I just came across a great guide to some of the best travel books ever written: My favourite travel book, by the world’s greatest travel writers.
I met Pico Iyer once.
Hey, what about Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad?
Another one to add to my Amazon wish list. 
A quote from the blurb: “As unimpressed by American manners as he is by European attitudes, Twain concludes that 'human nature is very much the same all over the world”.
Ain’t that the truth!
thanks for the links, have one of those on order now. ps book depository ships to taiwan for free 
I am also a fan of David Fairchilds plant explorations and Wade Davis’s “One River”. both are mostly about plant exploration.
Another one to add to my Amazon wish list. [/quote]
Amazon? Project Gutenberg!
Some links:
[ul][li]Project Gutenberg home page[/li]
[li]PG travel bookshelf (very incomplete)[/li][/ul]
Here are some notable works lacking from the travel bookshelf:
[ul][li]The Worst Journey in the World, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard (This is Paul Theroux’s entry in the Guardian list.)[/li]
[li]books by Sir Richard Francis Burton, including Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah.[/li][/ul]
As long as I’m writing, here’s a favorite of mine I think would be of interest to many here: In the Footsteps of Genghis Khan, by John DeFrancis – what it was like to rough it across China in the 1930s, the days of the warlords.
