The best travel and tourism reading list

Last updated: 7 October 2026

Having a travel and tourism reading list is important, whether you are a teacher, a student, or a tourist.

The key to success is knowledge. And where better to look than books? Having a travel and tourism reading list is a great idea whether you are a student, an entrepreneur or a travel enthusiast.

This article outlines a number of essential and recommended texts covering a range of travel and tourism-related topics. These are the perfect additions to any travel and tourism reading list.

The first list is intended for travel and tourism students and teachers. The second list is useful for people working in the tourism industry, especially those who run their own business or who are managers. The third list offers practical guidance for travellers. The final list provides recommendations for leisurely reading that will inspire your wanderlust!

The travel and tourism reading list

Below you will find a list of the best books in the business. Not got a huge budget? Not to worry! Abe Books is a great website selling discounted second-hand books- just use the search option to see if they have what you’re after. Otherwise, you will usually find them on Amazon.

Academic-based tourism texts

The reading material needed for each travel and tourism course will differ slightly. However, there are some key texts that are largely relevant for the majority of programmes. Below are some of the key texts.

Tourism: Principles and Practice

This is the ultimate beginner’s guide for any travel and tourism student and is on almost every university travel and tourism reading list.

This book covers all of the core travel and tourism management subjects and the explanations are clear and easy to understand.

There are multiple editions, so if your budget is tight, opt for an older copy to save a few pennies!

The Business of Tourism

This book is an essential text for students of tourism management or travel and tourism.

It provides background theory and research that is easy to understand. It also has lots of relevant and current case studies.

Tourism: A Modern Synthesis

The world is changing and evolving quickly and the tourism industry must keep up.

This book looks at the modern-day issues that are affecting the travel and tourism industry. It examines new and emerging markets and disruptive technologies such as the sharing economy, low cost airlines and e-travel. It also includes current debates on sustainable tourism, future jobs in travel and tourism and generational marketing.

Worldwide Destinations: The geography of travel and tourism

Every travel and tourism reading list should have a geography-based element, because geography is such an important part of travel!

This book is great because it explores the concepts of tourism demand and supply for a comprehensive range of destinations and every country worldwide.

This book is essential reading for any travel and tourism student!

The Geography of Tourism and Recreation: Environment, Place and Space

Another geography-based text, this book combines management theory with a range of geographical case-studies around the world.

Practical tourism management guides

There are some really handy tourism management guides on the market at the moment. These are perfect for those who are considering a career in travel and tourism or for people who are looking to climb the career ladder.

If you are thinking about starting up your own business in the tourism industry then these books are must-haves! The tips and advice given in these texts are invaluable- they will help to save you time and make you money!

Recommended titles include:

The Escape Industry: How Iconic and Innovative Brands Built the Travel Business

The travel and tourism industry is fun and dynamic. And there are endless opportunities to businesses: travel is a hugely competitive, multi-million pound industry and marketers of all sectors can learn important lessons from it.

From mass tourism to business tourism to specialist tourism, there are some fundamental principles to setting up and running a business in the tourism industry.

This book presents an expert view of travel marketing and branding (and loads of helpful advice), focusing particularly on how travel has been transformed for both consumers and providers since the beginning of the 21st century.

Travel Agent Training: How to become a Home Based Travel Agent

Traditional travel agents are fast becoming a thing of the past. High street stores are exchanged for home-based working. Many well-known names, such as Thomas Cook (which collapsed in 2019), no longer exist.

There have never been so many opportunities to work online and to be your own boss as there are right now. The growth of the internet means that the marketplace is wide open to home-based travel agents.

But being an online travel agent isn’t something you can do without any training! This book teaches you the fundamentals of setting up your businesses and how to be successful.

Optimize YOUR Bnb: The Definitive Guide to Ranking #1 in Airbnb Search

Thinking about becoming an Airbnb host? Airbnb can be a profitable side business.

There are plenty of people who are making decent sums of money each year from Airbnb. But it is a competitive market and if you want to succeed, you need to know how!

This book is written by experienced Airbnb host Danny Rusteen. His book teaches you how to optimise your listing, leverage tools to automate your workload, undertake interior design without paying premium rates, navigate the slow season and identify and solve guest issues.

How to Start and Run a B&B

Owning a B&B is the dream of many…but where do you start?

This book teaches you all the basics in order to run a successful bed and breakfast business. It looks at types of customers, financial tools, preparing your home, marketing your property and managing profit.

The Small Business Start-Up Workbook: A step-by-step guide to starting the business you’ve dreamed

Whatever business you are considering running/starting, the small business start up workbook will help you to be successful.

This practical and comprehensive workbook is packed with real-life case studies and practical exercises, checklists and worksheets, it provides a step-by-step guide to researching and formulating your business ideas, planning the right marketing strategies, and managing a team that will drive your vision forward with you.

The Idea in You: How to Find It, Build It, and Change Your Life

Whilst not specific to tourism management, this book is a great addition to any travel and tourism reading list.

Do you have an idea in you? A hobby, a project, a product … something that could change your life? The Idea in You will help you to formulate a business plan and turn your idea into a reality.

Travel tips and advice

If you love travelling then you will love these books, which offer heaps of helpful travel tips and advice.

Travel the World on $50 a Day

Not everyone travels on a budget, but most of us can’t resist saving money and getting a great bargain!

Matt Kepnes, the founder of the Nomadic Matt blog, specialises in budget travel and has put together this brilliant guide on how to travel the world without breaking the bank. He offers some really helpful tips and advice from how to find the best bargains to using air miles to avoiding paying bank fees abroad.

The Responsible Tourist

Travel takes us to see wonderful places around the world, but sadly, it also helps to destroy those places.

This book is a fantastic guide which teaches you how you can offset the damage caused by travelling and help the local communities, economies and environments that you visit.

By being a sustainable tourist, you will feel better about your travels and help to preserve the places that you are visiting for future generations.

The Family Travel Handbook

Travelling as a family can create very special memories, and children get so much out of travelling- after all, travel is the best education, so they say!

But travelling with small kids isn’t always easy. You need to adapt your travel habits and revise plans to suit the children. Your luggage will double in size. You will experience issues and dramas that had never crossed your mind pre-kids.

This book is great because it gives plenty of tips and advice about how best to travel with kids. A must-read for any avid travellers who are planning to start a family soon and for families who are yet to embrace life on the road.

The Camper Van Bible

Ever dreamed of travelling in a camper van? What an amazing experience, huh! But, there is a lot to learn if you’re going to do it properly…

Martin Dorey, acknowledged camper van expert and presenter of BBC2’s ‘One Man and His Campervan’, delves headfirst into the nitty gritty of camping and camper vans in this book, which makes a perfect addition to any camper glovebox.

In this book he covers four main areas of-

-Owning and living day to day with a camper van (LIVE) 
– Cooking and eating in your camper (EAT) 
– Sleeping in your camper (SLEEP) 
– Keeping you and your van going (REPEAT)

Your Money or your Life

Whilst this book is not directly about travelling, it does provide invaluable tips about how to manage your money. And more money=more travel, right?

This bestselling book covers getting out of debt, developing savings, reordering material priorities, living well for less, resolving inner conflicts between values and lifestyle, saving the planet while saving money and much more.

Bush Craft 101

If getting out and about amongst nature is your thing then you will love Bushcraft 101. Whether you’re the next Bear Grylls or trying your hand at glamping, there are many helpful tips and tricks in this guide.

Written by survivalist expert Dave Canterbury, this guide is based on the 5Cs of Survivability-cutting tools, covering, combustion devices, containers, and cordages. This guide teaches you the most important survival skills to use in a range of outdoor contexts.

Travel Anywhere (And Avoid Being a Tourist): Travel trends and destination inspiration for the modern adventurer

Whilst the title is debatable (if you are travelling for leisure then you ARE a tourist, no matter what you do- and there is nothing wrong with that!), this book does offer some pretty handy tips.

This book presents a range of stories and anecdotes to help teach you how to make the most out of your travel experiences, get off the beaten paths and have a deep and meaningful experience.

Books to inspire wanderlust

Whether you are looking for a good holiday book or some night time reading, there is nothing better than a book which inspires your inner wanderlust!

Some of these books appear on most ‘must read’ travel lists, while others are lesser-known titles that are well worth discovering.

The Beach

Alex Garland’s, The Beach, has a lot to answer for!

This is one of the most popular travel books of all time. The book, and especially the film, are also widely linked to the overtourism in Maya Bay, Thailand, which led to the bay’s temporary closure.

The Beach, later made into a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is based on the [once] pristine beach in Maya Bay, Thailand. When people started reading about this perfect, unspoilt beach, they began to flock there in their hundreds and thousands. Fast forward a decade or two and the area was filled with litter and flora and fauna dying. The beach was closed to tourists in 2018 to allow the ecosystem to recover. It reopened in January 2022 with strict rules: visitor numbers are capped, swimming is banned and boats can no longer enter the bay itself.

Despite the current state of ‘The Beach’, the book itself is a fantastic read. It details the search for unspoilt lands and the life that these backpackers live when they find them. It is an absolute must-read for anyone who has caught ‘the travel bug’!

Eat, Pray, Love

Eat, Pray, Love is another hugely popular travel book. This book has also been made into a film, starring Julia Roberts.

Eat, Pray, Love documents a woman’s journey through Italy, India and Bali. On a journey of self-discovery (as many of us are during our travels at some point or another), this book takes you with her on an emotional and philosophical level.

Whilst this book may resonate more with women than men, it is well worth a read and will definitely spark some inner wanderlust!

Down Under: Travels in a Sunburned Country

Bill Bryson’s Down Under is widely regarded as one of the best travel books ever written, and it makes the perfect companion for a trip around Australia.

This book is funny and informative- two criteria to make an excellent read! Readers learn so much about Australia in this book, from the history of colonialism in the area to what life is like in the outback. It is a great way to understand and appreciate what you are seeing and experiencing on your travels.

If there is one book that you MUST read when travelling down under, it’s this one!

How to be a Family

If, like many parents, you are nervous about travelling with your kids then read this!

How to be a Family is a funny memoir of a family round the world trip. It shows that travelling with kids doesn’t have to be stressful or cost the earth.

Sand in my Bra

This one’s for the girls! Sand in my Bra is a hilarious collection of tales from females who have travelled all over the world from Alaska to Zanzibar. It’s a light-hearted read that will be sure to make you laugh.

Without You there is no Us

This book gives you a sneak peak into a place that you will likely never travel to- North Korea. North Korea has been almost entirely closed to Western tourists since 2020, and the tours that have run are tightly controlled, heavily censored and far from authentic.

This book is a real page turner. It tells the story of Suki Kim, who travels to North Korea as an English teacher to learn about her heritage and culture. This book provides insights into the world’s most secretive country, many of which will shock you.

This book is also great background reading if you plan to visit South Korea. No trip to Korea is complete without a trip to the DMZ and this book gives you some excellent background knowledge before you go.

First they killed my father

First They Killed My Father is Loung Ung’s memoir of surviving the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia as a child. It was made into a Netflix film directed by Angelina Jolie in 2017.

Whilst this book has many moments which are sad and scary, it gives readers a thorough understanding of the horrors that Cambodians suffered between 1975 and 1979. Guidebooks and information plaques can only tell you so much- hearing it through the words of a child who lived through this time is something pretty special. It is essential reading before visiting Cambodia.

Sihpromatum – I Grew my Boobs in China

I grew my boobs in China is the story of a family’s four year backpacking adventure, as told by teenager Savannah Grace. Initially unimpressed to be dragged away from her school and her friends, Savannah ended up having what literally became the adventure of a lifetime.

Wild

Wild is another example of a popular travel book that has subsequently been made into a movie.

It is hugely popular around the world, which is why it features on so many travel reading lists.

Wild is the story of Cheryl Strayed who set off alone to hike more than 1,000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail on the west coast of America. Bearing the grief of her mother’s sudden death and her crumbled marriage, she embarks on a spiritual journey from lost to found.

The Alchemist

The last book on this travel and tourism reading list is the Alchemist.

Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist is a short, philosophical novel about a young Andalusian shepherd who travels to Egypt in search of treasure. It has sold tens of millions of copies around the world, although some readers find it slow going.

The Alchemist is included on almost every list of recommended travel books, so it is well worth giving it a try.

Travel and tourism reading list: YOUR recommendations

Do you have a suggestion for essential travel and tourism reading that is missing from this list? Whether it’s a textbook, a how-to guide, fiction or non-fiction, share it in the comments box below.

Travel and tourism reading list: FAQs

Below are answers to some of the most common questions about travel and tourism reading.

Travel and tourism reading list: further reading

If you enjoyed this article, you may also like these:

• The academic writing sandwich- explained
• What is overtourism?
• What is sustainable tourism?
• How to find clients as a travel agent