The Joys of Reading Literature while Traveling

For many years my parents – though literature Professors – mocked me when I filled my backpack up with Penguin Classics when embarking on a summer trip for which I had saved all year. Carrying 15-20 books in a backpack has its drawbacks when hiking up a mountain.

However, there were never any regrets during transcendent moments such as:

• Reading the Odyssey while feeling the spray of the Mediterranean sea from the decks of ferries while approaching the many Greek islands that Homer had described so vividly thousands of years ago.
• Daydreaming while reading the Flowers of Evil, written by the great 19th century French poet Charles Baudelaire, after retracing his steps in Parisian hovels or the Louvre museum. Baudelaire — one of the primary inspirations for so much modern poetry (including the American Beatniks who followed his and Rimbaud’s visionary paths) — visited the art collection at the Louvre religiously to gain inspiration.
• Seeing the ruins of Rome through the eyes of geniuses such as Stendhal and Goethe in their travel notebooks, or through ancient classics such as the Lives of the Caesars by Suetonius or the Satyricon by Petronius.
• After walking through the streets and museums of Florence all day, reading the great conceited autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, who, when not praising his own genius, described the sins and material whims of many great Italian Renaissance artists.
• Taking a train through the small towns in Provence, France, and reading the letters of Van Gogh as he describes the unique light which drew him to paint his expressionist masterpieces in that magical land. Then to look at the landscapes later painted by Cezanne, which appear from the windows of the train, while reading his notebooks and letters.
• Gazing out from the hills above the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel while reading the Bible for the first time and feeling the atmosphere in which Jesus was said to have performed so many miracles.

The possibilities for this independent form of literary travel are endless, and there are few guidebooks that can actually succeed in drawing your imagination into the local mythology and cultural history as can the penetrating and evocative words of literary artists. If you an aspiring travel writer, there may be no better way to find inspiration for your own future work, and if you stay long enough in one place, you may find that stories will start mysteriously emerging from your pen or keyboard as never before.

When traveling I do not suggest carrying loads of books like a donkey, as there are so many English-language bookstores in cities and university towns across the world. Nor do I recommend not making the most of your immediate experience, impressions, and social interaction with the natives. I do suggest supplementing your guidebooks with local literature in order to enrich your experience by immersing your imagination in the rich history and mythology that permeate so many cities, small towns, and regions of the world.