10 Well-Known Writers on Traveling

Summer is upon us, and I'm sure many of you are making travel plans. Being in library school, where I'm paying out-of-pocket for tuition and miscellaneous fees, I'm not likely to venture far from home this year. So I'll have to live vicariously through writers who've used for inspiration their jaunts to such lively locales as Paris, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Spain...and Key West.

Ernest Hemingway in East Africa, 1954.
Image from Photofest

It was at Key West, the tropical island that's part of the state of Florida, where Ernest Hemingway spent much of the year. It's also where he wrote A Farewell to Arms, one of his most famous novels. When he wasn't writing away amid the lush greenery of Key West, Hemingway was traveling to East Africa or the Caribbean. Or he was off to France or to Spain, where he reported on the Spanish Civil War. Also in his lifetime, Hemingway saw Italy, England, Cuba, China, and several U.S. states, ultimately settling down in Idaho. Many of these locations influenced his writing, and thus readers of his works are brought along on the journey.

Hemingway is just one of many well-known writers who've written about the places they've been. There's also Virginia Woolf (St. Ives, Cornwall), Henry Miller (Paris), Hunter S. Thompson (Puerto Rico), and David Sedaris (Paris, Amsterdam). For more, check out The L's list of "10 Famous Writers on Traveling." And consider taking one of their books with you on summer vacation this year!