The Art of Travel
by Alain de Botton
De Botton on why travel disappoints and how it might not: anticipation, the exotic, curiosity, the sublime, art as a way of seeing, and the return. It uses writers and painters as guides and ends with the suggestion that noticing one's own neighborhood is the real art. It is a book about attention disguised as a book about travel.
Read it if…
you travel often and feel oddly empty doing it.
Skip it if…
you want travel tips; there are none.
Three things you will actually use
- We bring ourselves on every trip.
- Curiosity, not location, produces wonder.
- Draw or describe what you see; it forces noticing.
Do this first
Walk your own street as if you had arrived there for the first time.
Our verdict
Thoughtful and quietly useful.
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