An exploration of the human desire to travel presents a series of essays on airports, museums, landscapes, holiday romances, and hotel mini-bars, offering suggestions on how to render travel more fulfilling.

"Aside from love, few activities seem to promise us as much happiness as going traveling: taking off for somewhere else, somewhere far from home, a place with more interesting weather, customs, and landscapes. But although we are inundated with advice on where to travel, few people seem to talk about why we should go and how we can become more fulfilled by doing so.

In The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton, author of How Proust Can Change Your Life, explores what the point of travel might be and modestly suggests how we can learn to be a little happier in our travels."--BOOK JACKET.