Travel for me always means time for reading; long flights just mean more books. I think my record is 4 books completed before reaching our destination (we were travelling to New Zealand).

I like to read books about the places I am visiting. I like to be inspired to visit places by the books I read – A Town Like Alice probably inspired a lot of my wanderlust and I finally got to experience Alice Springs in 2008 (and re-read the book for about the tenth time whilst I was there).

The trouble with reading so many books is that you can’t possibly carry enough. I know I can read on my phone, but there’s something about sitting in a comfy chair, with a paperback in hand. But then if I’m getting to the end of my book and don’t have another one, I start to get twitchy.

I’ll be hoping that the next place we stay has a book swap shelf, or a second hand book shop just round the corner, or even a library selling off old stock, however battered it might be. I keep a record of the books in my travel journals, and often note down the places where I’ve picked them up.

Sometimes, there is a theme, like in NZ in 2019 where all the books I read seemed to be stories involving books or set in bookshops. Sometimes, it means re-reading old favourites – I can never resist an Agatha Christie if I spot one. But mostly, I just read whatever is available, and book finding becomes a part of our adventures. Sometimes the books come home with me, but usually they go back on a bookshelf somewhere, ready for the next person.

---

Thames / New Zealand (2019) – two second hand bookshops and three charity shops, all with great selections. I arrived with three books, and left with three different ones. The cottage where we stayed had a great spot for reading and watching the sunset – it became my happy place for a few days.

---

Taupo / New Zealand (2000) – the library booksale, where I picked up a book all about the Kennedy Assassination, complete with diagrams, conspiracies and a surprising conclusion about what really happened – that one cost 50cents I think.

---

Funchal / Madeira (2022) – hotels can sometimes be unhappy hunting grounds, but this time, it was a winner. There was a truly international bookswap shelf in reception – books available in French, German, Dutch and Spanish, as well as lots of English too – lots of crime thrillers and holiday reads. Sometimes, you can’t be too choosy – not everything I read was high fiction – but I really enjoyed reading on our balcony as the sun was rising.

---

Sedbergh / England – the Book Shelter – right in the middle of the town, two big shelves of books available for swapping at any time, and a seat to sit and read, if that’s what you fancy. Sedbergh markets itself as England’s Book Town, so it is entirely in keeping with all the other bookshops about the place. Every time we walked past, I had a little look – there were new books being dropped off and taken away all time. I read two in the couple of days we stayed there.

Every town should have one.

---

Keep travelling, keep reading, keep swapping those books.