4 Books to Inspire Wanderlust

Over my years of reading I know very well that I have come jaded in some aspects. Love and relationship goals is definitely one of them. Another? Travel. Not only do most of the time I wish that I could be transported to another world, but sometimes the sort of wanderlust while reading hits a little closer to home. From new books to old, some of the settings of novels and memoirs continue to make travel something on my must-list, just as these books should be on your must-read list.

Scotland

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of Our Lord...1743.
   Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

The first time I heard sweet Jamie Fraser's written out accent in the Scottish dialect, I was taken. Taken, both by him and the idea of traveling to Scotland. The landscape in the history there seems to be just the place to visit with wide eyes and a camera ready for all the photos. Maybe I could even find a few stones to take me back in time as well?

Paris, France

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris--until she meets Étienne St. Clair. Smart, charming, beautiful, Étienne has it all...including a serious girlfriend.
But in the City of Light, wishes have a way of coming true. Will a year of romantic near-misses end with their long-awaited French kiss?

Oh how I love this book. I reread it quite often and it may get another reread very soon. After reading this book I seriously looked into schools and colleges based in the same area of Paris in hopes that I could live my Anna and the French Kiss love story. Alas...

Provence, France

Picnic in Provence by Elizabeth Bard

Ten years ago, New Yorker Elizabeth Bard followed a handsome Frenchman up a spiral staircase to a love nest in the heart of Paris. Now, with a baby on the way, Elizabeth takes another leap of faith with her husband when they move to Provence and open an artisanal ice cream shop. Filled with enticing recipes such as stuffed zucchini flowers, fig tart, and honey-and-thyme ice cream, PICNIC IN PROVENCE is the story of everything that happens after the happily ever after. With wit, humor, and a scoop of wild strawberry sorbet, Bard reminds us that life-in and out of the kitchen-is a rendezvous with the unexpected.

I read this as one of my first books at college and it only made me not want to be there in freshman orientation even more. The first book is Lunch in Paris, but this second installment of Elizabeth Bard's life was even more fantastic than the last with descriptions of Provence, even in the winters, that made my heart pitter pat with hope that I may one day see the lavender fields and the gelato and the markets...everything that makes the south of France this magical place her family decided to escape to.

Now. I am going to Provence. One travel inspiration down, so many to go.

St. Petersburg (Leningrad), Russia

The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons

The golden skies, the translucent twilight, the white nights, all hold the promise of youth, of love, of eternal renewal. The war has not yet touched this city of fallen grandeur, or the lives of two sisters, Tatiana and Dasha Metanova, who share a single room in a cramped apartment with their brother and parents. Their world is turned upside down when Hitler's armies attack Russia and begin their unstoppable blitz to Leningrad.
   Yet there is light in the darkness. Tatiana meets Alexander, a brave young officer in the Red Army. Strong and self-confident, yet guarding a mysterious and troubled past, he is drawn to Tatiana—and she to him. Starvation, desperation, and fear soon grip their city during the terrible winter of the merciless German siege. Tatiana and Alexander's impossible love threatens to tear the Metanova family apart and expose the dangerous secret Alexander so carefully protects—a secret as devastating as the war itself—as the lovers are swept up in the brutal tides that will change the world and their lives forever.

Russia was never on my radar. Until now. Though this is a work of fiction, man do I want to see where this story and actual historical event I did not know of at the time took place. This book is beautifully devastating.

Everywhere...
But specifically Australia and South America

The Good Girls Guide to Getting Lost by Rachael Friedman

Rachel Friedman has always been the consummate good girl who does well in school and plays it safe, so the college grad surprises no one more than herself when, on a whim (and in an effort to escape impending life decisions), she buys a ticket to Ireland, a place she has never visited, in. There she forms an unlikely bond with a free-spirited Australian girl, a born adventurer who spurs Rachel on to a yearlong odyssey that takes her to three continents, fills her life with newfound friends, and gives birth to a previously unrealized passion for adventure.
   As her journey takes her to Australia and South America, Rachel discovers and embraces her love of travel and unlocks more truths about herself than she ever realized she was seeking. Along the way, the erstwhile good girl finally learns to do something she’s never done before: simply live for the moment.

I read this one about two years ago I think when I was in a Twitter travel book club. I absolutely loved it as we follow Rachael through her years of travel that take her to two continents that I have never thought of as being on my must-visit list. Now I must along with the rest of the world I may not have thought I was meant to go to previously. This book made me want to back up a single backpack and go.

There are so many places in the world I want to travel as I finally begin my journey of maybe seeing them all. Tis the dream.

Is there any of you that have had travel plans specifically based on a love of a book or two?