Illustrated Travel Writing

It's no secret that my absolute number one most favorite thing to read is travel writing - with illustrations.
I love reading about feeling out of place, eating new things, seeing new wildlife, comparisons about home and away, all the little details that come out when people talk about their travels. I enjoy the daily journal style or the scattered sketchbook style, I like detailed, hardcover logs and hand-stapled copy paper zines. I'm not picky - I just want to read and look and feel like I was there just a little bit.

I regularly search in bookstores and online for this under-represented genre and I have searched high and low for a good list of illustrated travel books (I usually turn up guidebooks with photos - NOT what I'm looking for, folks!) so I decided to make a list of my own. [If you are reading this and know of any good books or zines that would fit nicely into this list - PLEASE LET ME KNOW!]

This is a catch-all post intended to keep track of my growing collection of words-about-trips-with-drawings. Hopefully I will be able to add more books and zines to the list as I find them. SO, presented in no particular order with no commentary (just links for you to get your own copies or learn more about the authors/illustrators)...

A Nice Handy List of Illustrated Travel Writing That You Can Enjoy at Home or Abroad


My Alaskan Summer - Corinne Mucha


Balloons Over Reykjavík - Rán Flygenring (the official drawing person of Reykjavík!)


Sara Midda's South of France - A Sketchbook


A Year in Japan - Kate T. Williamson


French Milk - Lucy Knisley


Four Days in Brussels - Lizzy Stewart


Four Days in Iceland - Lizzy Stewart


Five Days in Berlin - Lizzy Stewart


Sleeping on the Sleeper series - Jen Collins


An Illustrated Journey - Danny Gregory
(Don't let the funny font on the cover fool you, this is not a mish-mash of chaotic scribblings, it's a collection of travel journal pages by a large number of artists and designers. It's an amazing mix of styles and ideas.)

And I can't not mention my favorite writer-about-places - Mr. John Muir. His stories aren't quite as heavily illustrated as I would like BUT the few drawings included with his journals are charming. I mean, look at those squirrels!


My First Summer in the Sierra - John Muir

Along with updating this post, I will try to keep this pinterest board full of books and other things that fit with my theme!

(I talked about a few of these books in another post.)


UPDATED JULY 7th 2013 -

Road to Rome: An Artist's Year in Italy and Across the Aegean: An Artist's Journey From Athens to Istanbul by MarleneMcLoughlin


Carnet De Voyage by Craig Thompson


Nine Lines of Metro and Seven Days in Berlin by Neil Slorance


Australia Travel Diary and Japanastic by danadamki