Books - trail reading recommendations

Padstowe

Padstowe

Thru Hiker
Never been one for autobiography's, think to date i've read three, Kerouac's on the road (total trash, imo the guy hadn't a clue what on the road meant. But maybe that's just personal perspective?). Orwell's down and out in Paris and London.
& another writen by a woman who answered an ad in a paper to get married for a year & live on an isolated island & try to be self sustained. Don't remember the name of that book, but they were nutters!!
Two things drove me to the road from a young age. (sorry that should be two ending credits)
(edit: didn't realise the hulk one wouldn't play, so here's another. not the credits but you may get the idea)
I always had romantic notions of life on the road as a kid, even now after having spent the guts of 17yrs on the road knowing the hard/brutal facts, it still calls after near 7yrs of trying to settle. Maybe it always will, maybe some loves you never loose no matter how bad they become for you.
Sorry, i'll just go off & be melodramatic elsewhere
 
Last edited:
Fair Weather Camper

Fair Weather Camper

Thru Hiker
Padstowe said:
Never been one for autobiography's, think to date i've read three, Kerouac's on the road (total trash, imo the guy hadn't a clue what on the road meant. But maybe that's just personal perspective?). Orwell's down and out in Paris and London.
& another writen by a woman who answered an ad in a paper to get married for a year & live on an isolated island & try to be self sustained. Don't remember the name of that book, but they were nutters!!
Two things drove me to the road from a young age.
I always had romantic notions of life on the road as a kid, even now after having spent the guts of 17yrs on the road knowing the hard/brutal facts, it still calls after near 7yrs of trying to settle. Maybe it always will, maybe some loves you never loose no matter how bad they become for you.
Sorry, i'll just go off & be melodramatic elsewhere
Click to expand...

Think some of us have a 'wandering off' tendency built into our bones, or genes perhaps??

Not sure if it's totally curable, the more you do it, the more you want to...

So I chose the genius option of becoming a farmer.. The ultimate 'settled' rather than nomadic life... Bit stupid really, for an intelligent woman... :o o:

Have you tried Frank Fraser Darlings "An Island Life"...? Similarly isolated (with his family) on a Scottish Isle at outbreak of War.. Worth a read.
 
Padstowe

Padstowe

Thru Hiker
@Fair Weather Camper I think most people who have spent time on the road want at the end a piece of land they can plant their food & build their home, with no one able to tell them to move on. It seems a natural progression to me.
To be honest, I used to read around 3 books a week, I doubt I've read 3 books since i've been back
 
Fair Weather Camper

Fair Weather Camper

Thru Hiker
"The open road beckons, yet still it must return the way it came"


Plus, It is useful to have a home for the spare gear ; alongside the collection of books, that might one day get read :bookworm:
 
Fair Weather Camper

Fair Weather Camper

Thru Hiker
Enzo said:
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance for me. My days of dropping everything and going walkabout are long gone though.
Click to expand...

Or you could adapt to the new circumstances perhaps? :)

Nomadic tribal peoples have wandered about in some pretty remote places for millenia, with all the generations together.

Little people are remarkably portable, and adaptable... With a bit of common sense 'out there' is a great place for them to be.

It's more normally the adults who have the fixed mindsets, as to what is, and isn't appropriate.. :unsure:

Kids just need, warm, well fed, and a slower pace - or take my 'kid on a stick' invention (which never quite went into production)
.- For when they've grown too big to carry, but are still too little to yet walk far.

Kinda like a lightweight tag-along bike only not attached to a bike.

Sure there must be some 'trekking with kids' books out there to be found... :angelic:
 
Enzo

Enzo

Thru Hiker
Good point, just a matter of changing my mind set. Miss waking up on a randoms roof in Morocco or in a ditch in Bosnia. Well perhaps not the ditch, that was never a good idea!
The freedom to quit a job and end a rent and go without any plans when to return I guess is some of it, but I'm very settled now so not really missing it. Just nostalgic I guess.

Hope to bag some 2000m peaks with my 7 year old this May, just in more comfort and sober :)
 
cathyjc

cathyjc

Thru Hiker
I went 'walkabout' for 2 years in my 20's. I had to get home for my sisters wedding - I was making the bridesmaids dresses :angelic:. I told nobody when I was to arrive and just walked up the drive and in the back door*, 10 days before the date ..….loved seeing the huge surprise I created :D.

* rural property so a long walk from the station :whistling:.
 
Fair Weather Camper

Fair Weather Camper

Thru Hiker
cathyjc said:
Our earliest forays with small children in the outdoors (Scotland) involved Bothies - always a peg to hang the wet stuff at the end of the day and a stream to guddle in :thumbsup:.
They took to it just fine :)
Click to expand...

:)

We came across a couple last May at Suileag (Assynt), treating their young daughters to their first bothying experience, they were having proper larks :happy:.

Turned out they only lived 4 miles down the road.
.
From us here in Devon...:o o:

Enzo said:
Good point, just a matter of changing my mind set. Miss waking up on a randoms roof in Morocco or in a ditch in Bosnia. Well perhaps not the ditch, that was never a good idea!
The freedom to quit a job and end a rent and go without any plans when to return I guess is some of it, but I'm very settled now so not really missing it. Just nostalgic I guess.

Hope to bag some 2000m peaks with my 7 year old this May, just in more comfort and sober :)
Click to expand...

Of course its a different experience taking children along - you're not going to crack any FKT 's... But it does make you slow down and observe the details .
In addition to giving permission to muck about like a kid, without funny looks from the 'grown ups' :biggrin:

I think it's another case of "It's much easier to be it, if you can see it"

More 'visibility' (and audibility:whistling:) needed from outside of the 'usual suspects'?

I guess I might not have been so keen to take my kids on wilder trips, if my parents hadn't done same for me..

So - lots of priming with adventure stories featuring all genders in strong roles could help too?

Phew... I managed worked it back round to books :)

Michelle Paver, has written a brilliant series of outdoor adventure books set in prehistory, with a magical realism slant, but she spent a lot of time in Arctic regions researching too... Better than HP imo, with lots of butch-crafty survival tips too :angelic:

I'd defy any adult with an imagination, not to get sucked in as well :bag:
 
WilliamC

WilliamC

Thru Hiker
Padstowe said:
... & another writen by a woman who answered an ad in a paper to get married for a year & live on an isolated island & try to be self sustained. Don't remember the name of that book, but they were nutters!!
Click to expand...
Castaway by Lucy Irvine. I first heard about her when my parents met her when she was working at a b&b or something somewhere in Scotland.
 
tom

tom

Thru Hiker
I remember reading Castaway - seems a long time ago...
Childrens books:
Sterling North, `Rascal` is great wild world adventure book for kids - the author`s childhood year with a racoon baby in 1920ies rural Wisconsin....
 
SafetyThird

SafetyThird

Section Hiker
cathyjc said:
Read this in my tent just after spending a week trekking around the dead centre of OZ ……. on a camel :smuggrin:.
Click to expand...
I read it as a teenager with wanderlust a long while ago. Haven't managed to go camel trekking yet though, that must have been a fun trip you did.
 
Padstowe

Padstowe

Thru Hiker
WilliamC said:
Castaway by Lucy Irvine. I first heard about her when my parents met her when she was working at a b&b or something somewhere in Scotland.
Click to expand...
So that was it, cheers! They were both nuts & very lucky.
Just thought of another one. Lobo, about an british guy who went off to the states to live the life of a lone hobo for a while jumping freight trains. Funny bit about how the guys in the freight yard seen him on camera & were nice enough to explain to him that he will always be caught in the yards & its at the crossings his best bet would be.
Always wanted to do the freight trains meself, jumping passenger trains ain't the same. Bit safer now compared to back in the day when the railroad bulls used to drag chains under the carriages to knock off anyone who might have been hanging on there. Crazy to hang on there in the first place though, but even crazier to think what they done to people who were just down and out mostly due to the depression.
(I'd say its why I love Steinbeck as he gives a very real picture of the time, & of course Selby's last exit to brooklin although set a little later its a very horrific book by all accounts but I believe so true to how people can be at their worst)
 
Last edited:
WilliamC

WilliamC

Thru Hiker
Padstowe said:
Just thought of another one. Lobo, about an british guy who went off to the states to live the life of a lone hobo for a while jumping freight trains. Funny bit about how the guys in the freight yard seen him on camera & were nice enough to explain to him that he will always be caught in the yards & its at the crossings his best bet would be.
Always wanted to do the freight trains meself, jumping passenger trains ain't the same. Bit safer now compared to back in the day when the railroad bulls used to drag chains under the carriages to knock off anyone who might have been hanging on there. Crazy to hang on there in the first place though, but even crazier to think what they done to people who were just down and out mostly due to the depression.
Click to expand...
If we're bringing in books about hobos, Woody Guthrie's Bound for Glory.
 
cathyjc

cathyjc

Thru Hiker
SafetyThird said:
I read it as a teenager with wanderlust a long while ago. Haven't managed to go camel trekking yet though, that must have been a fun trip you did.
Click to expand...

Yes it was - I wish someone had suggested "inner thigh" protection beforehand. A pair of cycle shorts or enormous plasters - only on the last day did pain from the saddle rubbing starting to subside.
The camels in OZ are all feral - released after being brought over to build the telegraph lines across the heart of the continent. They and their owners were from Afghanistan where they ride 'astride' and the saddles are made with a bar just across the inner thigh area :sick:.
I've been on camels in West Africa where they ride cross legged and the saddle has a pommel to wrap your legs around - which is so much more comfortable …… I so wished the Ozzies would change. :confused:

WilliamC said:
And how was that? I remember reading Wilfred Thesiger's Arabian Sands while in Wadi Halfa, Sudan, and thinking I would much rather be reading something about polar exploration :)
Click to expand...

I'm never sure whether I prefer reading something that goes 'along' with the place I'm at or different ???
I read Pete Boardmans "Sacred Summits" in Katmandu and loved it - still one of my favorite reads.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top