Yearning for an adventure but don’t have time off? It may not be the real thing, but a good story can often transport us to a far-off land. We’ve gathered five must-read books for 2026 to get your travel inspiration juices flowing …

When Paris Whispers by Marianne C. Bohr

Follow 22-year-old Catrine as she arrives in Paris in 1981, the city she’s dreamed of since she was little. The voices of French writers she reads inspire her travels. Along the way, she develops an unlikely friendship with a widowed Sorbonne professor, leading to an impulsive road trip to Normandy. The trip is not the Paris she expected, instead becoming something more unsettling, more honest. Is Paris rescuing her, haunting her or revealing things she’s been too afraid to see?

Monster of a Land: On the Road in Search of Modern America by Lauren Hough

Serving as a spiritual successor to John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, Monsters of a Land is a road trip memoir about the author traveling the country with her dog. It’s part travelogue, part social commentary and 100 percent Lauren Hough. The book highlights her vulnerability, hilarious narrative voice and razor-sharp insights on a journey showing readers how far we’ve come as a country and how far we still have to go.

A Splintering by Dur e Aziz Amna

This story follows main character Tara as she navigates escaping her village in rural Pakistan. She ends up marrying a middle-class accountant, allowing her to move to the capital, but she soon finds life as a housewife is not enough.

How the Rhino Lost His Horn: Cautionary Tales from Appalachia to Africa by Jack Rathmell

Follow college-aged Jack in this travelogue as he travels to Africa to save the children. What could go wrong? Actually, quite a bit. In Cape Town, he’s thrown into a lawless, backwards word of bloodthirst and betrayal. Despite the local people and wildlife being unwelcoming, something about this place keeps pulling him back.

The Geography of Saying Goodbye by Trevor Houser

Paul Canton’s mother is on her deathbed as she declares she’s bound for the Alboran Sea. Both Paul and the nurse dismiss it as nonsense, but the next morning she’s gone, along with her son’s credit card. Paul leaves his comfort zone to embark on a journey of a globe-hopping resurrection, searching for one last chance to say goodbye. Throughout his journeys, he discovers he doesn’t know the woman who raised him and how little he’s actually lived.