The Best Travel Books

Our two favorites in travel literature are Jet Lag’s Molvanîa and Will Ferguson’s Hokkaido Highway Blues. Molvanîa travel guide is an excellent parody of travel guidebooks. Molvanîa is a fictional country, “untouched by modern dentistry” as the book describes. It is, of course, situated in godforsaken East Europe, which is a most convenient base for mythical stories. The book is a rare treasure among travel literature’s usually dead-serious genre.

Molvanîa Travel Guide and Will Ferguson's Hokkaido Highway Blues

The book of Will Ferguson is more traditional, a so called real travel book. Ferguson hitchhikes through Japan following the blossoming of cherry trees. Ferguson’s self-irony is tempting. For Japanese he represents yet another Gaijin-San, alien, who are amused by his incredible stupidity and clumsiness. One of the questions Japanese drivers most like to ask from Ferguson is: “Can you eat Japanese food?” Everybody also claims that the Japanese do not give lifts to hitchhikers. However, Ferguson’s travels go on smoothly both on the road through the whole Japan. From time to time there are obviously copied reviews about some sights and Japan's history that made me jump over and look for the next ego-deflating part scenes.