Outdoor Books
Road Trip Guide Books
A road-trip guide is built around a route rather than a list of sights. It tells you where to stop, how long each leg takes and what to do once you are out of the car. This shelf has Lonely Planet's Best Road Trips series, guides to the North Coast 500, routes for campervans and motorhomes, and epic drives from Iceland's Ring Road to Route 66. Check the edition before you go: roads, ferries and opening times change faster than the scenery.
Start here
If you want to drive Britain
Four ways in. Lonely Planet's 36 drives, from three-day escapes to three-week trips; a BBC book about retracing six classic British routes in period cars; and two guides to the North Coast 500.
If you are taking a campervan
Routes for people sleeping in the vehicle: thirty UK road trips for campervans, motorhomes and tents, a practical introduction to van life, and Lonely Planet's collection of van trips across Europe. The Bradt UK book won the British Guild of Travel Writers' Travel Guide Book of the Year for 2023.
If you want to go further
Longer routes abroad: 41 drives across Europe, 51 across the United States, and 50 of the greatest road trips on Earth organised by continent. Iceland's Ring Road has a guide of its own, with five trips from one day to five.
Featured
Travels with Charley in Search of America
Steinbeck's 1960 trip around the United States in a pick-up fitted with a camper, with his poodle Charley, covering close to ten thousand miles. He wanted to rediscover the country he had written about for years, and the book is as much a self-portrait as a travelogue. Worth reading before any of the guides, to remember what the trip is for.
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The full shelf
All books in Road Trip Guide Books
36 books
