The Best Travel Coffee Table Books to Give (and Keep) This Year

The beautiful exteriors of our national parks have been well documented a thousand times over, but what about the interiors? This fresh concept of a book lushly photographs 10 historic lodges across America—from Crater Lake Lodge to The Ahwahnee in Yosemite—offering up some of the best homegrown hygge and #cabinporn you’ll find anywhere.

Should we all just…move to Paris? Tastemaker Ajiri Aki makes French living look positively delightful in this gorgeous book. It covers so many topics, from why you should always buy yourself flowers just because, to the importance of actually using the good china, to making the argument for serving Champagne in coupe glasses. For the Francophile in your life, there’s no better book to gift them this season.

For those of us not lucky enough to make the long journey out to the UNESCO-protected beach town in Brazil, this book depicts all the barefoot luxury and luxe gypsy living embodied by Trancoso’s most iconic hotel. It’s clear from these pages that Uxua is a beautiful exercise in sustainability. Furniture and art pieces are handcrafted, food is fresh and locally sourced, and profits are reinvested in the local community. This book might just change the way you look at hotels.

Photographer and Tokyo resident Andrea Fazzari takes us on a journey through Tokyo’s iconic spots and hidden gems in this Assouline book, the latest addition to its signature Chic Series. This is a city we’ve seen represented countless times, but Fazzari brings a new perspective to its fascinating architecture, vibrant food scene, and unparalleled sense of style.

A travel book about people, Project 562 began over a decade ago when photographer Matika Wilbur set out on a kickstarter-funded pursuit to visit, learn from, and photograph each of the 562 federally recognized Native American Tribal Nations—all in clothing, poses, and locations of their choosing. An ambitious, radical book, Project 562 presents a romantic yet unvarnished document of Native America, offered not as the reductive stereotype many of us might have been taught, but exactly as it is.

You know the Instagram account, you know the hashtag, you simply know it when you see it—but this book takes readers deeper than ever into the unusual, colorful, twee world of Accidentally Wes Anderson. The book pulls charming and delightful imagery from around the world, and makes a perfectly charming gift.

“We weren’t looking for the highest altitudes or the most remote corners of the world,” writes interior designer Nina Freudenberger in the introduction to her latest book. “Instead, we thought about how architecture and interiors can embody and reflect their surrounding environments.” The 20 homes presented span from chef Francis Mallmann’s Patagonian retreat to modernist stunners in Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro, all expressing the ingenuity and creativity that the mountains have always inspired.

If you are at all interested in the Alps, this book is an absolute must-have. Equal parts travelogue, cookbook, and anthropological document, it includes some of Meredith Erickson’s best photographs and insights about the who, what, where, and why that all make this part of the world so timeless, so special, and so delicious.

There are only so many hotels that can say they’ve been around for 100 years, and even fewer that feel like truly iconic, synonymous parts of the destinations they inhabit. A travel lover can’t hear the word “Rio” without immediately thinking of the Copacabana Palace, which has been a part of carioca life since opening in 1923. The pages of this book are a beautiful summary of the last century, revealing the hotel’s cinematic views, timeless design, and larger-than-life guests.

Nothing cures a dreary day better than photographer Gray Malin’s instantly recognizable, undeniably optimistic aerial photographs. This new book offers some of Malin’s best overhead beach photography from around the world, with destinations including Maui, Northern Michigan, Nantucket, Thailand, and so many more.

Filmmaker and mountaineer Jimmy Chin (Free Solo) takes the reader on an unforgettable journey across seven continents to the most thrilling, death-defying fringes of human experience. This book’s jaw-dropping imagery—which spans the soaring formations of Chad’s Ennedi Desert to the frozen expanses of Antarctica’s Queen Maud Land—is sure to inspire. Consider this one for the adventurer in your life.

Travel is just as much about the journey as it is about the destination, right? In her new book, celebrated Airstream building Kate Oliver leads the way through a #vanlife journey around the world. It documents more than 35 stories of solo travelers, couples, and families who traded in the comforts of stationary life for the ever-changing views and life-changing experiences of the open road.

Coffee table books don’t have to be just about photography. This tome is a definitive reference of the world’s most stylish hotels, with 1,200 listings from over 100 countries—all recommended by 250 of the world’s leading architects, like Deborah Berke and Norman Foster.

Sit back and enjoy the ride as impossibly global citizen and photographer Aline Coquelle takes you on a safari like no other. Her stunning photography obviously includes lots of epic wildlife shots (a lioness with her cubs, an elephant calf learning to walk), but the book is so much deeper than a mere document of Africa’s natural wonders. She highlights the continent’s most beautiful boutique lodges and thrilling adventures, and provides a deeper exploration of each country’s most talented contemporary artists, artisans, and conservationists.

The sumptuous landscapes, the warm hospitality, the glittering ocean—can you ever have too much Greece? See the country with fresh eyes, as Angelika Taschen leads the way through the most extraordinary boutique hotels. Yes, there are the well-worn favorites, but there are also remote and unspoiled hidden gems. This is Greece as you’ve never seen it before.

For any surfing fanatic—or lover of surf culture—this colorful book from Venice, California–based creative collective Indoek is a great addition to the coffee table. Described by the brand as a “collection of interviews with surf luminaries,” it’s quite literally that—an almanac of Q&As with the likes of Rhonda Harper, the powerhouse behind Black Girls Surf, to snowsurfer Taro Tamai, on a rainbow of colorful pages.

This is the coffee table book we’re tempted to keep for ourselves—a long overdue retrospective, this door-stopping volume brings together all 152 of Kahlo’s paintings, alongside personal artifacts including rarely seen photographs, diary excerpts, and letters. Because the book has been designed in what Taschen calls its XXL format—11.4" by 15.6"—the 624-pager is easy to gather around and admire.