Global travel can be a wearying business: mass tourism, overcrowded
planes, chaotic airports, heightened security, cookie-cutter hotel
chains, well-worn tourist trails. Finding even a sliver of adventure can
sometimes feel impossible. But take heart: for all of us with an
unfulfilled spirit of wanderlust, The Golden Age of Travel evokes an era
when traveling the world was a thrilling new possibility for those with
the resources, time, imagination, and daring.
This richly illustrated volume charts the travel heyday of 1869 to 1939.
Bedecked with ephemera and precious turn-of-the-century photochroms, it
follows six classic tours favored by Western adventurers in the prewar
era, including such famous traveler-writers as Charles Dickens, Jules
Verne, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mark Twain, and Goethe. From the Grand Tour
of Europe, a traditional rite of passage for young English aristocrats,
to the Far East, barely touched by Western influence, to the famous
Trans-Siberian Railway, we follow each journey through its itinerant
stops and various modes of transport: trains, boats, cars, planes,
horses, donkeys, and camels.
With pages brimming with archival travel posters, guides, tickets,
leaflets, brochures, menus, and luggage stickers, the book evokes all
the romance, elegance, not to mention the sheer sense of novelty, that
enthralled these golden-age passengers. Through decadent new cities, or
wild, rugged terrains, this is your passport to a long-lost epoch of
adventure and wide-eyed wonder at the world.
