A book about living or travelling somewhere wild, camping, settling somewhere new

[PeonyFlush72]

Hello, can you help recommend a book for me please?

I'm interested in people leaving behind normal suburban or city life and either travelling or living somewhere simple.

For example, travelling around in a camper van, or doing an epic journey camping. Not visiting famous places etc just basic exploring and experiences.

Or maybe someone moving to rural x and doing up a house and starting a new life.

I loved the Carol Drinkwater books, also enjoyed Alex Roddie and the Hildasay walker.

(Can you tell that I'm rather unfulfilled with my stuffy safe suburban life?!)

Thanks in advance.

I think it was really badly written and that’s the problem. It’s interesting though. I found her second book unreadable it was even more badly written.

I too loathed The Salt Path. It's rare I take a dislike to anyone (let alone on paper!) but I really couldn't warm to Raynor Wynn

Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer.

What I actually quite liked about The Salt Path was that you had a strong sense of her anger and resentment, and the self-reliant, contrary, not always likeable personality that had (presumably?) contributed to her and her husband (Moth? It’s a long time since I read it) being so isolated that they had no one to turn to after they lost their farm.

It wasn’t ’terribly nice person suffers awful injustice, goes for a walk and all is set right’. It was ‘difficult person (or difficult people, because Moth also sounded contrarian, though his illness probably contributed) loses everything because of stupid decisions, appears to be without friends and family other than student children, and makes an eccentric choice while resenting everyone who has more than them’. It felt quite ungussied up into niceness.

Huge chunks of the book made me wonder what the non-Raynor Winn version of events would have been, like the legal decision that cost them the farm (where it seems their not having legal representation was what cost them the case?), or that part where they stay with someone they know in between times on the walk in exchange for Moth renovating a building, which is seething with resentment.

My Side of the Mountain - a kids' book, but wonderful. About an American boy who survives alone in the mountains (by choice) and trains a hawk.

Yes I am utterly fascinated by the other side of the story. Everything was everyone else's fault and totally unfair.

But the dodgy investment story alone makes absolutely no sense. It's implausible they would have lost on a procedural technicality, courts are normally very lenient towards litigants in person

@PeonyFlush72 Sarah Williams (a UK woman who hosts a podcast called Tough Girl Challenges) has a series of vlogs on youtube from when she solo hiked the Appalachian Trail she did 2190 miles in 100 days.

My favourite genre by a country mile! Have a look at books published by Little Toller. They are a very small publishing house in Dorset that re-publish out of print classics in this vein...
A Time From The World - Rowena Farre (also Seal Morning by her, although received wisdom says both were probably works of fiction rather than autobiography)
Wanderers In The New Forest - Juliette de Bairacli Levy
Wild Harvest - Hope Bourne
We Bought An Island - Evelyn E Atkins
A Croft In The Hills - Katharine Stewart
Deep Country - Neil Ansell
And my personal favourite - FourFields, Five Gates - Anne L Hill

Amy Liptrot - The Outrun

Yes, I loved this book too.

Everything You Ever Taught Me: If you've a lot on your mind, go for a walk... by Person Irresponsible.

Great book about Woman from the UK to the US right at the start of the pandemic and walked the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada.

She’s also just brought out of second book Everywhere I NEVER Wanted To Go: But I did anyway...

Bloody fantastic book!

Seasons of Death and Life

Absolutely love this book. A solitary nun takes a job as a forest ranger in an isolated location in N America. It's not worthy or preachy or even overtly Christian. She is both religious and pragmatic. Honest, loyal to the forest - and to people around her, even though she would rather be alone - and fierce in her protection of both. She really connects with the land and the work.

Time for a reread 😊

What about Laura Ingalls Wilder? Not just the Little House series, but also her daughter's account of her parents buying their own land.

From a different perspective but Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud is worth a read. Hippy mum takes kids to live in Morocco and “discovers spirituality”. It’s interesting how the two sisters take to it very differently! All based on her true story

Ring of Bright Water - Gavin Maxwell

Driving Over Lemons

'I'm no Shakespeare: Walking the South West Coast Path' by Cheryl Dummer
If you liked the Salt Path then you will like this true account of a middle aged woman who simply started walking and camping.
If you disliked the Salt Path then you will love it.
Disclaimer: I wrote it.

Omigod, omigod. I'm so pleased to have an opportunity to recommend Travels With Charley: In Search of America, by John Steinbeck. I've been meaning to start a thread about it, but haven't gotten around to it. Steinbeck's 1960 cross-country RV trip with his dog.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/311808/travels-with-charley-in-search-of-america-by-john-steinbeck/

Some older ones
The Swiss Family Robinson Johann David Wyss
Lavengro and The Romany Rye by George Borrow

A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor.
Plus the other 2 in the trilogy.
PLF took a boat to Hamburg just before the start of WW2 and walked to Istambul. A great read about a vanished world.
Someone took the same journey more recently and wrote a book about the experience which is good as a companion piece. Unfortunately I can't remember the name.
I loathed the Salt Path as I felt the narrator was the type of person who blames everyone else for her problems when actually she’s just got poor judgement
Totally agree with this.

Moderate Becoming Good Later: Sea kayaking the shipping forecast by Toby Carr and Katie Carr

Bitter sweet in terms of what happens

Another vote for this.

Also
One woman walks Wales, Ursula Martin

I'm not sure if it's quite the right genre, but it's a fantastic book
From Heaven Lake by Vikram Seth

True account of his overland journey from China back to India via Tibet.

Growing Goats and Girls by Rosanne Hodin

Miraculous Abundance: One Quarter Acre, Two French Farmers, and Enough Food to Feed the World

A Wood of One's Own - Ruth Pavey

Went to London, Took the Dog - Nina Stibbe

Has anyone recommended My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell yet?
Excellent book and one of my favourite book titles too. He grows up on a Greek island and is fascinated by nature.

Beautiful descriptions of nature, a fascinating moment in history and brilliant depictions of a fairly eccentric family. Funny and relaxing too