One of my favorite genres of literature is the story, often written in the first person, in which the author recounts a tale of life on the road. Something about a person striking out on an epic journey to see the world creates a story almost guaranteed to amuse, instruct and engender reflection about life — all while wending between roadside caf‚s, through the countryside and the bustle of cities.

I just completed John Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charlie,” an ode to the road by one of America’s most celebrated authors. With a blue French poodle and a truck named Rocinante (yes, think quixotically about the book) a middle-aged Steinbeck takes off to rediscover, anonymously, the land he captured in his acclaimed novels. I marveled when he found himself without the adequate words to describe the coast of Maine. I could feel his concern when Charlie, his faithful companion, developed some prostate complications. What would you do with a pooch who developed urinary tract problems in the middle of the night in Montana? I could picture the waitress who sucked the life out the room and the toll-taker who waved him through.

I remember the first time I opened “The Lost Continent” by Bill Bryson. Iowa’s native son, he began his journey across America in Des Moines. “I came from Des Moines. Somebody had to.” His tongue-in-cheek ribbing, teasing Des Moines natives about their hypnotic attachment to their hometown, their inevitable marriage to a woman named Bobbi Jo, a place in the bowling league and a steady job at the tire plant. As Bryson drove across America, he joked about wide-spot-in-the-road towns with names like Coleslaw.

As he drives cross-country to rediscover the land of his youth, Bryson treats us to glimpses of family vacations during his childhood — station-wagon pilgrimages to obscure historical landmarks while fighting tooth-and-nail with sadistic older siblings. Bryson also pokes fun at Americans who drive five minutes to go walk on a treadmill at the gym and memorializes his grandmother’s inventive culinary bent with dishes prominently featuring Rice Krispies and Jell-O.

While Bryson is always good for laughs — not always at the expense of the United States — I’ve recently been enjoying several more contemplative takes on the journey. An excellent work I recently discovered are by last year’s Nobel Laureate in literature, V.S. Naipaul. I picked up “Among the Believers” this fall amidst all the hype and hysteria about Islam. In seven months, Naipaul traveled throughout the Muslim world in search of the true meaning of belief. His adventures were compounded by his status as an outsider and the language barriers he faced in nearly every country he visited. Naipaul paints a poignant portrait of the daily lives of the people he meets and beliefs that range everywhere on the spectrum of belief. The recurring theme is that an entire faith and all its followers can hardly be painted with a single brush.

I’ve always loved natural history, and combining travel and natural history. John Muir’s “A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf” is a classic work pulling adventure and a clear eye for the natural world together. The most otherworldly quality about the book is its time, just a few years after the end of the Civil War. A lawless, downtrodden South with a strong suspicion about outsiders is the backdrop for the tale, as a young Muir falls in love with America as he crosses it on foot, making it to Florida before coming down with malaria.

The world Muir chronicles has vanished, the country roads he trod have been paved, some of the hamlets have disappeared. His attention to the tiny details: the ferns, the atmosphere and the food he ate transport the reader back into the times, places and tastes that no longer exist.

Ah, the open road.

Nothing sounds quite so alluring at mid-semester.

Rachel Faber Machacha

is a graduate student in international development studies. She is the opinion editor of the Daily.