11 Books About Obsessive Searches

As the author of “Turn Right at Machu Picchu,” about a trek to find the lost city of the Incas along a relatively unknown route, and “Meet Me in Atlantis,” about amateur explorers’ passionate attempts to locate the sunken island metropolis, I’m intimately familiar with travel books that might be categorized as “obsessive quests.” My favorites are those written by authors who undertake adventures of their own. Here is a selection.

“The Kon-Tiki Expedition,” Thor Heyerdahl (1948)

A Norwegian sailor sails from Peru across the Pacific on a balsa raft to prove the truth behind a Polynesian myth. The legitimacy of his findings is debatable, but the high-seas adventure he weaves from his journey is timeless.

“A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush,” Eric Newby (1958)

An inexperienced climber quits his job at a London fashion house todrive across Europe and Central Asia to Afghanistan, where he hopes to ascend a Himalayan peak. Arguably the funniest book ever written in which the author is falsely charged with murder.

“Arabian Sands,” Wilfred Thesiger (1959)

Shortly after World War II, a young Englishman decides to trek across the Empty Quarter of Arabia; his spare prose captures the vanishing nomadic way of life in one of the planet’s harshest environments.

“The Snow Leopard,” Peter Matthiessen (1978)

Running away from grief after his young wife dies from cancer, the author climbs high into the mountains of Nepal seeking both the elusive cat and a Buddhist shrine. What he finds instead is something close to enlightenment.

“Old Glory,” Jonathan Raban (1981)

It could have been awful: A cynical Englishman, inspired by Huckleberry Finn, departs down the Mississippi River searching for the meaning of America. Once he adjusts to the slow-running current, however, he manages to find the heart in the heartland.

“In Trouble Again,” Redmond O’Hanlon (1989)

A woefully unprepared, out-of-shape natural historian sets off for the South American rain forest to meet the fearsome Yanomami tribe. His arrival is almost anticlimactic compared to the hilariously bumpy journey.

“Into the Wild,” Jon Krakauer (1996)

A writer sees a lot of his younger self in the story of Chris McCandless, a young vagabond who escapes deep into Alaska to live off the land, and tries to untangle the truth about how he got there.

“Terra Incognita,” Sara Wheeler (1998)

Part history of polar exploration, part Antarctic travelogue. The author spends months at the world’s least-inviting destination and manages to convey the pull it has on those who are drawn there.

“Chasing Che,” Patrick Symmes (2000)

In his attempt to retrace the route Che Guevara follows in his “Motorcycle Diaries,” the author hops on his own two-wheel BMW to track down most of that book’s locations — and many of its characters — and somehow manages to improve on the original.

“The Lost City of Z,” David Grann (2009)

A celebrated British explorer disappeared in 1925 while searching for a legendary city in the Amazon jungle. Eighty years later, the author tries to solve the mystery of the explorer’s death, and find an answer to the question: Was the city of Z real?

“Wild,” Cheryl Strayed (2012)

The Reese Witherspoon movie adaptation may capture the beauty of the Pacific Crest Trail, but the book delves many levels deeper into the psychology of a broken woman who seeks to put her life back together one step at a time (in too-tight boots, no less).