blow up the world: the jet age story of pan am women, by julia cooke

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pan american world airways, or simply pan am, is arguably one of the world’s most recognizable and iconic international airlines, leaving an impressionable mark on the airline industry long after it filed for bankruptcy in 1991. In her book Come Fly the World, author Julia Cooke relives the allure of air travel, sharing the experiences of the stewardesses (then called stewardesses) who worked for the airline between 1966 and 1975. Cooke not only highlights some of the ridiculous standards set by the airline for its employees, such as requiring flight attendants to be between 5’3″ and 5’9″, 105 and 140 pounds, and under the age of 26, but also their role during the vietnam war, including providing assistance during operation babylift, which involved the mass evacuation of some 2,000 orphaned children in april 1975, during the fall of saigon, who were then adopted by new parents throughout america. In a book review, author Kate Bolick (Spinster: Making a Life of Her Own) writes, “By viewing the untold story of jet-age stewardesses through a modern feminist lens, Cooke vividly brings to life a profession contradictory, one that, despite all its limitations, offered many women the opportunity for true liberation.”

around the world in 80 books, by david damrosch

As a professor of literature at Harvard University, David Damrosch knows a thing or two about the books that have shaped the field of literature and touched people’s lives as well. For Around the World in 80 Books, he draws from his extensive knowledge of the written word and his personal library of texts to create an analysis of 80 books that offer readers a strong sense of place. From Charles Dickens (Great Expectations) and Eileen Chang (Love in a Fallen City) to Chinua Achebe (Things Fall Apart) and Marcel Proust (In Search of Lost Time), Damrosch brings together a diverse range of talented authors from all walks of life. of the life. . they are widely and less well known, but they all have one key thing in common: their writing has the ability to transport readers to places near and far without needing to leave home.

islands of abandonment, by cal flyn

During the early days of the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, it became startlingly apparent how quickly nature takes over once human interference subsides. air quality improved in cities around the world, and birds flocked to urban areas they would normally avoid. In Islands of Abandonment, investigative journalist and nature writer Cal Flyn takes things a step further by visiting places around the world abandoned by humans over time, whether due to war or famine, including the korean demilitarized zone (dmz) that serves as a buffer between north and south korea, and chernobyl, the site of a deadly nuclear disaster that remains a risk to human health nearly 40 years later. The book, which was a finalist for the wainwright prize, awarded to works that “include a celebration of nature and our natural environment or a warning of the dangers that lurk around the world”, recognizes the negative impacts that humans have had on the earth, while making a strong case for the collective ability of human beings to help rehabilitate the planet for future generations.

freedom, by sebastian junger

Over the course of a year, sebastian junger, the new york times tribe bestselling author, and three of his friends, a conflict photographer and two military veterans, challenged themselves to leave the comforts behind to which they were accustomed because of the daily struggles that come with life on the road. Using the rail lines that run along the East Coast as a guide, they embarked on a mission to experience what life is like without the safety net of conventional food and shelter. their weeks were spent living rough, sleeping under overpasses, escaping from railway police, and struggling to prepare each day’s meals. Freedom places the group’s experiment in independence in context with historical accounts of labor strikes, resistance movements, and life on the open frontier, ultimately shedding new light on the meaning of community and freedom. “junger contemplates the intersection of autonomy and clique at a time when the word itself, while so meaningful, is often misunderstood,” writes sarah sicard in a review of military times.

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