Seeing the world is an experience that we shouldn’t take for granted. For one, it can help us expand our knowledge about other cultures and traditions. In addition, Psychregnotes that traveling can help improve our mental health by encouraging us to be spontaneous, boosting our self-confidence, and lowering our stress levels.

To inspire you to go see the world, we’ve listed below four travel books that will give you a serious case of wanderlust.

In this book, Kate Harris masterfully narrates how she spent a year cycling the Silk Road. Aside from offering stories of Kate’s travels in some of the most remote places on earth, Land of Lost Borders also invites the reader to seek the answers to existential questions such as “Where do you go when every place on earth has been explored by people before you?” This book can help you understand why it’s important for you to explore the world, even if millions before you have already gone on a similar conquest.

Alain de Botton’s The Art of Travel will take you on a philosophical journey to discovering the purpose behind traveling. Here, Alain shares his experience on the road as he enjoys Barbados with his partner and explores Provence through Van Gogh’s eyes ⁠— all while inspecting how great thinkers, artists, and writers saw the world through centuries of traveling. Despite writing from a philosopher’s perspective, Alain is still able to keep his words of wisdom and insights accessible for the regular reader.

Not everyone can throw themselves headlong into the most disparate culinary offerings of East Asia, sometimes the budget requires to keep even the expenses dedicated to food tight, certain behaviors at the table seem innocent to us while for other peoples they are synonymous with a lack of respect. Now I'll give you a list of some tips and tricks that can be useful to you on any trip.

There are some incorrect and harmful behaviors that the traveler and the tourist often carry out naively, believing on the contrary to make a charitable or kind gesture. I am talking about things that I too for a while in my life did not perceive as wrong, but when I realized it because you explained it to me by others or because I self-enlightened I did not go back even half a time, on the contrary, I always tried to open your eyes to others too. It is a rather thorny subject that actually applies not only on the road but also at home.

On any trip outside Italy, be it weeks, months, or years-long, rest assured that you will miss Italian food terribly and you will miss even the simplest of properly baked daisies. At whatever level your withdrawal crisis has reached, remember to follow my advice: avoid Italian restaurants, avoid tourist restaurants, even more so avoid Italian restaurants for tourists!

Unless you travel with a swollen wallet, know that Italian food abroad is a real luxury, so if you come across any dish from the Bel Paese it will probably be a very expensive dish and unfortunately not very much in line. with our standards: carbonara with cream and mushrooms, pizza with pineapple and ham, spaghetti Alfredo (cream and chicken) will be the rule and not the exception. Ergo, if you can, avoid them, unless you really want to understand how a certain population eats and how Italian food is understood abroad. For example, while I was in Hawaii I couldn't resist and I tasted the famous and much-vilified pineapple pizza: I assure you it wasn't too bad! But let's go back to the typical dishes where a journey is not a journey if you do not immerse yourself in the local culinary culture precisely because people can be understood also and above all at the table. My main advice is to get acquainted with the means of transport, either through Couchsurfing or if you are a beginner ask at the hostel, but be wary of Anglo-Saxon advice ... In this case, the standards are very different from ours and will not easily meet your tastes. And this is precisely one of the essential reasons for NOT following the gastronomic indications of traditional paper guides, which precisely include people from the Anglo-Saxon world among the authors. Furthermore, the restaurants indicated, once published in the most famous guides in the world, in the vast majority of cases lower the quality and raise the prices. Without considering that you will often find very little in the room, if anything you will meet yet another traveler at the table next to him with the guide resting on the table next to the dishes.

But how can tourist restaurants be avoided? I assure you that it is much simpler than you think: the worst, in economic and qualitative terms, are those who give you menus translated into four or more languages: avoid them! Be guided by instinct, perfumes, and people, you will hardly regret it!

In fact, try to carefully observe the behavior of people while you are walking through the streets of cities or villages; pay attention where you see restaurants crowded with local people, especially those where not even a tourist or traveler is seated: they are a guarantee of quality! Of course, it will not be easy to understand what you are ordering or eating, but even in this case, a little trick can come to your rescue. Trust your senses, sharpen your eyes to catch the most intriguing dishes, and smell to discover the most succulent. Take a walk around the tables and watch carefully what the locals eat. Once you have made your choice, go to the waiter to ask for a seat and above all learn how they say in the local language "I would like one of these". While the waiter will accompany you to the table indicates directly to him the dishes you want to try, you will hardly be disappointed. Of course, you may have problems with spicy in Asia or with some spice, but write down the name of the dish in a notebook to avoid it later or reorder it in another restaurant if you want to repeat the experience.

One of the things that most leaves people who listen to the story of my tour of the world without planes speechless is the coverage of the distance between one continent and another on merchant cargo ships. Perhaps because no one ever thinks of those huge cities of floating containers as a means of travel to be a traveler - much less to be a tourist! Or maybe because they don't even know what they are and what they are for. The fact is that this is the case: the merchant cargo is the second topic that most intrigues of my trip around the world.

Between the waves of the Oceans, the journey is absolutely slow and boring, completely wacky and disconnected from the real world, but it is definitely an epic journey!

How it works: first of all forget the idea of ​​being able to work or scrounge a passage directly to the port in exchange for some help, it is not possible, or rather, it is no longer possible. To work on a cargo ship you need to be highly qualified and pass a selection process carried out by the transport company through its recruitment channels. Assuming it can be selected, the minimum contracts at the lowest level of the job hierarchy are equal to nine months of boarding. Another not indifferent detail: if you are admitted you will not be able to choose the route to take. The option of going to the pier of a port to try to convince captains to take you onboard is therefore impracticable also because to access these commercial piers you must present a passport and above all valid boarding documents so as not to be rejected at the entrances. So you just have to find out which are the favorite bars of the officers and convince them by getting them drunk….

So, ultimately, how can you get on board? Paying a ticket! Therefore, some companies transporting maritime goods, thanks to technological progress, require an ever-smaller number of employees on board, therefore on some boats, they enjoy free cabins, often sold to passengers who intend to cross the oceans in this way. Not all companies welcome passengers on board and others do not have permits, so these types of passes are limited. Consider, for example, that Chinese companies do not allow passenger services and they hold a large share of the world maritime transport market.

One of the things that most of all still keeps many people away from going on an adventure, traveling alone, or simply traveling is precisely the theme of health once you are away from home. The first tip, essential, is to always and in any case seek a doctor's consultation: in a 2.0 world where now too many are self-diagnosing and treating themselves with Google, I can only warn you about this topic and tell you to speak only. and exclusively with those who are competent in the matter.

Hostels: some hate them and those who love them. And who can bear them only because the budget requires it! Life in a hostel can truly become an experience to remember and redo if everyone, absolutely everyone, follows the civil rules of conduct. I have always had a soft spot for cooking in the company, parties with people from all over the world, and common spaces where to socialize. I experienced these spaces both as a customer and from behind the reception counter when I had my first volunteer experiences in South America and I can tell you which are the most appreciated behaviors on both sides:

The British call it "gap year", or just the sabbatical year. But it shouldn't be confused with a vacation.

Widespread in England, seen in Italy with (still) too much distrust, the sabbatical year is a "free" year. A year in which we move away from everyday life, from work, from studies. It is done to travel, to draw dreams. To imagine the future, and to learn life. Sometimes behind the house, sometimes after the ocean.

But how do you ask for a gap year and how do you make the most of it? Let's find out together.

There are very few places in the world that make my heart beat faster than Nepal. This small state perched in the Himalayan mountains has always impressed me. And how could it be otherwise? It has it all. Except for the sea even if in ancient times the sea was also present in these mountains. There is a lot of nature in the Himalayan mountains, the forests rich in rivers and streams, the lakes and even the low plain on the border with India where in the jungle you can admire rhinos, elephants and even tigers.

Patagonia is the South American region between Chile and Argentina that reaches the end of the world in what is more commonly called Tierra del Fuego. It is a region so vast and so fascinating that it can be considered as a separate territory despite being divided between the two South American countries: during my trip around the world I was lucky enough to be able to cross it first on the Chilean coast and then going up from the Tierra del Fuego to the border in Argentina.

How many times has it happened to you to find yourself for a long stopover at an airport and not knowing what to do? Indeed, to be honest, as good wanderlusters you actually knew what to do, that is to take, go out and explore the nearest city! With about 70 planes that I take a year now, this opportunity happens to me more and more often and so after Munich and Dubai, it also happened in Istanbul! But it was a great thing to come to my aid here ...

Let's make it clear that the Tokyo Digital Art Museum curated by teamLab - a Japanese collective known internationally for its huge digital artworks and formed not only by artists, but also programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians and architects - it is not a museum. Or at least not in the terms with which we know museums: entering those 10,000 square meters and observing the over 50 works of art, goes beyond the traditional concept of a museum because there are no boundaries between the visitor and the surrounding space that immerses the public in works impressive three-dimensional. A totally engaging, 360-degree artistic experience.

Australia is absolutely one of the most expensive countries in the world. The economy is strongly developing, and so its prices are constantly rising. For instance, sleeping in a hostel in the big cities in a dormitory for ten people costs on average $28 per night.

How to do it then? Here are several tips, that I’ve learned myself, to save as much as possible in one of the most beautiful lands of the world.

During my experience in Nepal, I had the opportunity to meet Charlie, an Irish boy who took root in Kathmandu. He has lived in the Nepalese capital for about ten years and during my return to this country, I was a guest at his home for a couple of days, now in the Himalayan mountains. Here he has a humble home, four cows, a lot of lands to cultivate, and even some puppy dogs.

Charlie is first and foremost a friend, as well as a person who was very important to the guys of Human Traction. His small bubble, his temple, was an opportunity to tackle together important issues of life and the crossroads that brought him there.

A Baba is not just a character to be photographed among the temples of Kathmandu, nor is he a stoner who smokes chillum from morning to night.No, the world of baba is very different, with Charlie we will discover a small part of it.

In my tour of the world, I decided to make many small dreams that I had been harboring for some time. Among these was to participate in a meditation school. I started to get interested in meditation after I went to Burma in 2011. The dictatorship was still there and few tourists visited it. If you were lucky enough to find monks who could speak English, it was then possible to chat and explore many issues.

Today I take you to discover a country that is much desired but is not extremely touristy indeed! I'm talking about Bolivia a buffer state between Peru and Chile on the Pacific Ocean side and between Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil on the continental side. Bolivia is an extremely interesting but very poor territory with many things to see especially in terms of landscapes and nature. The Salar de Uyuni salt desert is obviously very famous but in reality, there is a lot more to visit and admire such as the Amazon Forest.

It is the turn of a new itinerary in a place that I know very well having crossed it from the south, from the border with Mauritania to Tangier, in the north. And then the Atlas and its desert to the east, while to the west the waves of the Atlantic Ocean delimit its borders. I'm obviously talking about Morocco.

In this strange and particular historical moment, we just have to travel only with the mind or start preparing for when this terrible situation will finally be over and finally the borders will be reopened. So I would start from the basics and in this article I would like to tell you something more about the choice of the backpack because it is anything but trivial since there are so many backpacks and types on the market.

The journey is an extraordinary experience, one of those to be done at least once in a lifetime. It is necessary to approach it with the right humility and, above all, not to consider oneself as an expert traveling just for having traveled all those kilometers. Clearly, it is a journey that tests and strengthens, above all your self-esteem and awareness, so leave and possibly alone because one of the greatest gifts of the journey is new friendships.

From my long experience around the world, I want to give you some small suggestions, useful and above all objective.

It is the most controversial topic, the one on which pages and pages of internet forums and guides fill up. The backpack is personal and as such must be respected. It is said that it should not exceed 15% of your body weight and it is absolutely a correct indication, but then you have to deal with the season in which you start. I started walking in the summer to reach my destination in the winter and I struggled a lot to stay under fifteen kilos. True, I had the computer with me which alone added two kilos, however, everything I had with me came in handy and proved indispensable. Try to leave with a backpack of up to 40 liters and do not cram it as it could be useful to have space for food and liquids. If you leave in the warm months from May to October inclusive, you will need only two or three t-shirts, two pairs of fast-dry trousers which, with the zip-off, can be transformed into Bermuda shorts and then a sweatshirt for the evening on the peaks. Don't forget a waterproof jacket, preferably in Goretex. It is important to have reinforced anti-blister socks with you, even if, in my opinion, the only true method of preventing blisters is only the petroleum jelly on the feet every morning. The foot in fact must stay hydrated but not wet.

Like the backpack, these are also an absolutely personal choice, but a couple of suggestions may be useful to you. In summer it is very hot so you will have to give priority to perspiration: Goretex is not the best choice. If you leave in those months, consider buying shoes that are at least half the size because the foot can swell. Also, walk on the first, soften them with at least fifty miles of walking as new shoes are generally tough and blisters are much more likely to occur. If, on the other hand, you leave in the autumn or spring months, consider waterproofing as a priority since the most important thing is to keep your feet as dry as possible and therefore in this case the Goretex shoe will be the best choice. High or low, hiking or running? They are very personal choices, I personally prefer the trekking high tops to protect the ankles even if, obviously, the racing ones are more comfortable, but the same have a sole that will easily be damaged and will make you lose grip as you approach Santiago. When you go out to choose them, bring with you a pair of shoes that have been widely used over time: the seller, studying the sole and its consumption, will be able to advise you as not all walk in the same way.

Other important infoIf you undertake the journey in the months from September to April you must think that you also have a 100 gram down jacket and a waterproof windproof jacket, possibly in Goretex. A water bottle will also be essential to reduce the environmental impact of the thousands of plastic bottles sold along the way. Snowshoes chapter: personally I have always hated them but in these two thousand kilometers I have used them extensively and actually I have been able to have a great help both in terms of balance and posture and of relief on climbs and descents.

The emotions that the Torres del Paine trek gave me are difficult to explain. However, I tried to tell you through the story of a night, the one between the fifth and sixth day (read the post here).Now, since it is one of the most famous treks in the world, I try with this article to tell you about my experience in a sort of diary, hoping to be of help to those who want to try their hand at the big Q circuit, but not only.

The available circuits:There are three of them, the most famous, popular, and affordable is the W circuit, which is the one in the southern part of the park that includes the best highlights. I tell you about it in the diary of days 1/2/3Recommended duration: 3 nights / 4 daysDifficulty: medium

The great circuit O, which includes the entire natural park, obviously including the W.Difficulty: medium-highDuration: minimum 6 nights / 7 days

Circuit Q, or the most extensive, or the "mochillero" because it avoids any paid means and is, therefore, the cheapest. Consider half a day more than the O circuit.Medium / high difficultyMinimum 6 nights / 7 daysRecommended 8 nights / 9 days

When to go: the best period is from October to April and above all, it is the only period in which you can have the choice on the circuit to go. In fact, from the 15th of April, the Q and the O are not passable except with an authorized guide.