As many places around the world confront issues of globalization, migration and postcoloniality, travel writing has become a serious genre of study, reflecting some of the greatest concerns of our time. Encompassing forms as diverse as field journals, investigative reports, guidebooks, memoirs, comic sketches and lyrical reveries, travel writing is now a crucial focus for discussion across many subjects within the humanities and social sciences.

An ideal starting point for beginners, but also offering new perspectives for those familiar with the field, The Routledge Companion to Travel Writing examines:

* Key debates within the field, including postcolonial studies, gender, sexuality and visual culture

* Historical and cultural contexts, tracing the evolution of travel writing across time and over cultures

* Different styles, modes and themes of travel writing, from pilgrimage to tourism

* Imagined geographies, and the relationship between travel writing and the social, ideological and occasionally fictional constructs through which we view the different regions of the world.

Covering all of the major topics and debates, this is an essential overview of the field, which will also encourage new and exciting directions for study.