This weekend, per the recommendation of my friend and adventure buddy, Katie D’Amato, DPT, I finished reading, Journeys North, a non-fiction Pacific Crest Trail story that is as much about the humans on the journey as the epic hike from Mexico to Canada itself. I laughed, I cried, I stayed up way too late because I had to know what happened next.
I love that feeling, and wanted to share some other outdoor adventure books that are worth getting excited about. Where there’s a movie based off the book, I’ve also linked to that (pro tip: books are always better). Sooo…grab your wool socks, your cozy beverage of choice (helloo, Treehouse Drinking Chocolate), and enjoy!
Reading List: 10 Outdoor Adventure Books to Make you Laugh, Cry, and Think
Journeys North: The Pacific Crest Trail by Barney Scout Mann
Quotable:
“At the pass, the two tried to outwit the resident tag team marmots. Fat and sassy bandits the size of fuzzy footballs, and nearly ten pounds each, marmots are the offensive linemen of rodents. And these particular marmots acted like they owned the place. When one darted out, skittering, they cooed over him, “Oh, he’s so cute.” Meanwhile, the other snuck up behind them. No Triscuit was safe.”
The Adventure Gap: Changing the Face of the Outdoorsby James Mills
Quotable:
“The objective was to inspire a new generation of minority youth to seek out and enjoy a relationship with the natural world where they might come to play, pursue career opportunities, and fight for its long-term preservation. Like most mountain climbing expeditions, the summit was not the sole goal.”
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson
Quotable:
“Distance changes utterly when you take the world on foot. A mile becomes a long way, two miles literally considerable, ten miles whopping, fifty miles at the very limits of conception. The world, you realize, is enormous in a way that only you and a small community of fellow hikers know. Planetary scale is your little secret.”
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer
Quotable:
“But at times I wondered if I had not come a long way only to find that what I really sought was something I had left behind.”
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
Quotable:
“The reason we race isn’t so much to beat each other… but to be with each other.”
To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regret by Jedidiah Jenkins
Quotable:
“Traveling alone, you get to be whoever you want. I don’t mean lie. I mean you get to be a blank slate. You can’t leave behind your skin color, or your height, or the handsomeness or homeliness of your face. But you can leave your story behind.”
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
Quotable:
“I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me.”
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer,
Quotable:
“The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
Quotable:
“Patience, he thought. So much of this was patience – waiting, and thinking and doing things right. So much of all this, so much of all living was patience and thinking.”
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann
Quotable:
“The rain forest was not a garden of easy abundance, but precisely the opposite. Its quiet, shaded halls of leafy opulence were not a sanctuary, but rather the greatest natural battlefield anywhere on the planet, hosting an unremitting and remorseless fight for survival that occupied every single one of its inhabitants, every minute of every day.”
Share Your Favorite Outdoor Adventure Books. Now that I’ve finished Journeys North, I’m looking for a new book to get swept up in. Feel free to share your favorite adventure travel books below – or really, any books that you’ve loved.
