10 Great Nature and Travel Diaries You Need to Read

by Catalina Bonati

Travelogues and nature diaries often teach us new ways to relate to nature and our surroundings. Starting with the oldest travel diary in 1937 to the newes nature journal in 2021, the following books are mixtures of travelogues and diaries made while in commune with nature by ecologists and artists, and they each say something unique about personal relationships to family, education, art, and landscape.  

Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska by Rockwell Kent (1937)

In 1918, American wood engraver and artist Rockwell Kent moved to Alaska with his nine-year-old son, where they settle on an island in a small log cabin. This book is a nature diary of that time period. Importantly, is also includes pictures of the beautiful and unique engravings that Rockwell Kent made at the time. Rockwell is taken by the Alaskan landscape, though he spends more time describing the chores which he and his son must complete to survive, such as wood chopping, fishing, mending the roof, as well as baking, washing, and spending long winter nights in quiet peace in front of the wood stove fire. This narration is similar to Walden in some respects—the Kents spend much of their time appreciating their time alive and enjoying small luxuries, such as baking bread. Rockwell’s appreciation for nature and landscape is a general theme that is expressed not so much in words as it is through his art; the fantastical and imaginative nature of his landscape prints show wanderlust and the magnificent presence of the mountains looming over the cabin. He wonders at the imagination of his son, also named Rockwell, and at his endurance and knack for surviving in the Alaskan wilderness. Rockwell chronicles weather, hiking, and general outdoor activities with his son and his reflections take the form of his art.

This book is a classic in outdoor literature, and is especially recommended to those interested in the artist and his art.

West With the Night by Beryl Markham (1942)

Beryl Markham was a British Kenyan aviator, farmer, racehorse trainer, and writer in Kenya in the early 1900s. She had an adventurous life in which she trained racehorses, had affairs with princes, and was the first pilot to fly solo from Europe to North America. This book was originally published as an autobiography, but since then it has been said to fit more into the roman á clef genre as it is not exactly faithful to her life. In this fast-paced memoir, she speaks on her early life with her family on a farm in Kenya, where she lived in proximity to the Masai warriors with whom she learned to hunt. When her father left the farm when she was older, she stayed behind as a horse trainer, making her the first female horse trainer in Kenya. She later buys a small plane as a hobby and is taught to fly by a boyfriend. She starts flying as a career when she begins to work as bush pilot for hunting parties. She accomplishes her feat in flying across the Atlantic in 1936, and comes back to Africa to focus full-time on racehorse training on her farm. She dedicates some of her time to love affairs, including the man who taught her to pilot a plane, and two different princes. She was friends with other famous writers, like Ernest Hemingway and Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen), whom she knew from Blixen’s time as a coffee farmer near Nairobi.

Markham was a fascinating woman who wrote lyrical prose and embellished some aspects of her life. Nevertheless, West With the Night is a staple in travel literature and adventure writing and is highly recommended. 

Travels With Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck (1961)

In this diary, Nobel Prize-winning novelist John Steinbeck details his acquisition of an old van and his conversion of it into a camper and then sets out across America with Charley, his blue French poodle. Steinbeck sets out to see the “real America”: to pass through national parks, to visit small towns and to converse with country people. He sets out from his home in Long Island across to the Pacific Northwest, down to California, through Texas, and into the Dakotan badlands and back up the Atlantic to New York. Steinbeck carried out his trip in 1960 aged 58, two years before his Nobel Prize win. In this narration, Steinbeck speaks on the conveniences and inconveniences of his camper, how he saved his sailing boat from a hurricane, created an impromptu washing machine, and some medical problems that 10-year-old Charley underwent throughout the trip. His vision of America is both fresh and nostalgic, and he takes solace in speaking to people in roadside diners about things like the upcoming elections, the past World War, and reflects on what sets apart some states from others.

Steinbeck’s writing is a travel journal yet it reads like fiction. He has many mental and verbal conversations with Charley, and it reads like Steinbeck is inviting the reader to participate. His reflection on environment, the future, and globalization are quite insightful and frankly on the nose to our modern day, for example his perception of racism (it’s a crime and anti-democratic). Steinbeck’s prose is fluid, funny, and self-reflective and his care for others and for animals is heartwarming and interesting to read about. This book is highly recommended.

The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiesen (1978)  

American novelist Peter Matthiesen accompanies the naturalist George Schaller in two different trips to the Tibetan Himalayas in search for the ever-elusive snow leopard. Matthiesen and Schaller are also looking at blue sheep, which takes them to the Dolpo region of Nepal, which is reachable only by a 250-mile trek into the mountains. Matthiesen’s wife has just died of cancer, and he reflects on their relationship as he tries to find meaning in his new life without her. He leaves their 8-year-old son behind with family as he makes this trek. For him, it is a spiritual journey. He often reflects on Buddhist teachings and how they fall into place when contemplating the landscape of the Himalayas and his own life in New York. He and George eventually arrive at Shey Gompa in Pure Crystal Mountain, considered sacred in Tibetan Buddhism.

Matthiesen’s journey is a travelogue, a nature diary, and a spiritual discovery. He is focused on the forms of the landscape and the habits of animals, and he is also centered on the shape of Buddhism within himself. His prose is dense and reflective and often delves into the sutras and their meaning. This book is an undertaking, yet for those who look for spiritual nature writing, this non-fiction writing fits the theme.

All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes by Maya Angelou (1986)    

Maya Angelou was a renowned performer, writer, and civil rights activist who worked for both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. This book is a travel memoir about her time living in Ghana with her son in 1962, where she worked as a journalist and also spent time organizing protests. In this book, Angelou spends a lot of time with the American expats in Accra, most of whom are African American. They reflect on their experience being African American in Ghana, like how the label of “black” ceases to exist and remember how they are the descendants of Africans who may not have been kidnapped by Europeans, but possibly by African traders or by a stronger tribe. Angelou feels both at home and not at home, as she hoped to be welcomed as a returning daughter but this was not so. This book is very much about identity and finding a place to belong, a theme that does not only affect Maya Angelou and the expats but Ghana as well. President Kwame Nkrumah was head of state in 1962 and was the first president of the newly formed republic. Nkrumah was an advocate of Pan-Africanism and African unity, which served to create a feeling of Ghanaian identity yet also worked to erase differences between tribal lifestyles. Angelou does not believe that America can provide justice and racial equality and has fallen out of love with her home country. She reflects on her individual identity, which seems blurry and confusing to her, and outwardly the country of Ghana is searching for its own identity as well. Angelou is not actively looking for her ancestors, yet there are instances in which other people suggest to her what tribe she looks like she could be from.

Angelou has some affairs with male lovers, which occupy her time when she is not working. She makes sure that all the people that she interacts with are interesting. Her friend group consists of academics and politicians, and together they welcome American visitors such as Malcolm X, whom she becomes friends with and later moves back to America to work for. Angelou’s prose is reflective and engaging, fast-paced yet detailed. This book is recommended to those interested in African independence, the American civil rights movement, in Maya Angelou, and in the search for identity.

Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams (1991)

In this book, conservationist Terry Tempest Williams writes about the Great Salt Lake and the avian wildlife to be found there. She speaks of the breast cancer which plagues the female members of her family, including herself, and adequately places the blame on the radiation from the nuclear testing sites that the US government used in Nevada in the 1950s. Her narration is profoundly personal and she bases her emotional turmoil on the every-changing landscape of the Great Salt Lake, which to her is an emblem of her home. The book is divided into chapters that are dedicated to a specific bird in the Salt Lake ecosystem. In each chapter, the level of the water of the lake is documented, as throughout the book it rises heavily and floods bird habitats. Terry remembers birdwatching trips with her grandmother at the lake and reflects on her grandmother’s journey with breast cancer. She feels at ease with death when she is observing the bird habitats, and when she is confronted with the death of her mother, she goes on a spiritual journey in which she seeks refuge in her mother’s memory, her writing, and her connection to birds and the Great Salt Lake.

Williams’ writing is both passive and ferocious all at once, and her poignant descriptions of landscape and death are stunning and heartfelt. Though her grief seems to come full-circle in this book, the story of her mother is further explored in her other books, such as When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice (2012). Refuge is an excellent piece of nature writing.

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013)

In this book, botanist, academic, poet and parent Robin Wall Kimmerer describes her Potawatomi knowledge of plants and its differences with her scientific knowledge. The book is divided into different steps in harvesting sweetgrass, and each chapter is related to a different aspect of Kimmerer’s life. Kimmerer discusses her inclination towards indigenous worldview regarding plants, yet she loses her way when she enters college and receives formal training in ecology. Through her students and her PhD candidates, Kimmerer tends to rediscover or reexamine her indigenous wisdom.

Kimmerer’s writing is fluid and easy to read, but it tends towards abstraction. She discusses Potawatomi mythology that is associated to specific plants as well, and this is very interesting to read. She speaks of indigenous relations to plants as a trade; the land is a source of sustenance and of medicine, and in turn humans must provide care and mindfulness and thus sustainable land stewardship. Kimmerer also describes her experience with motherhood and providing a home for her daughters through care of the land, such as trying to convert a mucky pond on their property into a swimming hole.

This book is recommended to those who wish to learn about Potawatomi mythology or general indigenous approaches to the land, yet also learn the basics of plant science.

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed (2014)

In this memoir, Cheryl decides to hike to Pacific Crest Trail from California to Washington State after the death of her mother leaves her untethered, jobless and single. She details her life using heroin and the divorce with her ex-husband told through flashbacks as she attempts to follow the trail starting from the Mojave Desert. Having never hiked before, her 1,100 mile hike seemed impossible to accomplish, yet as time goes by she learns to deal with blisters, a too-heavy pack, lack of water, losing toenails, and dealing with aggressive hikers while she learns to come to terms with her mother’s death and her divorce. She acquires wilderness savy and describes the landscapes which she treks through as well as the people and the towns that she encounters. This is interesting to read as it is the essence of what a travel and nature diary can be, and it frames her own personal journey to coming to terms with her new place in the world and how she forms her identity from this. She decides to change her last name from her married name to Strayed, a metaphor for her journey through the wilderness into self-discovery.

This book was a New York Times bestseller when it was released in 2014 and was later adapted into a film starring Reese Witherspoon as Cheryl. It’s a staple in the travel memoir genre and rightly so, as Strayed’s humor and her reflections on the PCT are unique and filled with wisdom which she acquires slowly along the way.

Immersed in West Africa: My Solo Journey Across Senegal, Mauritania, The Gambia, Guinea, and Guinea Bissau by Terry Lister (2019)

This is a travelogue through West Africa taken by Bermudian retiree Terry Lister in search of his roots. It’s the first book in his Travels With Terry installment. I originally reviewed this book for Reedsy Discovery back in 2019 and gave it four stars and since then, it has won several awards for travel writing. This book is a fresh, funny, and succinct overview of each visited country. As the title mentions, Terry travels through Senegal, Mauritania, Gambia, and the Guineas by bus and motorbike, visiting every tourist attraction and mentioning his troubles when, for example, the hotel he booked had not yet been built. He has several adventures which include transportation breakdowns, road mishaps, border security bribes, and being taken in by host families. His travel is both conventional and unconventional: he visits tourist attractions and national parks, yet he hops on uncomfortable rides to get there and stays with locals. He delves into history by explaining what each tourist attraction is about, such as The Door of No Return in Senegal from where enslaved people would be embarked on the tumultuous voyage which would signify the end of their freedom, and he accompanies these events with photographs taken by himself. Terry wishes to educate himself through his travels and to come closer to his African roots, which he seems to do in a chaotic and benign manner. This book is fast-paced and takes a joyful approach to travel and to travel writing.

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard (2021)

Suzanne Simard writes of her early career as a forest ecologist as well as her life as a mother and as a cancer survivor. Simard is a scientist famous for her breakthrough research into how tree roots have fungi which form mycorrhizal networks from tree to tree which allow tree communication and the trading of nutrients. A mother tree is the largest and oldest tree in a forest network which supplies its seedlings with the necessary fungi to thrive. The “wood wide web”, as Simard coins the network, shows that trees perceive not just their neighbors but also their needs, and they can elicit warnings of infestations and diseases and prepare to mount their defenses and cooperate to distribute sunlight among themselves.  Simard narrates her early forays into forestry by working at a logging company in Canada, then entering graduate school in the University of Oregon and carrying out a groundbreaking and controversial PhD project that questioned the current forest plantation strategy carried out by logging companies and was ostracized by the logging industry. Simard talks about the experiments which lead to her discoveries and her collaborations with other students, academics, industry experts and even family which result in further research opportunities. She mixes very well scientific outlook, concepts, and language with her personal story. She speaks of her grandparents who had a farm and were mostly self-sufficient, her mother who was an avid hiker, and her own childhood growing up with many siblings in an outdoorsy setting, her partner and children, and her struggle with breast cancer. Simard was struck by how some of the chemicals used for her chemotherapy were derived from trees, and she considered herself to be protected by a mother tree.  

This book is an ode to the rainforests of British Columbia and to the woods of the world. Simard’s lifelong dedication to trees and the protection of native flora and fauna is admirable. For those of us who have never been in Canadian wilderness, Simard paints a truly wonderful portrait.