Reading List · Lisanne Swart
Authors Like
At 27, Davidson walked 2,700 kilometers solo across the Australian desert with four camels and a dog, a journey that became Tracks — never out of print in over 40 years. This list is for readers who want more of that specific register: solo, often female-led journeys into genuine physical isolation, written with real reflection on what solitude and self-reliance actually do to a person.
By Lisanne Swart · 6 authors · Travel Memoir · Updated August 2026
Cheryl Strayed
Strayed’s Wild recounts her solo, ill-prepared 1,100-mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail following her mother’s death and her own personal unraveling, sharing Davidson’s structure of physical ordeal as a route to genuine self-reconstruction.
The most frequently compared contemporary peer — both memoirs follow a woman using extreme solo physical challenge to process personal crisis and grief.
Freya Stark
Stark traveled alone through remote and dangerous parts of the Middle East for decades starting in the early 20th century, sharing Davidson’s commitment to solo travel through genuinely difficult terrain well before it was common for women to do so.
An important historical precursor — solo female travel into dangerous, remote territory generations before Davidson’s own desert crossing.
Rory Stewart
Stewart walked over 500 miles solo across Afghanistan in 2002, sharing Davidson’s structure of a physically demanding, largely solo journey used as a lens for understanding both an unfamiliar landscape and the walker’s own interior state.
A close structural match in a very different setting — solo pedestrian endurance as both physical challenge and vehicle for reflection.
Isabella Bird
Bird traveled alone through the American West, Hawaii, and Asia in the late 19th century, writing vividly detailed accounts of terrain and culture at a time when solo female travel writing was almost unheard of.
One of the earliest and most significant precursors to Davidson’s tradition of solo female adventure writing.
Robyn Davidson’s contemporary — Bruce Chatwin
Chatwin’s In Patagonia and The Songlines share Davidson’s interest in remote landscapes and nomadic ways of life, with The Songlines specifically examining Aboriginal Australian walking traditions closely connected to Davidson’s own subject matter.
Particularly relevant given The Songlines’ direct engagement with the same Central Australian desert and Aboriginal culture Davidson crossed and wrote about.
Peter Matthiessen
Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard recounts a physically and spiritually demanding trek through the Himalayas following his wife’s death, sharing Davidson’s use of extreme solo travel as a route toward genuine interior transformation.
A close match in tone and structure — a difficult physical journey used as the vehicle for processing personal loss and searching for meaning.
Where to start if you loved Robyn Davidson
If you want the closest contemporary peer, then read Cheryl Strayed.
Wild follows a nearly identical structure of solo physical ordeal as a route to self-reconstruction.
If you want an important historical precursor, then read Freya Stark or Isabella Bird.
Both traveled solo through dangerous, remote regions generations before Davidson, when it was almost unheard of for women to do so.
If you want the same landscape from another angle, then read Bruce Chatwin.
The Songlines examines the same Central Australian desert and Aboriginal walking traditions Davidson crossed.
If you want her own work first, then start with her books.
My complete guide to Robyn Davidson’s own books is the place to begin.
If you want more of this tradition, then keep exploring it.
My best adventure and travel books list has the natural successors.
Frequently asked questions about authors like Robyn Davidson
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