Books on slow and alternative travel: slow travel, long-distance walks and undertourism
Books on slow travel, long-distance walks and journeys on foot: titles and authors to read, with itineraries through Italy's villages and wild places.
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There's an entire library that explains why it's worth slowing down, and almost always it does so starting from a minimal choice: moving on foot, by train, following a trail instead of a motorway. Books on slow travel aren't hiking manuals, but reading companions that change the way you look at a road, a ridge, a village of a few houses. I've gathered some of them, all available in Italian, that dialogue well with the way we tell the stories of places on this site.
The philosophy of walking
The natural starting point is the philosophy of walking. "A Philosophy of Walking" by Frédéric Gros (Garzanti) reconstructs the stride of Nietzsche, Rousseau, Rimbaud and Gandhi to explain how thought is born of movement. Along the same lines is "Walking: One Step at a Time" by Erling Kagge (Einaudi): the Norwegian explorer turns the renunciation of speed into a daily act, within reach of anyone who chooses the pavement over the car. More literary and profound is "The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot" by Robert Macfarlane (Einaudi), which walks nearly two thousand kilometres of forgotten paths across England, Scotland and Tibet, showing how every trail carries a history with it. To these I'd add "Wanderlust: A History of Walking" by Rebecca Solnit (Bruno Mondadori) and "Éloge de la marche" by David Le Breton (Feltrinelli), two essays that give cultural depth to a gesture we take for granted.
Travel writing
Anyone who prefers travel writing proper will find in Paolo Rumiz a solid Italian reference point. "La leggenda dei monti naviganti" (Feltrinelli) climbs the Alps and Apennines to the rhythm of the lesser villages, while "Appia" follows on foot the queen of Roman roads: two books that make you want to climb up to places like Anghiari, in the Tuscan Valtiberina, where the effort of the ascent is part of the arrival. On the theme of the walk, "Il sentiero degli dei" by Wu Ming 2 (Ediciclo) recounts the Apennine crossing from Bologna to Florence, uniting history and slow pace, and it calls to mind the paths that lead to an abbey you can only reach on foot, like San Pietro al Monte or the silent ridges of the Sanctuary of the Guardia on Monte Figogna.
For those who love the idea of the walk as a bond with the land, two classics of travel literature remain fundamental: "The Songlines" by Bruce Chatwin (Adelphi), which makes Aboriginal walking a map of the world, and "In Patagonia" by the same author. These are books you read while thinking of the ancient drove roads of transhumance, the very ones you find again in Molise between the Hermitage of Sant'Egidio and the drove roads of the Matese. I'd add "walking in the woods" not as a title but as a sensibility: the same one that drives "Of Walking in Ice" by Werner Herzog (Guanda), the stubborn diary of a winter march from Munich to Paris.
The wild world
Wild nature has a section of its own. "The Living Mountain" by Nan Shepherd (Ponte alle Grazie) is a meditation on the Scottish Cairngorms that teaches you to enter a landscape instead of conquering it: an ideal read before venturing into an untouched forest like Sasso Fratino, in Romagna, or among the walls of the Vikos gorge, in Greece and the black lakes of Durmitor, in Montenegro. Even the less-trodden Alpine valleys, like those of the Three Lakes Loop in the Valsesia, take on another meaning after these books, as does arriving at dawn at the Cascata del Mulino at Saturnia, before the coaches.
Moving slowly
Slow travel, finally, is also a question of means. "A Fortune-Teller Told Me" by Tiziano Terzani (TEA) grows out of the decision not to take planes for a whole year: an experiment that rediscovers trains, ships and unhurried time. It's the same idea we put forward when we suggest getting around by night train to cross Europe without haste, perhaps to reach border villages like Sauris, in the Friulian Alps or the rebuilt Venzone, all the way to the perched South of Gangi, on the Madonie.
Read together, these books don't hand you ready-made itineraries: they teach a rhythm. And that rhythm, once acquired, is exactly what makes undertourism not a sacrifice, but a richer way of travelling. Put one in your backpack and set off towards the village or the trail that intrigues you most.
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Practical info
When is the best time to visit Books on slow and alternative travel?
The recommended time is April, May, June, September and October, when it is less crowded.
Where is Books on slow and alternative travel?
Books on slow and alternative travel is located in Italy.
