Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday! This is a weekly feature hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where a new top ten list hits the web every week!

The topic this time out is: Books That Make Me Want to Travel!

First off, I’m not much of a world traveler anymore.  Too old and comfortable, I guess.  But when I was younger there were stories which got my imagination running wild, making me want to jump in a car/train/plane and head off to discover something amazing.  And the following list includes the novels/series I recall being the catalysts for some of my desires to travel far and wide.

10. Bazil Broketail 

Sure, this world is fairly generic fantasy, but every novel skips around to new environments, introducing interesting concepts, making this place come to life.

9. A Man of His Word

Dave Duncan does an excellent job of following the familiar pattern of traveling across a huge world introducing readers to exotic places and exciting faces.

8. Dragonlance Legends

Back in the day, Dragonlance was a personal favorite probably because I loved the medieval setting.  This series explored so much more it even skipping through time.

7. The Belgariad

A whole series centered on traveling from country to country discovering a brand new culture and meeting different people.  As a teen, I wanted to be Garion.

6. Riftwar Saga

While Feist might not reinvent the traditional fantasy world in The Riftwar Saga, the way he sends his characters off into that world, introduces all these new places and different worlds, was comforting and always made me want to know more.

5. The Elric Saga

One thing you could always count on with a Moorcock book was exotic locals and weirdness galore.  Elric was always the best for this in my limited experience.

4. Darwath

I’ve always been a sucker for “portal” fantasy, so Barbara Hambly’s tale of normal people from earth being transported to a fantasy world gripped in an apocalyptic event was a wonderful trip into a place.

3. Wheel of Time 

One of the main reasons I loved this series when it first came out (and for many years thereafter) was the traditional quest journey across the world.  Sure, it was pretty standard stuff, but I enjoyed the journey.

2. Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever

Other than Tolkien I’ve always felt Donaldson did the very best job of crafting a quest narrative which allowed him to travel across a huge world and use the reveal of that world as one of the main plot elements.  Even Covenant couldn’t ruin the Land.

1. The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings

Epic quests.  Wondrous lands.  Magical creatures.  This timeless fantasy series opened my eyes to the wide world which could be lurking out there somewhere, and it still makes em feel that even today.