The Art of Travel

Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel is not so much about traveling as it is about the role of travel in the lives of esteemed writers and artists. De Botton’s wisdom is often trite (“the pleasure we derive from a journey may be dependent more on the mindset we travel with than on the destination we travel to”) but he picks his cultural guides well and extracts important lessons on finding beauty in the world — Edward Hopper on diners and gas stations; Flaubert on the exotic; Alexander von Humboldt on mapping/taxonomy; Wordsworth on landscapes; and especially Xavier de Maistre who wrote an entire book about his journey around his bedroom.