This 2024 reading challenge is all about where reading hits the road.
In addition to being a book nerd, I am a recovering bookseller and avid traveler. I believe strongly that books and travel go together. Books inspire travel and travel encourages reading.
Reading a book with an atmospheric setting can give you an acute sense of place…which has often inspired me to travel. Conversely, when you travel, you gain that insider knowledge which is later rewarded when reading a book set there.
It’s a perfect pairing, like wine and cheese, peanut butter and jelly, or books on a rainy day. And that’s why I co-host the annual Travel Reading List challenge and hope that you will participate.
I’m joined in the book challenge by fellow travel blogger (and book lover) Mary Jo at Traveling with MJ and a crew of intrepid readers from our Travel Reading List Facebook Community.
Here’s how it works:
We’ve designed this challenge to encourage you to read more…and read more diversely. And we mean “diversely” in the broadest term. This challenge encourages you to read outside of your go-to genre, with books from authors who belong to different races, cultures and lived experiences. It has 24 basic prompts (2x books a month), with an additional 6 prompts for the advanced challenge.
- Check out the book challenges below. I’ve listed all thirty reading prompts with some book suggestions for each.
- You can get a printable copy the prompts here.
- Join our Travel Reading List Facebook group where you can engage with other book nerds and get ideas ideas for your reading goals.
2024 Reading Challenge: Travel Reading List
Let’s get started with the reading prompts. In addition to the list itself, I’m also suggesting either two books that go along with the prompt or I’ll link out to some round-up articles.
Basic Challenge: 24 Prompts
- A book set in Sweden: An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good, Anything from Frederik Backman (we have a book club guide for his Anxious People.)
- A book that’s a YA romance: Carry On, Woke Up Like This.
- A book that’s a Sherlock Holmes retelling: Charlotte Holmes series, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice.
- A book set south of the Equator: Born A Crime (we have a book club guide for that), Or any of these books set in Australia (looking at you Jane Harper!)
- A book about a historical event (fiction or non-fiction): Oath and Honor, How to Hide an Empire.
- A book that’s the first in a series that’s new to you: A Master of Djinn, The Ninth Rain.
- A book set in a country you dream of visiting: For 2024, I’ll be visiting new countries of Chile, Croatia and Slovenia. But we have a whole bunch of lists for various travel destinations.
- A book about aviation or air travel: Airplane Mode: An Irreverent History of Travel, The Last Flight.
- A book with a country in the title: The Sun Sets in Singapore, The Egyptologist.
- A book set in more than one country: The Travel Book: A Journey Through Every Country in the World, Ink and Bone (Great Library Series),
- A book published in 2024: We’ll just have to see with this one.
- A book that’s a #booktok recommendation: A Court of Thorns and Roses, Fourth Wing (we have a book guide for that.)
- A book that’s a locked room mystery: The Guest List (we have a book club guide for The Guest List), One by One.
- A book about a social justice issue or with social justice as a theme: Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay and a Mother’s Will to Survive, Democracy Awaking: Notes on the State of America.
- A book with a subtitle: Quietly Hostile: Essays, Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain.
- A book from the 2023 Goodreads Reader Choice awards: Yellowface (Yellowface book club guide), Weyward.
- A book where you go in blind (no reading of the reviews, book jacket or synopsis): Use the gang in the Facebook Group to recommend something.
- A book with swashbuckling: Daughter of the Pirate King, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi.
- A book with a main character on a quest: Psalm for the Wild Built, and we have a whole article on books featuring pilgrimages.
- A book with a title that contains a synonym for woman (girl, lady, female, gal, etc.): Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels, Girl, Woman, Other (we’ve got a book club guide for this one.
- A book with a gem in the title (ruby, diamond, amethyst, etc.): The Diamond Eye (book club guide), The Amber Spyglass.
- A book that involves music or musicians: Run Rose Run (book club guide), Daisy Jones and the Six (book club guide).
- A book about a detective(s): The Thurday Murder Club (and if you’ve already read and liked it, we have a list of books similar to Thursday Murder Club), The Bangalore Detective’s Club.
- A book whose title starts with the letter W: Witchmark, When Women Were Dragons.
Advanced Challenge: 6 More Reads
- A book set in Eastern Europe: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
- A book by a South Asian author: Black Water Sister, and anything from our list of books set in Sri Lanka.
- A book with a tourist landmark on the cover: The Nightingale (book club guide), The Golden Gate.
- A book with two or more POVs: All the Light We Cannot See (and if you’ve read and liked it here are more books like it), Six of Crows.
- A book about or set in old Hollywood: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (book club guide), American Dream Machine.
- A book by a Latinx author: explore Silvia Moreno Garcia, Roberto Bolaño, Isabelle Allende, Hernan Diaz.
More Inspiration From Our Book Lists
- The 20 best classics for book club.
- 20 books set in libraries.
- Books set in bookstores.
- Books featuring climate fiction.
Take the 2024 reading challenge with your friends:
