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.

@TheInfusionist I really like the look of books 2 and 3 on your list. Off to investigate!

They I’ve just seen that a film adaptation is being made, with Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs!

I reread on the back of this thread, thinking about this, and one of the things I noticed first time around was how ungracious she is about friends who actually help them. Jan, the friend who, at the start, has them sleeping on her floor for an unexpected fortnight after Moth is too ill to start the walk as planned, and who keeps their van for them and drives them to the starting point, is dismissed with ‘glad to be rid of her squatters’.

And Polly, who lets them stay on her farm for the winter in between their two stints on the path is depicted as a slave driver, expecting too much work from a seriously ill man, and as sneakily showing their converted shed to a potential paying tenant behind their backs. Yet she’s in the acknowledgements.

I can absolutely understand that, unexpectedly homeless, you would resent people who are suddenly your benefactors, but these people didn’t need to help, but they chose to.

There's always...

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson is great. Covers the Appalachian Trail, the opposite number to the PCT in Wild by Cheryl Strayed.

Heard that Gillian Anderson is in the Salt Path adaptation- she's going to have to find her inner scruff!

Horse Boy - true story based around a father taking his autistic son across Russia to meet the horse tribes as he realised his son had an affinity with horses.

Paddle to the Amazon - Don Starkell

@LaPalmaLlama I totally agree re the Salt Path. I found her too 'holier than thou'. It put me off.

'As I walked out one midsummer morning' by Laurie Lee. Lovely writing. He walks and busks his way across Spain

Homesick by Catrina Davies

Nowhere for very long by Briana Madia

The way home, and Moneyless man by Mark Boyle

I've just started The Salt Path inspired by this thread. She's annoying me already. Just take some personal responsibility woman.

I've had the Salt Path on my tbr pile for years but I'm scared I'll throw something.
She sounds like such a chancer.

I bloody hope Scully doesn't do the parody voice thing she did with Margaret Thatcher. I couldn't listen to it.

In some ways it’s one of the most interesting things about the book — rather like reverse threads on here, or the ones where a poster is so enmeshed in their own view of a situation that you inevitably end up speculating about how the other person involved would describe the same events/dynamic.

I’ve found myself wondering whether her blaming, explicit or implicit, of everyone else comes down to the fact that Moth (whose decision to back his old friend’s business without reading the small print about liability is what lost them the farm, though presumably Raynor agreed) is diagnosed with an incurable degenerative illness the same week they lose the case, so she can’t blame him.

And she has to close off that possibility for the reader, too, hence the Christ-like depiction of Moth at the start, having just lost the farm, but still approaching the opposition’s barrister to shake hands and tell him he’s only doing his job.

And then that anger she can’t express to Moth, whose fault it is, gets directed at the employee in the council housing office (also just doing her job) or the consultant who gives him the diagnosis (also doing his job), or anyone walking the southwest coast path in a way she considers too ‘easy’ or too regimented etc etc.

'Swimming with seals' by Victoria Whitworth - clever and full of reflection

'500 Mile Walkies' and 'Boogie up the River' by Mark Wallington.

Man walks the South West coast path with his dreadful dog and then goes off in search of the source of the Thames, again with dreadful dog. Haven't read them for years, but they were both very very funny, soothing in their mundanity and really honest.

In danger of making the South West Path sound like the M25…there is also The Electricity of Every Living Thing.

It’s by Katherine May, who wrote Wintering, about her decision to walk the SW coastal path while coming to terms with the fact she is being diagnosed as autistic as an adult. It’s very interesting digging into the “why” of walking and also a person who is introspective about understanding themselves better.

I agree . I hated salt oath, they weee so annoying

I really enjoyed this… https://www.summerfieldbooks.com/product/burn-a-story-of-fire-woods-and-healing-2/

Three men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome is good fun. I'd also recommend Wild by Cheryl Strayed. I loved Dervla Murphy's Eight Feet in the Andes about exploring the Andes with her 9 year old daughter and a mule.

I adored Driving over Lemons

@PeonyFlush72 have you read the other three books in the series (A Parrot in the Pepper Tree, The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society and Last Days of the Bus Club)? I loved them all and they really are comfort reading. I read the final one during the pandemic, when I was massively in need of something lovely, escapist, travel-related (as we couldn't) and comforting and it really hit the spot. Such lovely books!

And if you loved DOL, have you read Annie Hawes' Extra Virgin, Ripe for the Picking and Journey to the South? If not, do. They're in a similar vein, but about her buying a little rundown house in Liguria.

I also loved Wild by Cheryl Strayed.

Archipelago by Monique Roffey

An Embarrassement of Mangoes by Ann Vanderhoof

I love 'Wild' by Cheryl Strayed - also a movie with Reece Witherspoon but the book is much better!

@LipstickLil Thank you, I didn't know there were follow ups to DOL so I will look those up.

The three Raynor Winn books were the first to come to mind. I also enjoyed 'Travels with Boogie' and 'Boogie up the Pennine Way' by Mark Wallington, although it's years since I read them, and Chris Stewart's books - I think the first one is 'Driving over Lemons'.

Another vote for A Wood of One's Own - Ruth Pavey, Travels with Boogie' and 'Boogie up the Pennine Way' by Mark Wallington too. Also Catriona Davies 'Homesick.'

Others I've loved: -

Bella Figura by Kamin Mohammadi - fabulously rich story about a magazine editor who moves to Italy, makes a home and life and learns how to fully inhabit herself.

Devorgilla Days by Kathleen Hart. The author has been to death's door with multiple health problems and escapes to a new life in Scotland's book town Wigtown. She renovates a cottage, throws herself into the community and finds balm and healing in nature and the sea. I'm reading it now for the second time. Perfect, inspiring ,uplifting.

Burn: A Story of Fire, Wood and Healing by Ben Short. A man escapes advertising hell for a life in a wagon in the woods and a dog.

A year on the Marsh by Simon Barnes. Life with nature all around seen through the author's eyes and those of his amazing son Eddie who has Downs Syndrome and can teach us all a thing or two about how to live. I loved this.

The Man Who Hated Walking by Overend Watts. He was in the band Mott the Hoople. This is a book about walking the South West Coast Path that's full of humour and life and the opposite of The Salt Path.