Is 'Travels with Charley' the greatest travel book ever written?

I finished reading “Travels with Charley: In Search of America” by John Steinbeck just the other day, and I have no trouble saying that it’s one of the best travel books that I’ve ever read. The book was published in 1962 and details a 10,000-mile trip that Steinbeck took around America with is French poodle, Charley, in 1960.

Steinbeck, who died in 1968, is one of my favorite writers, and I’d known about (and owned a copy of) “Travels with Charley” for years. For whatever reason, I’d never gotten around to reading it until recently. I really got the urge to read it though when I saw that National Geographic Traveler magazine listed it on its “Around the World in 80 Books” list.

“Travels with Charley” was a delight to read. The book was laugh-out-loud funny in many places, especially the places where Steinbeck makes observations about his dog and the people he meets on the road. The book is full of such observations, and they will make you envy the way Steinbeck’s mind worked.

The book will also give you the itch to hit the open road. The book is an outstanding travel book if it’s nothing else, and it will definitely make you want to follow in Steinbeck’s footsteps. In fact, many people have done just that, having traveled around the country, following his route around America.

The book doesn’t include turn-by-turn directions, but you do get a feel for his route. He starts in Long Island, New York, heads up to Maine, then travels west across the northern United States, eventually arriving in the Pacific Northwest. He then turns south, enters his native California, turns east and drive across Texas and into the deep South. I imagine that he drove through southwest Alabama on his way back north toward New York. The book mentions specifically that he passed through Montgomery.

Another thing that “Travels with Charley” will give you will be the desire to read all of Steinbeck’s other books. In addition to “Travels with Charley,” he also wrote 30 other books. In order of publication, his books, some of which were published after his death, include:

- Cup of Gold (1929)
- The Pastures of Heaven (1932)
- The Red Pony (1933)
- To a God Unknown (1933)
- Tortilla Flat (1935)
- In Dubious Battle (1936)
- Of Mice and Men (1937)
- The Long Valley (1938)
- The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
- The Forgotten Village (1941)
- Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research (1941)
- The Moon Is Down (1942)
- Bombs Away: The Story of a Bomber Team (1942)
- Cannery Row (1945)
- The Wayward Bus (1947)
- The Pearl (1947)
- A Russian Journal (1948)
- Burning Bright (1950)
- The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951)
- East of Eden (1952)
- Sweet Thursday (1954)
- The Short Reign of Pippin IV: A Fabrication (1957)
- Once There Was A War (1958)
- The Winter of Our Discontent (1961)
- Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1962)
- America and Americans (1966)
- Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters (1969)
- Viva Zapata! (1975)
- The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976)
- Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath (1989)
- Steinbeck in Vietnam: Dispatches from the War (2012)

In the end, how many of you have read “Travels with Charley”? What did you think about it? Which of Steinbeck’s books is your personal favorite and why? Let us know in the comments section below.