Best books… Gaia Vince

The author and broadcaster chooses her favourite books about journeys. Nomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval (Allen Lane £20), her critically acclaimed study of climate migration, is out now

A Winter in Arabia by Freya Stark, 1940 (Bloomsbury £12.99). The beautifully written story of Stark’s daring expedition around what is now Yemen in the 1930s. Her detailed descriptions of people, customs, architecture, all set in the context of rich history, made me desperate to visit Yemen. One day…!

Blood River by Tim Butcher, 2007 (Vintage £10.99). I began reading this in Rwanda on the shores of Lake Kivu, on the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where much of the expedition is set. Its magnificent drama and horror gripped me as I made my own, usually much tamer, journeys through Africa.

Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It by Geoff Dyer, 2003 (Canongate £9.99). A travel book that, like so much of travelling, gets stuck in the most pedestrian of concerns and conversations. However extraordinary the places you go, there is no escaping the ordinariness of the self you bring along. This book opened my eyes to what travel writing can do.

Journey Without Maps by Graham Greene, 1936 (Vintage £9.99). I picked up this classic on a book-exchange shelf in a remote guesthouse in Indonesia, and was instantly transported. It’s the story of Greene’s journey on foot to discover Liberia – and himself.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, 1979 (Pan £9.99). Funny, brilliant and surprisingly short, this instantly delighted me as a teenager – I could quote chunks of philosophical dialogue from the two travellers who survive Earth’s destruction and journey through space and time.

Viva South America! by Oliver Balch, 2009 (Faber, out of print). This book was my entertaining, erudite companion as I travelled from Patagonia up to Mexico, navigating a region transformed by Simón Bolívar, revolutionary leader and named hero of every plaza and calle.