The Art of Travel

Posted by marieClairvoyant on Apr 6, 2010 in hot topics | 0 comments

… This is the delightfully thought-provoking book from 2002 that all travellers and non-travellers alike should have read. In The Art of Travel, brilliant but quirky author Alain de Botton discusses the philosophy of travel with the sharpest insight. Why do we travel? What are we trying to achieve? What are we running away from? He is unique in his focus inwards on the traveller’s consciousness rather than outwards on the journey at hand.

This beautifully crafted book explores our mental journeys, the ups and downs as we voyage from place to place, brilliantly evoking every sensation of travelling – the fears, the hopes and the joys. As John Preston from The Sunday Telegraph said, ‘de Botton proves himself to be a very fine travel writer indeed; richly evocative, sharp and funny’. I finished this classic last week and I assure you, every budding travel writer should take a leaf out of de Botton’s book!

In The Architecture of Happiness from 2006, he turns his attention to architecture’s impact on happiness. Stretch your minds, force yourselves to think and pick up one of these brilliant books by Alain de Botton, an eminent modern-day thinker.

- Laura Griffith-Jones