Tahir Shah: Books that Inspire Wanderlust

Travel Blog  •  Michael Yessis  •  07.11.06 | 10:56 AM ET

imageThe author of The Caliph’s House: A Year in Casablanca and other tomes wrote about six books that inspire wanderlust in Sunday’s Book Post section of the Washington Post. Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft and Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines made the cut, as did the No. 1 book in World Hum’s recent countdown of top travel books, Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger. Shah writes in his lead that he once met Thesiger in Kenya. It’s a great anecdote.

Shah writes:

Standing there, I felt like Stanley finding Livingstone. My head was spinning because of the heat. “Do you have any water?” I asked pathetically. Thesiger peered down at me. Then he smiled. “I have just made some nice hot tea,” he said.

During the days I spent at Thesiger’s shack, he explained in a soft, aristocratic voice that we can all be explorers—that it’s a matter of enduring hardship, of observing and, most important, of seeking out people and learning from their company. Thesiger’s lesson for me, a young wannabe explorer in search of a mentor, was to search for people rather than places. Find great people, he would say, and you will find great places.

Tags: Adventure Travel, Africa, Kenya, Life of a Travel Writer, Literary Travel


2 Comments for Tahir Shah: Books that Inspire Wanderlust

marilyn terrell 07.13.06 | 11:05 AM ET

National Geographic Traveler (full disclosure: I work there) has posted a huge list of great books that inspire travel in the Ultimate Travel Library:  http://www.nationalgeographic.com/traveler/extras/travellibrary/library.html

Jim Benning 07.13.06 | 2:40 PM ET

Thanks for the note, Marilyn. We’ll check it out!

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