What do you think?
Rate this book
Travelling Light
Fun and ingenious approach to travel.
138 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
About the author
Robyn Davidson
35 books305 followersRobyn Davidson was born on a cattle property in Queensland, Australia. She went to Sydney in the late sixties, then spent time studying in Brisbane before moving to Alice Springs, where the events of this book begin. Since then, she has traveled extensively, living in London, New York, and India. In the early 1990s, she migrated with and wrote about nomads in northwestern India. She is now based in Melbourne, but spends several months a year in the Indian Himalayas.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
August 8, 2017
Published in 1989, after her most well known book Tracks, this collection of stories covers a number of settings over a long period of time. It includes the early part of her establishment of the Tracks book, but a lot more new writing.
There are a number of stories in Australia, including the story of her childhood (The Mythological Crucible) which was incredibly readable; the introductory story mentioned above which leads into Tracks; three short stories collected under the title Travelling Light: Home and the final story, titles Alice Springs.
As well as these we have three short stories collected under the title The City and the Bush which are not so geographically focused, but describe the love/hate of living in London, and wanting to return to Australia; and, under the title Travelling Light: Away - a trip on a Harley from New York to California; and travels in Rajasthan, India.
They are thoughtful and well considered stories, well written, and entertaining. Davidson shares a lot of herself in these stories, and she comes across as not only thoughtful and considered, but a free spirit and like she would be a lot of fun to be around - presuming you were not on the opposite side of her opinion.
It is a short read, but a rewarding one, well worth seeking out.
4 stars.
There are a number of stories in Australia, including the story of her childhood (The Mythological Crucible) which was incredibly readable; the introductory story mentioned above which leads into Tracks; three short stories collected under the title Travelling Light: Home and the final story, titles Alice Springs.
As well as these we have three short stories collected under the title The City and the Bush which are not so geographically focused, but describe the love/hate of living in London, and wanting to return to Australia; and, under the title Travelling Light: Away - a trip on a Harley from New York to California; and travels in Rajasthan, India.
They are thoughtful and well considered stories, well written, and entertaining. Davidson shares a lot of herself in these stories, and she comes across as not only thoughtful and considered, but a free spirit and like she would be a lot of fun to be around - presuming you were not on the opposite side of her opinion.
It is a short read, but a rewarding one, well worth seeking out.
4 stars.
December 20, 2019
A really terrific audiobook on some light travelling adventures with a soothing narrator.
Very easy listening.
Very easy listening.
December 30, 2017
I can't believe I haven't read Robyn Davidson sooner. She writes with a natural poeticism and a reflective bent befitting the eyes of a observer and be-er in nature. This collection of essays includes a brief memoir of parts of her childhood on the Darling Downs and the Sunshine Coast, personal historical descriptions of these places that bring them to life in a way I haven't come across before. She also muses eloquently on Australian culture and identity with pith and insight.
How thrilling too, to have the voice of a regional Queensland woman whose education and values encompass environmentalism, political awareness and an openness to the uncertainties of life.
How thrilling too, to have the voice of a regional Queensland woman whose education and values encompass environmentalism, political awareness and an openness to the uncertainties of life.
June 6, 2020
I love Robyn’s writing, her words are deeply healing and thought provoking. It feels symbolic reading it again a year later.
March 25, 2023
Robyn Davidson crossed about 1700 miles of Australian Outback, mostly alone, by camel in 1977. Her journey was covered by National Geographic magazine and dramatized in a feature film. That journey, coming, as she says, from being …restless and uncertain of where my home was,” also led her to a successful career in travel writing.
A COMPENDIUM OF INSIGHTFUL TRAVEL ARTICLES
Travelling Light is a collection of articles written by Ms. Davidson, most of them published in print magazines or books. A couple are accounts of her remarkable solo journeys, the most notable being the one she made by camel across the Australian desert. The 2013 movie, Tracks, starring Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver, was made from that Outback trip. She also wrote a book about it by the same name.
In this collection the article, The First Journey, is a distilled version of Tracks. It is well written and a nice reminder of what I liked about the book and movie. I also reviewed the book.
Her other epic journey was one she took across the Thar Desert in the northern state of Rajasthan in India. This journey is also distilled in the chapter, Rajasthan, from her book, Desert Places. I also reviewed that book, which like Tracks, indicates Ms. Davidson’s regard for lonely journeys and nomadic peoples.
The rest of Travelling Light also recounts travels into deserts both natural and man-made. But Ms. Davidson begins with a bit of autobiography, telling of her “restless and uncertain” life growing up in Queensland, Australia. She relates a grubby farming existence not hard to imagine wanting to escape. Even so, it somehow instilled in her a love of wild places, wandering, taking care of herself, and writing about it.
Some of the seamier places she has visited (and lived) include London, and Kings Cross. Even there, she notes the good and the bad--Italian coffee and conversation, cockroaches and street thugs. That dichotomy is in most of her writing and is apparent because she strives to present her tales honestly, with all the ugliness as well as beauty.
Among her tales is one of her trip across the United States with a friend on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. This was apparently in 1985. I found her view of the US at that time most interesting. She seems to have seen the inanity within the expanse of the US. But she isn’t so moved by the much-averred personal freedoms in America, not to see ahead to the dwindling personal freedoms of our current time. She says, “Our extraordinary freedom to move where we like will become the privilege of a select few.”
The last four chapters are articles set in Australia, when she had returned home to see it anew with insights from her travels. This includes a chapter on Ayers Rock, in which she contrasts the primeval grandeur of the place with the crassness of those who visit it without respect.
She ends with an essay on the Australian town of Alice Springs (from where she began her Tracks journey). It is an exploration of contrasts and evolutions of the world and what this town has become in the current, dulled time.
TALES OF WANDERINGS WITH MANY QUOTABLE PASSAGES
Travelling Light is stories of Ms. Davidson’s wanderings, replete with her observations on everything she found inspiring or appalling. She shows herself to be a careful witness to life as she finds it, reporting with a frankness that is believable and compelling with an unpretentious eloquence of quotable passages. One of my favorites:
“ It’s been a long time since I claimed some solitude in this blessed landscape; since I’ve done without life’s little props. Here I have no friend, no dog, no radio, no clock, no phone, no roof, no body pollutants. The clackety-clack of the typewriter travels out into the valley and gets lost in expanses of forest and paperbark swamp. I’m the only soul around. ”
SOME AUTOBIOGRAPHY BEGGING FOR MORE
Ms. Davidson’s prose and structure are near flawless as in all else I’ve read by her. She would not have hurt herself by being a bit more autobiographical with this volume. A few more pages of the story she started in the first chapter would have enhanced the rest and created a more pleasing overall structure. Still, that is a minor criticism. The book she has produced, adds food for thought heaped on top of that from her longer works.
A PROSE WINDOW FOR THE REST OF US
I have been moved by Ms. Davidson’s voice in describing her adventures and insights since reading Tracks and Desert Places. She continues with that honest and wise voice in Travelling Light. Following her accounts of her travels opens a door to the wider world for those of us who must remain at home.
A COMPENDIUM OF INSIGHTFUL TRAVEL ARTICLES
Travelling Light is a collection of articles written by Ms. Davidson, most of them published in print magazines or books. A couple are accounts of her remarkable solo journeys, the most notable being the one she made by camel across the Australian desert. The 2013 movie, Tracks, starring Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver, was made from that Outback trip. She also wrote a book about it by the same name.
In this collection the article, The First Journey, is a distilled version of Tracks. It is well written and a nice reminder of what I liked about the book and movie. I also reviewed the book.
Her other epic journey was one she took across the Thar Desert in the northern state of Rajasthan in India. This journey is also distilled in the chapter, Rajasthan, from her book, Desert Places. I also reviewed that book, which like Tracks, indicates Ms. Davidson’s regard for lonely journeys and nomadic peoples.
The rest of Travelling Light also recounts travels into deserts both natural and man-made. But Ms. Davidson begins with a bit of autobiography, telling of her “restless and uncertain” life growing up in Queensland, Australia. She relates a grubby farming existence not hard to imagine wanting to escape. Even so, it somehow instilled in her a love of wild places, wandering, taking care of herself, and writing about it.
Some of the seamier places she has visited (and lived) include London, and Kings Cross. Even there, she notes the good and the bad--Italian coffee and conversation, cockroaches and street thugs. That dichotomy is in most of her writing and is apparent because she strives to present her tales honestly, with all the ugliness as well as beauty.
Among her tales is one of her trip across the United States with a friend on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. This was apparently in 1985. I found her view of the US at that time most interesting. She seems to have seen the inanity within the expanse of the US. But she isn’t so moved by the much-averred personal freedoms in America, not to see ahead to the dwindling personal freedoms of our current time. She says, “Our extraordinary freedom to move where we like will become the privilege of a select few.”
The last four chapters are articles set in Australia, when she had returned home to see it anew with insights from her travels. This includes a chapter on Ayers Rock, in which she contrasts the primeval grandeur of the place with the crassness of those who visit it without respect.
She ends with an essay on the Australian town of Alice Springs (from where she began her Tracks journey). It is an exploration of contrasts and evolutions of the world and what this town has become in the current, dulled time.
TALES OF WANDERINGS WITH MANY QUOTABLE PASSAGES
Travelling Light is stories of Ms. Davidson’s wanderings, replete with her observations on everything she found inspiring or appalling. She shows herself to be a careful witness to life as she finds it, reporting with a frankness that is believable and compelling with an unpretentious eloquence of quotable passages. One of my favorites:
“ It’s been a long time since I claimed some solitude in this blessed landscape; since I’ve done without life’s little props. Here I have no friend, no dog, no radio, no clock, no phone, no roof, no body pollutants. The clackety-clack of the typewriter travels out into the valley and gets lost in expanses of forest and paperbark swamp. I’m the only soul around. ”
SOME AUTOBIOGRAPHY BEGGING FOR MORE
Ms. Davidson’s prose and structure are near flawless as in all else I’ve read by her. She would not have hurt herself by being a bit more autobiographical with this volume. A few more pages of the story she started in the first chapter would have enhanced the rest and created a more pleasing overall structure. Still, that is a minor criticism. The book she has produced, adds food for thought heaped on top of that from her longer works.
A PROSE WINDOW FOR THE REST OF US
I have been moved by Ms. Davidson’s voice in describing her adventures and insights since reading Tracks and Desert Places. She continues with that honest and wise voice in Travelling Light. Following her accounts of her travels opens a door to the wider world for those of us who must remain at home.
February 10, 2021
After reading Davidson’s iconic memoir Tracks, I rushed to read her other works and was a little disappointed. This collection of essays has some good travel tales, especially the one about riding a Harley across the United States and some of the stories about her favorite places in Australia. But big chunks of the book are passages from Tracks, which seems like cheating. Davidson does skillfully interlace her social concerns with her travel stories, especially her worries about the dilution and commercialization of Australia’s Aboriginal culture and the defilement of its prized open spaces. Overall, it’s a good read but a bit uneven.
January 21, 2022
It was alright. Just read it as I needed something small to read. Ive read all of Robyn Davidson's books now. So this was the last one. Just a handful of chapters following certain travels of her life. Would have enjoyed some parts to have more details. The rest well I read the books associated with that phase. I don't really see the point of this book. I think it's supposed to be a very brief clipped biography maybe? Not sure. Either way. It was a good book for what I was looking for at the time. But not sure if I'd ever activally look for it again.
June 30, 2018
What an amazing book! Robyn Davidson is a born storyteller. Her style is poignant and has depth and meaning.
January 22, 2025
Interesting to hear some background stories after reading of her trip with the camels.
An easy read.
An easy read.
September 3, 2025
Banger! Love robyn, love how she doesn't centre her existence on men but has meaningful human connections throughout her journeys, particularly enjoyed the first half of the book. So many sublime, beautiful moments of peace and isolation in the bush and the desert that she explores. Recommend to anyone considering cheap and cheerful travel, solo, in the bush, etc, and who is also interested in the transcendence of nature.
July 11, 2020
Wasn’t sure about this book to start with. her history sounded same as same as. However I persistEd s it was a free audiobook and I was travelling. How glad I was. Also glad it was an audiobook. Wonderful storyteller and lovely lines and phrases that I may not have enjoyed as much if reading. A great oral storyteller I expect.
September 24, 2009
Funny that I'm reading about Australia once again.. I may miss it a little. In "Travelling Light", she gives great insights into Australia and the nature of Australians.
She is one of my heroines.. a great inspiration in so many ways. tough and self-sufficient/reliant.
She is one of my heroines.. a great inspiration in so many ways. tough and self-sufficient/reliant.
May 23, 2015
Wow! The most poignant book I've read in a long time. A lot of thought provoking points and incredibly well written.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews