A bucket of trips

Some wise person once said that the next best thing to having something, like, say, a Gulfstream IV business jet, is to have a book about it. Nowhere is this less true, however, than in travel.

. Dream Journeys: Inspirational Routes from Across the Globe by Mary-Ann Gallagher, Quercus, R224

Real travellers travel. If there's any point to travel books at all - and there is a great slew of the publishing and reading world that thinks there isn't - then it's to light a fire under the readers and make them get out there and do the same.

Travel, that is, not light fires.

Dream Journeys is no different. This is a collection of famous and not-so-famous routes in the loose sense of the word.

Some are physically arduous, others are little more than drive-bys. Some are actual routes such as the Hanoi-Saigon Reunification Express, India's Grand Trunk Road, the El Camino de Santiago and the Headhunter's Trail in Borneo.

Others are destinations - Africa's Great Lakes, the Okavango Delta, Costa Rica and Morocco's High Atlas Mountains are some of the offerings - which is to say the guidance on how to tackle them is much looser.

That shouldn't put off any serious travellers. Still, a little more information in the sidebars, such as relevant websites and contact details, would have made this a much more useful book.

As things are, Dream Journeys is a beautifully photographed and illustrated wish list. There is enough here to keep any traveller, armchair or otherwise, occupied for a lifetime. All you have to do is pick one . or two or 20. Just keep travelling, whatever you do.