Every trip begins with the tiniest seed of curiosity. You might read a travel article, watch a news report about a foreign land, or see photos from a friend’s journey. The vague desire to go there is planted in your brain. Then one day the timing is right, and that seed germinates, moving from idea into reality.

For Rick Antonson, Timbuktu was one such destination. As a boy, Antonson would ask his father where he was going when he left the house, and his dad would quip that he was “going to Timbuktu to get my hair cut”. So 50 years later, with some vacation time on his hands and a desire to rediscover real travel after decades of sterile business trips, Antonson impulsively decided to do just that—as soon as he figured out where Timbuktu was.

Antonson tells of his journey to this fabled city in Mali in To Timbuktu for a Haircut: A Journey Through West Africa (Dundurn, $26.99). The CEO of Tourism Vancouver freely admits that he chose Timbuktu for the sheer novelty. “It spoke of ‘beyond,’ of ‘difference,’ and ‘silence’,” Antonson writes. For centuries, “Timbuktu has meant ‘can’t get there’ to Westerners, and every traveller dreams of having been to such a place.”

Writers who’ve visited impossibly exotic destinations tend to report back with smug satisfaction; their tales leak a been-there-done-that, still-bored pretension. But Antonson’s is engagingly real, laying bare his frustrations and doubts. A month of travel might not seem like enough to stretch into a whole book, but Antonson’s storytelling flows so well that the blow-by-blow account never gets tedious.

Antonson tells the real story, not just the glamorous version of the truth. He shows how mundane details such as negotiating with tour operators and getting ripped off shaped his trip, and how fantasy clashed with reality. Reading the book makes you feel like this might be your experience if you attempted the trip yourself. It’s good beach reading for those who will probably never touch the sands of the Sahara—at least not yet.

Pack these in and out For those heading off to more mainstream destinations, these books are worth their weight in luggage allowance. Native Parisian Clotilde Dusoulier profiles her city’s best eats in Clotilde’s Edible Adventures in Paris (Random House, $21). The stylish, compact book lists eateries by neighbourhood as well as shop type (bakeries, spice stores, et cetera). Dusoulier writes in a truly helpful—not sniffy—fashion, explaining things such as cheese-course etiquette. (If the server brings you a communal platter, “You are expected to help yourself swiftly and all in one go, so the platter can be passed around to another table.”)

A completely different set of rules applies in China. It’s All Chinese to Me: An Illustrated Overview of Culture and Etiquette in China (All Out Press, $18.95) gives readers a crash course through Gwen Penner’s illustrations. The pictures, combined with Pierre Ostrowski’s text, make for an easy read on everything from politics to culture shock. Ostrowski is a Canadian who studied Chinese for four years in Taiwan and has travelled in China as well as throughout Asia. The book is written from an outsider perspective, but it does give an entertaining introduction to crucial cultural concepts such as saving face, and other behaviours tourists are likely to encounter.